AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Noctus has the grace to look away, ashamed.
“If you threaten Contessa Lovera, you’ll get back twice what you planned for her. She’ll be one of our own within a month, and you need to be sharp. I have a wedding to plan, and you have a war to fight.”
My stomach lurches.
Silence rings through the room.
My father always said people thought gangsters warred over money and drugs. In reality: respect, pride, legacy—those principles are the actual currency of the lifestyle.
It’s one thing to take shots at a rival family. Blood will spill. People will be killed over invisible lines and crooked politicians; that is inevitable in family business from time to time.
But to take a don’s daughter from her family, to erase her last name, bed her, strip her of her dignity and give her children with the last name and blood of the enemy. . .there is no greater offense. Salvatore couldn’t do as much damage to my father if he had a whole army at his disposal.
Noctus stands, silenced by the revelation.
When he looks at me again, he sees something different—the first live round of war being shot across a battlefield.
He ducks his head, avoiding eye contact like a dog backing down from a fight.
“I didn’t mean to question you, sir.”
“Well, it would be dangerously stupid if you did,” Salvatore says, his smile not reaching his eyes. “Spread the word to the others and find Leo. Have him bring the car around.”
Noctus nods as the tread of his boots fades down the hallway.
Salvatore’s grip becomes an iron vice around my arm before I can even scheme about escaping, and any hope I had is snuffed out like an ember again. He drags me toward the door and steps past Lance without acknowledgment.
I still wonder if he’ll be alright.
Outside, Salvatore is washed in neon light, all dark silhouette and sharp, bright edges. I can’t stop staring at him, my captor and my protector in one.
The silence grates between us, my thoughts buzzing in a frantic swarm until I can’t hold them all in anymore.
“You’re just like my father,” I finally say, crossing my arms over my indecency and shivering out in the 2-A.M. breeze. “Everything’s always this stupid balancing act between love and fear with men like you.”
Salvatore scoffs.
“You barely even know your father. You don’t know a man until you go to war with him.”
“…I did,” I say. “Maybe not with guns and henchmen, but I went to war with him in my own way. I know exactly what he is. What you are.”
Salvatore studies me, his gaze intense, as though he can see into me, through me. As if he can burn up all my bullshit in the heat of those eyes and see only the truth. I turn away first, my breath caught in my throat and my belly clenched tight.
“He always said you were insane,” I add.
I hear his chuckle, and then feel it, as the warm breath ghosts against my neck. He leans in, whispering his low words against my ear, “Brave talk for a little girl who can’t even look me in the eye.” I gasp as he drags his teeth up my neck, sucking angry marks beneath my ear. My defenses melt again. “And he was right.”
I want to pull away from him, but I can’t.
“Your father gave me this,” he says, scrubbing a thumb over his cheek, over the scar, “when I was barely more than a boy, before he bunkered down behind a desk. What’d he give you for challenging him? A spanking?”
I glance away, wielding my frigid silence against him.
There are no marks I can point to that show off the damage my father did to me.
They’re invisible, but they don’t feel old and faded the way Salvatore’s scar looks—just a faint, white memory of the past. One wrong move, and my wounds still bleed.
Headlights wash over us. Salvatore doesn’t let me walk barefoot in the lot. He scoops me effortlessly into his arms, carrying me like the bride he claims I am soon to be. As a rule, I dislike the princess treatment, but my belly flutters traitorously and without my permission. With my nose near his neck, I get a hint of his cologne—subtle and deep, accented by expensive whiskey and sweet cigars. I cannot stop thinking about how easily he can toss me around, how he must be all muscle beneath that dark suit. My hands itch to pull it off him and find out.
