Page 19 of Mafia King’s Dangerous Vow

“Yes.”

A beat. Then, quietly, “Because this life? It wasn’t exactly on my vision board.”

“You look more like someone trying not to set the building on fire.”

Her head turns slightly toward me. “Maybe I’m considering it.”

“I don’t blame you.”

I should leave it alone. I don’t. “Your father gave you a reason to say yes.”

It’s not a question. She takes one second too long to answer.

“Maybe I just have a strong sense of family duty.”

A deflection. Clean enough to respect. Not clean enough to believe.

Whatever her father’s holding over her, it’s enough to put her in a cathedral with a stranger. That’s not duty. That’s desperation with a good poker face.

“I don’t trust you,” she adds, as if I don’t know that already.

“That’s smart.”

“That doesn’t bother you?”

“It would bother me more if you trusted me immediately.”

This time, she doesn’t answer like she’s defending a border.

“This whole thing is insane,” she murmurs eventually.

“Yes.”

She laughs, and for once it doesn’t sound like a weapon.

I can’t remember the last time I talked to someone in the dark like this—no strategy, no agenda, just two people in the same impossible situation.

“You should sleep,” I say after a while.

“You keep saying that.”

The city hums beyond the glass. Eventually she turns onto her side, facing the windows again.

I stay where I am because the distance is the promise.

A few minutes later, she stops performing sleep and actually finds it.

And somewhere in the dark, before exhaustion catches me too, one thought surfaces and won’t go back down.

She’s protecting something.

Someone.

7

CRUEL MEN ARE EASIER. (TAMARA)

When I wake up, I am alone and disoriented.