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My father’s jaw tightened, though only slightly. Most people probably wouldn’t have noticed, but I had spent years watching men lose arguments while pretending they were still in control.
“This is no longer a matter of your own personal preference, Alessia,” he intoned imperiously. “Palermo is the only place where I can place enough Bellandi men around you to keep you safe.”
“You mean the only place where all the guards answer to you.”
“I mean the only place I can guarantee your safety.”
“You couldn’t guarantee my mother’s.”
Matteo looked down, but Raffaele didn’t.
“I know,” he said.
I tensed, not expecting his frank admission. I stared at him, trying to control my emotions before he continued.
“Once you are here, we will announce your position formally. There are families who would recognize the importance of an alliance immediately and make the Armenians reconsider whether this war is worth the cost.”
I stared at him. “What kind of alliance?”
Silence answered first, then Matteo rubbed one hand across his mouth, which made me immediately suspicious. Even I knew how alliances were often accomplished in the criminal world.
Through marriage.
They didn’t want to say it, but deep in my heart, I knew that’s what it was.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.” I pushed back from the table. “You’re shopping me out to potential husbands?”
“I’m considering every method available to protect the Bellandi succession.”
“I’m not a succession problem.”
“No,” Raffaele snapped. “You are my daughter.”
“Those aren’t the same thing.”
“They are when someone is trying to take you to gain control of my empire.”
“That’s not something you get to solve by selling me to a different criminal family.”
“No one is selling you anywhere.”
“You just ordered me to Sicily so you could negotiate an alliance using my hand in marriage as the price.”
Raffaele’s expression hardened. “I ordered you to safety.”
“Ask her,” Sergei spoke clearly but not loudly. His voice was quiet enough that the words shouldn’t have dominated the room, but they did.
Raffaele’s attention shifted from me to the man standing at my shoulder. “This is a family matter. I’m trying to keep her alive.”
“So am I,” Sergei answered without raising his voice. “Ask her to come to you,” he repeated. “Do not command her.”
Raffaele stared at him for several seconds. “You believe I should leave this decision to a girl who disappeared from a secured house, refused protection, and took a stage job without telling anyone where she was?” His face betrayed an expression of disgust and supreme annoyance.
“Yes. I do.”
His answer came without hesitation, and my throat tightened unexpectedly.
Sergei rested one hand against the back of my chair, not touching me but close enough that I felt his presence like heat.
