Page 16 of Mafia King’s Dangerous Vow

I look around the room. It’s immaculate and controlled. No softness or chaos.

Very Aleksander.

I move automatically, peeling off the dress, setting it aside with care I don’t feel. My makeup comes next—lipstick wiped away, lashes scrubbed clean. I shower longer than necessary, letting the heat sting my skin, trying to wash off the cathedral and the champagne and my father’s hand on my arm.

When I step back into the bedroom wrapped in a towel, the book on his nightstand stops me.

A thick hardback. Dog-eared.

The Power Broker.

A thousand pages about power and political domination. That feels more alarming than if I’d found handcuffs.

The floor creaks near the doorway.

Aleksander is there. He must have come back for something. His jacket’s gone now, sleeves rolled partway up his forearms. That’s when I see the faint pale marks along the inside of his arm. Too symmetrical for injury.

Needle tracks.

I should think danger. But instead, I think damage.

I give him the courtesy of not asking the obvious question.

“You should get some sleep,” he says after a moment.

“You sound like a doctor.”

His expression closes fast.

“I’ve spent enough time around them.”

Then he leaves, the bedroom door clicking softly shut behind him.

I change into the silk pajama set waiting on the bed—clearly purchased for me, though no one asked what I actually like—and slide beneath the covers.

He could have raped me tonight.

No one would’ve stopped him. My father would’ve expected it. The world would’ve called it marriage.

Instead, he walked away.

I lie awake while Manhattan blurs against the windows and the bed stays empty on the other side. Mark is out there somewhere. Eight years old now.

Someone else’s bedtime routine. Someone else telling him what to eat, when to sleep, who he belongs to.

The thought is unbearable because it is ordinary. But I can’t fall apart.

I need information.

Then access.

Then leverage.

Then I get my son back.

And after that⁠—

No. Not tonight. Tonight I only need the next step.