The trap has snapped shut.
I agreed to this fake engagement thinking it was a corporate contract. A transaction. I provide legal access; he provides financial freedom. A simple exchange of services.
But as the plates are cleared and the men stand to move to the war room, Enzo's hand slides from my waist to the small of my back. He guides me out of the kitchen, his body acting as a permanent shield between me and the rest of the world.
He walks me to the base of the stairs. The shadows of the foyer wrap around us.
"I need to finalize the strike plan with Dominic," Enzo says, his voice low. He turns to face me. He fills the space in front of me without trying. "Go upstairs. Review the Jeff files on the desk. Do not leave the room."
I lift my chin, fighting the overwhelming gravity of his presence. "I’m not a prisoner, Enzo."
He reaches out. His hand spreads flat over my breastbone.
The touch is light. It isn't a threat. It is a claim. The warmth of his palm presses directly over my hammering heart.
"You are my fiancée," he murmurs, leaning down. His thumb slides up the side of my throat. Lifts my chin. His mouth hovers a breath away from mine. I stop breathing. He is going to kiss me. The mafia fixer who calculates every angle is going to kiss me in his own foyer, and we both know there is no operational reason for it.
He doesn't.
His mouth stops a half-inch from mine and holds there. I can taste his whiskey on my lower lip. His dark eyes burn into mine, calculation and want at war behind them. The fixer wins. Barely.
"The Bellantis have eyes everywhere," he says against my mouth. "The moment you put that ring on, you became the mostvaluable target in Chicago. I will not lose you to a sniper's bullet because you wanted to take a walk."
He straightens. He does not step back; he never gives up the closeness, but the kiss does not land. His eyes burn into mine. The truth slams into me with the force of a freight train.
He isn't faking this. The protective grip. The lethal stillness when another man looks at me. He meant every word he said in the SUV.
I am his.
"Review the files," he repeats softly. His thumb strokes my jaw once, sending a final spike of heat low and deep through me. Then he turns and walks down the hall toward the basement war room, disappearing into the shadows.
I stand at the base of the stairs, my hand gripping the wooden banister. My knees tremble. The massive diamond on my left hand catches the dim light of the chandelier.
I came here to ruin his perfect calculations. I came here to prove I couldn't be managed.
Instead, Enzo Costa hasn't miscalculated a single thing. He didn't recruit a lawyer. He caught a wife.
And heaven help me, I am going to have to fight for my life to stop myself from falling for the man who holds the cage.
I turn and run up the stairs, fleeing to the only sanctuary left in this fortress—the bedroom that smells exactly like him. The files wait on the desk. The operation begins. The game is on.
4
Enzo
The blue lightof the war room screens paints the concrete walls of the basement. Data streams across the monitors in neat, predictable rows. Shipping manifests. Transit logs. The exact details of the $38,500 debt Bellanti enforcer Rourke holds over Jeff, our transit hub manager. Numbers make sense. Numbers obey the rules of logic and leverage. I have spent my entire adult life turning my mind into a clean operational matrix—ledgers, probabilities, contracts—calibrating every variable down to the smallest point of failure.
None of it matters right now.
My attention is fractured. A catastrophic failure of discipline. My gaze remains locked on the transit logs, but my mind is consumed by the woman currently occupying my bedroom three floors above.
Natalia.
My tactical asset. The chaotic, impulsive, too beautiful litigation associate I dragged into my fortified compound to sell a lie to the Chicago underworld. She is supposed to be a tool. A means to an end. A way into the private Bellanti-connected social circle tonight.
She is not acting like a tool. She is acting like an explosive detonated inside my ribcage.
Dominic and Matteo trust my judgment. They rely on my discipline. I understood the bloody reality of our world before anyone had to explain it. Emotions are liabilities. Anything real can be leveraged. Anything loved can be slaughtered. So I became the fixer. The man behind the terms no one could break. The one who turns clean sentences into violent outcomes.
