Page 40 of The Kingpin’s Bride

“You’ve been doing so well for me. I really want you to make me proud.”

I managed a single word. “Okay.”

He held my gaze a moment longer, searching for something I refused to show him. Then he released my jaw and reached into the inside pocket of his jacket. What he brought out was a small, black, leather-bound book, plain and dark, with a ribbon marker and a lock that closed with a quiet click. He set it on the mattress beside me.

“This is yours now,” he said. “A diary. You will write in it every day. What you eat. How you sleep. Any thought that tries to distract you. I will enjoy reading every page. Do you understand that I will read what you write here?”

I stared at the locked book. The white clothes suddenly felt like a costume for a life that no longer belonged to me. The diary was another set of chains, this time for the inside of my head.

Matteo’s voice dropped even lower, almost gentle, the same dangerous quiet he had used when he first ordered me to leave the private room at the club. “Be a good girl and use your words for me.”

I forced the word out past the tension locked in my throat. “I understand. You will read what I write.”

He nodded once, satisfied.

“Good. Then we begin tonight. Write the first entry before I return. Tell me exactly how ready you are, okay?” he said, and I found myself nodding.

He got up and carried our empty plates to the sink. “I’ll be in my office if you need me. Right down the hall.”

He disappeared moments later.

The diary he gave me sat on the counter. Black cover. Thick pages. The gold pen still clipped to the side exactly where he had left it. I noticed the pen was engraved with… my name. And his last name. Together.

Mrs. Morena Ventura.

I waited until I could no longer hear his footsteps in the hall. Then I opened it and wrote the same three words until the page nearly tore.

I hate him. I hate him. I hate him.

I kept going because the three words were not enough.

I hated the way he had fucked me in front of all of them like I was nothing but a body and a name. I hated that my body had still answered him. I hated that he cleaned me afterward with careful hands and called me Rena like the word could ever be soft.

I hated him so much it felt like the only true thing I had left.

I closed the diary and held onto it tightly. Once he read it, he would probably smile.

Chapter Ten

Matteo

Iwalked straight to the wall of photographs and stood in front of the largest still. That hollow expression Morena had worn for weeks was still on her face. Being my new bride had not changed that. She was still the same girl, but this time she wore the clothes I bought her, my collar was around her neck, the diary made her words mine, and soon she would be carrying my sons and daughters.

But the slight edge of guilt would not stay quiet. Not when every photograph on the wall reminded me how beautiful she was. Long wavy black hair that fell past her shoulder blades like dark silk. Striking blue eyes that could look straight through a man even when they were filled with fear. Full and soft pink lips that had parted on broken sounds while the entire underworld watched me claim her. Fair skin that flushed so easily under my hands. The delicate bones of her wrists that the cuffs had marked so easily.

Morena Caruso was not simply broken in the right ways. She was devastating. The kind of stunning that had made me choose her the first night I saw her on the secondary stage and never looked at another dancer again.

I poured whiskey into my glass and took a sip, while still standing in front of the photographs waiting until the pressure went quieter.

A call came through on the secure line. One of Esposito’s men. The conversation was short. The Families wanted proof within the month.

I gave the answers they wanted and ended the call. The pressure kept the plan clean. It did not stop the low ache in my cock every time I remembered the way Rena’s blue eyes had looked up at me while I filled her on that stage.

I forced myself to the long table under the windows and opened the blood results again. The results were everything I wanted, so that we could begin with the process. Timed. The special cream the doctor recommended was already prepared, and ready to be used.

I gave Morena a few hours of freedom. Long enough for fear to sharpen whatever she wrote, and I knew she would write something. Long enough for the locked book to settle into her bones. When the time was up I retrieved the sealed tube from the bathroom and found her in her bedroom.

She sat on the edge of the bed in the white clothes. The diary lay open beside her. One page filled in small careful handwriting. I took the book without speaking and read.