“I amnota victim of my father’s behavior. I am not something that someone happened to!” His chest heaved. “My mother died. My sister died. My brothers were taken away. I am still here. I did not leave. I didnotbecome ruined.”
Taken away?
“Milan—”
“You romanticize emotional connection. You believe it assists your processing when it does not. It is not logical, suffering is not meaningful, and it will not provide the context to my character you are seeking.” He turned to me, his handstensed with the force of how hard he was holding them together and somehow, that was worse than when he wrung them.
“So what?” I shouted, regretting it instantly. “You’re just a machine? Algorithms and data? What are we then?”
He stared through me. “You are an anomaly to the data that I am familiar with. You are not supposed to understand what I do not.” He shoved a hand onto his chest. “Me. I am not something to know. I am not something to understand. I do the things I do because your emotions are data that I have to analyze, not because I want to use them for affection. You are a variable, a test subject. I allowed proximity to learn and observe. Nothing more. And besides…” Milan took a deep breath out like whatever he wanted to say next was a relief. “You will feel a certain amount of negativity toward me when I inform you that I forced your sister to become engaged to one of the Gioffres and find your idea of the school chaotic and nonessential.”
If he’d looked hard enough, he would’ve seen the pieces of my heart scattered at his feet. I’d let myself in, and he had never opened the door.In one day, Milan had rebuilt and destroyed my hope, but I would not allow him to destroyme.
16
SICILY
I downed my fourth shot,wiping the slight spill from the sparkle of my pink gown.
It would’ve been a good shot and a beautiful dress had they not been purchased for Milan’s fucking celebration gala.
His name was plastered everywhere, that or the title of Capo dei Capi was thrown around too many times too ceremoniously, and it only reminded me of the power he held everywhere, including where I was concerned.
This was supposed to celebrate him and his new ownership of literally everything, but I rolled my eyes as I noticed the detail of the long, open hall; black drapes, black tables, blackeverythinglit by gold chandeliers that all settled into an elegance that fit Milan to a tee. It was sophisticated, but I let my brain convince me it was the ugliest room I’d ever seen.
We hadn’t spoken in two weeks, not even in passing, though I was convinced he’d been in my room watching me sleep like a creep a few nights. In my half-asleep state, I’d seen someone’s shadow and woken with the scent of him hanging on the sheets. Other than that, he’d shut himself in his office, refusing to see daylight other than to speak to Adriano about business. Even his most trusted friend had suffered his wrath, and though I feltawful that Adrian was having to constantly calm Milan’s shitty mood, I refused to get involved.
My dear husband was across the room speaking with Matteo and his father, Adriano by his side, and I couldn’t help but notice how his suit stretched over his body, fitting him like he’d been born to wear it, or how his hair was slightly too long at the back and tickling his neck.
It didn’t matter; I wouldn’t be touching it. Or doing anything that involved being near him. I couldn’t be who my stupid heart had hoped I could be that evening in the garage. Milan couldn’t make an exception to his rigid mind, and I didn’t want him to, not after he’d sold my sister to the Gioffres like my father had me to him.
He wasn’t someone who cared, and I wasn’t someone to care for. We were better off alone and we always had been. That didn’t need to change just because he’d looked at me differently once.
I brought my fifth shot to my lips, but it didn’t make it there before someone’s small hand curled around it and lowered it to the table.
A woman with raven hair and blue eyes brighter than a gemstone smiled at me, shaking her head with an amused smile. Her skin was soft, pale but soft, and her slender body was framed by a dark blue that seemed to really work for her.
I was almostjealousof this stranger.
“I’ve watched you scowl at your husband and down those for thirty minutes.” She chuckled, and all I could do was stare at her as she leaned against the table beside me, watching Milan too. “I’d be doing the same if I weren’t pregnant. Trust me, I get it, but it won’t make any difference to him if you’re an angry drunk or angry sober.”
My eyebrows shot up. “You’re pregnant?”
She didn’t look pregnant, but what did I know about what pregnancy looked like? I’d slit my throat before I gave birth to Milan’s giant, six-foot, egotistical babies.
“Yeah,” she said with a sigh, but a small smile grazed her lips as her palm touched her still flat belly. “Still early, only three months, but I definitely know they’re there. The sickness has been a pain, and my husbandstilldragged me here.”
I scoffed. “Your husband sounds like a dickhead, but hey, maybe your kid could’ve come to my new, nonexistent school to unlearn their father’s dickheadedness.”
She gasped quietly. “You’re opening a school?” Her excitement flooded through me too before I remembered how Milan had reacted.
I shook my head. “Milan shut it down. He’s also a dickhead.”
“It’s almost like he’s your dickhead’s brother or something.” She laughed delicately. “Dickheadedness runs in the Lucca genes.”
I watched her eyes settle on the three men dressed head to toe in black. They were walking straight toward my husband like special agents, like this was Halloween and they were dressing up.
The Feras had a lot of nerve showing up somewhere that Milan could kick them out of instantlyandwith force, but I had a feeling he wouldn’t, that they knew that too, and that was a problem for their egos.
