Page 98 of The Kingpin’s Bride

I spent weeks watching him. Deciding what to do. Watching the way he checked the locks twice every night. Watching the way his eyes followed Camilla whenever she left a room, like he was counting her steps. Watching the way he looked at me when he thought I was not paying attention.

On an evening after Camilla had fallen asleep on the couch, I stood in front of him and said it. “I’m staying.”

Matteo went completely still. The only movement was the slow stroke of his thumb over Camilla’s hair. I kept going before I could lose my nerve.

“But I have terms. I shower alone from now on. I get dressed alone, and it sure as hell isn’t going to be white. The leash stays in a drawer unless I put it on myself because I want to. If you need to know I’m safe, put cameras in the hallway, not a lock around my throat. I am not livestock anymore. I am your wife, or I am nothing,” I said.

“Also, Camilla is not temporary. She lives here. She is my sister. Maybe she can become your family, too.”

My voice stayed steady. My hands did not.

“I will wear the ring,” I said. “But I will put it on myself. And I will keep it on because I choose you, not because you once paid for me and decided I belonged to you. So that’s it. I choose you.”

Silence stretched between us. Camilla sighed in her sleep and pressed closer to his leg. Matteo looked up at me. His gray eyes were dark and completely unguarded.

“Say the last fucking part again,” he said quietly.

“I choose you.”

He closed his eyes for a second like the words had landed somewhere deep. When he opened them again, the man staring at me was the same kingpin who had burned bloodlines, and he was also the man who had let a four-year-old fall asleep on his chest every night.

“I accept every term,” he said. “Without negotiation.”

I stood there with my pulse hammering in my throat while Matteo carefully shifted Camilla off his leg and onto the couch cushions. She made a small sound of protest in her sleep but did not wake. He braced the cane against the floor and rose, slower than he used to, the gold skull flashing under the low lights.

He pulled out a box from his pocket.

The same heavy gold band with the luminous stone that he had forced onto my finger the night he bought me glinted inside. The same ring I had thrown at his chest the night I left.

It looked different now. Smaller somehow. Or maybe I was simply looking at it with different eyes.

He stopped in front of me and held it out on his open palm. He did not reach for my hand. He did not try to slide it onto my finger the way he had the first time, in front of a room full of men who wanted to watch me break. He simply offered it, silent and still, and waited.

My heart climbed into my mouth.

If I put it on, I was choosing the man who had bought me, and killed for me. I was choosing a life where violence would always live just outside the windows and sometimes come home on his cuffs.

I was also choosing the only person who had ever looked at my sister like she was something to protect instead of something to use. The only person who had ever looked at me like I was more than a broken dancer.

My hand didn’t shake when I picked it up. I slid the ring onto my own finger.

It settled into place with a quiet finality that made my eyes sting. The heirloom stone caught the light the same way it always had, but this time the hand that put it there was mine.

Matteo’s breath left him in a slow, controlled exhale. He stared at my hand like he was watching something holy and dangerous happen at the same time. When he finally lifted his gaze to mine, the look in his eyes was so raw it almost hurt to hold.

Then he reached out and brushed his thumb over the ring, the touch almost reverent, and for the first time, the gold band felt like it belonged exactly where it was.

He kissed me like he had been waiting years instead of weeks.

One hand came up to cradle the back of my neck, the other stayed braced on the cane for balance, and his mouth met mine with a hunger that was no longer trying to conquer anything.

He pulled back. His eyes were dark and open and a little wild.

“Not with her in the room,” he said, voice practical. “But soon.”

The next morning, Camilla sat at the island with both hands around a mug of warm milk that was mostly foam. She was wearing the pink jacket over Matteo’s old T-shirt.

I stood on the other side of the counter with coffee. Matteo leaned against the stove, cane hooked on the handle of the oven, weight off the knee. He had cooked again without being asked. Camilla looked between us. “How is the bird?”