Page 4

"Stay," I say, voice low. Her lips part on a sharp inhale.

"Do not use your dog commands on me," she snaps, her chest heaving as she tries to push her knees together, but my torso is a solid block of muscle caging her in. "I am not Sofia. You cannot buy my loyalty with imported treats and a fancy collar."

"You're right. Sofia behaves when I give an order," I say with a dark chuckle, resting my hands on her parted bare knees. Her skin is silky smooth, cool from the ocean breeze, and covered in those faint golden freckles that drove me crazy for three years while I watched her through high-powered lenses from across Manhattan streets. "You are a wild little brat who needs reminding who she belongs to."

"I belong to no one but myself. My place is in New York, running my own life," she fires back, her voice shaking with raw emotion. She reaches up, her fingers trembling as she straightens the red silk ribbon over her eyes, hiding the cloudy green irises that I would give my soul to see look at me again. "You stole three years from me, Romeo. You let me live in fear, thinking I was alone, thinking my father was just a neglectful drunk, while you pulled every string like I was some helpless marionette."

The anger in her voice cuts deeper than any blade Victor or the Irish mob ever could.

Guilt hits the center of my chest, cold and heavy. I stare up at the scars peeking out from beneath the edges of her red ribbon. Those jagged, silvery lines around her eyes are my doing. Every time I close my eyes at night, I hear the stained-glass window above that church altar shatter. I see the shards of Archangel Gabriel raining down like jagged knives, cutting into her innocent flesh while she screamed my name in agony.

I was too slow. I was three seconds too late to shield her with my body, and because of my failure, the light was stolen from her world forever.

I swallow the lump of gravel in my throat and reach into the pocket of my trousers.

"You were never alone, Iris," I say softly, the harshness completely draining from my voice as I pull out the small velvet box I have carried with me since the day they wheeled her out of surgery. "I was with you every single night. When the nightmares made you wake up screaming, I held you until you fell back asleep. When you cried over your ruined paintings, I was the one who replaced your brushes and ordered the exact texture of paper you needed to guide your hands."

"That wasn't love. That was stalking," she whispers, though her voice lacks the venom it had on the terrace. A single tear escapes from beneath the scarlet silk, tracing a path down her pale cheek. "It's sick, Romeo."

"I never claimed to be sane when it comes to you, Kitten," I murmur.

I flip open the black velvet box. Inside, resting against white satin, is the Messina family heirloom: an antique platinum band set with an emerald-cut emerald surrounded by a halo of black diamonds. The green matches the exact shade her eyes used to be before the glass took their clarity.

I take her left hand in mine. Her fingers are delicate, cold as ice, and shaking violently. She tries to jerk away, but I hold her wrist firmly, rubbing my thumb over the pink, jagged scar that runs across her palm, the matching scar to the one on my hand from the day we were kids in that upstate cabin.

"Give me your hand, Iris."

"No," she whimpers, turning her face away from me. "I won't wear it. I won't be your mafia Donna. I'm Danny O'Connor's daughter, an Irish girl from the docks. Your people will hate me, and your enemies will use me to tear you apart."

"Let them try," I snarl, and slide the platinum ring onto her finger. It fits like it was made for her. Cold metal, then warm. "The Sicilians know who holds the throne. You are my Donna. Anyone who looks at you with disrespect will have their tongue cut out, and anyone who dares to point a weapon in your direction will be buried under six feet of Sicilian concrete before they can pull the trigger.

I do not say it to sound pretty, Iris. I say it because I have already done worse for less, and I sleep after. That is the man who put this ring on you. The one who kisses your wrist is the same one who keeps a pair of pliers in a drawer for liars. You should be in love with both, or with neither."

I bring her hand up to my mouth, pressing a hard, reverent kiss directly to the emerald, then to the inside of her wrist, where her blood pulses fast and wild.

"You are mine, Iris Messina. Signed and bound. Nothing in heaven or hell changes that."

She lets out a shaky breath, her fingers curling slightly against my jaw, her palm brushing over my rough stubble. For a second, just a fleeting heartbeat, I see the girl who surrendered to me on the sheets last night, the woman whose cries of pleasure echoed against the glass dome of her gallery.

Then, her thumb finds my lower lip and presses down hard, her fingernail digging into my skin until I taste the sharp metallic tang of copper.

"Then you better watch your back, Don Messina," she whispers, leaning forward until her warm breath coats my face, her voice dark with a dangerous promise. "Because the second you slip, your Donna is going to make you bleed for every secret you kept."

A slow, wicked grin spreads across my face as I lick the drop of blood from my lip, staring up at the glorious creature I stole from the dark.

"Good," I whisper back, rising to my feet and towering over her. "I wouldn't want you any other way."

I turn and walk towards the oversized window overlooking the azure expanse of the Ionian Sea, my eyes scanning the horizon for any hint of movement. My body is humming, alive with the delicious thrill of her threat. This moment is what I craved, what I needed: a challenge, a fire to match my own.

Iris, my beautiful, furious Iris, was no porcelain doll to be tucked away. She was a hurricane in a silk dress, and I had foolishly believed I could contain her. Foolish, but not naive. I knew the moment I first saw her, a slip of a girl with eyes like emeralds and a spirit that burned brighter than any flame, that she would either be my salvation or my undoing. And I welcomed both with open arms.

Behind me, I hear the rustle of silk as she finally slides off the bed. I keep my back to her, listening to the soft pad of her bare feet on the cool marble floor and the sharp intake of her breath as she navigates the unfamiliar space.

"Where are we?" she asks, her voice lower now, tinged with a reluctant curiosity that sends a shiver down my spine.

I turn slowly, a smirk playing on my lips. "Home, cara mia. Our home."

She stops dead, her head tilted slightly, as if trying to discern the truth of my words through the crimson blindfold. Her hands, still trembling slightly, rise to touch the edges of the silk.