I feel a bubble of laughter in my throat. “You wanted me to be safe? You shouldn’t have married me off to a mafia don.”
“It was safer than anything Teo suggested,” he says as if that is a valid reason. “He would have had you as the face of his new business venture. At least Leon promised to keep you a secret.”
The coffee in front of me is burning hot. I wrap my fingers around the porcelain anyway, pressing them in tight.
“I’m only going to ask you this one time,” I say softly. “So I’m going to need you to be honest with me. I deserve that much, don’t I?”
My father lets out a long breath and nods firmly, staring at a spot just over my shoulder.
“Who threatened your life?”
He blanches. “What?”
“You said that you’d die if I didn’t go through with the wedding. Who made that threat?”
“Mia—”
“Because it wasn’t Teo.” I can hear my voice raising slightly. “And Leon claims he didn’t do it either. I’ll admit I was hesitant to trust him on that, but you haven’t looked me in the eye since you sat down.”
He cringes slightly as he forces his eyes to mine. “Please, Mia. You need to understand…”
“What? That my own father was the one manipulating me this whole time?” I shoot the accusation out and send up a silent prayer that he’ll deny it.
Marco Chiavari swallows.
“It’s getting very, very dangerous out there.”
I stand up, the scrape of my chair a brutal, deafening sound against our hushed conversation. “Youliedto me.”
“I didn’t lie,” he insists, reaching for my arm.
I snatch it away. “You manipulated me.”
“You are the only thing that matters to me, Mia. Theonlything.” He stands too. “It would kill me if anything happened to you. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself, do you understand that?”
Vaguely, I’m aware that our discussion is starting to garner some attention.
“It’s my fault you’re in this life…mine. That’s on me until my dying breath. I would do anything to go back and change it,” he says, his voice breaking slightly at the end. “You’re my little girl. This is the best I could do for you, and Iknowit will never be enough.”
I can feel tears prickling in my eyes as I take a step back, away from him. This is the man I have always trusted. “You’re right. It’s not enough.”
“Mia. Please, honey.” He crumbles a bit as he tries to follow me.
But I shake him off. “I need you to leave me alone for a bit, okay? No more meddling. No more gifts, no more trying to pay my rent. I don’t need it. I never needed it. You can just leave me alone.”
“I’m your father?—”
“You nevertrustedthat I’d be able to handle myself. Never. I build a life for myself on the back of my own skill and my own strengths and my own work, and you think you have the right to just fly in and…and…wave a wand and put me in a safe little box away fromeverythingI ever loved.”
I swallow hard and look him dead in the eyes. “Fuck you, Dad.”
The bass thrums in the air before we even reach the club’s entrance, a deep, pulsing heartbeat that seems to shake the pavement under my heels.
Neon lights flicker above the doorway, casting the word “Inferno” in blood-red letters against the slick black sky. The line stretches halfway down the block, a sea of people eager to drown their troubles in music and tequila.
“Are you sure about this?” I glance sideways at Carmen, who’s practically vibrating with excitement.
Her dark curls tumble over her shoulders and her red dress clings to her like a second skin. She looks every bit the confident cartel princess she is, but there’s a softness in her smile that’s pure Carmen.
