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I’d been hiding from just how helpless I was here. But there was no hiding anymore. I took another large gulp of vodka, relishing the burn.
Instead of clawing at Cristian’s face, I stood, walking toward him in acceptance of his request, but I didn’t speak. When I passed Felix, I glared at him, injecting all the fury and hatred I felt toward him in a single gaze. His expression flickered a little, and his mouth twitched into something resembling a smile.
“Fuck you,” I hissed as I walked past.
Felix didn’t answer me.
Cristian fell into step with me, but I didn’t speak the entire walk to his office—he stayed silent too. But he stayed close. Instead of choosing to walk ahead of me in a power move, he walked beside me, the sleeve of his suit brushing against my arm as we walked.
I didn’t want that to be a comfort. I didn’t want that to be anything. Hatred and fury, that’s what I needed toward him and the entire male race. I just couldn’t grasp on to it. Not with two hands. Not with Cristian.
His office smelled of him.
Not Cristian.
The abhorrent aftershave that had been seared into my skin. That I’d forever associate with what happened to me. My stomach roiled, rebelling against the fact that I’d drunk a considerable amount of vodka on an empty stomach. Despite that, I felt painfully sober.
“He is going to be punished,” Cristian stated, closing the door behind us.
I tilted my chin upward. “Punished?” I repeated, whirling on him as he walked farther into the room. “He almost raped your fiancée. He punched me in the face. Maybe would’ve killed me. Though I may be new to mob life, I do understand that crimes such as this are not punishable offenses. They are capital ones.” I hurled the words at him as he approached me, moving so I didn’t have to be near him. My heart thundered in my chest, and my fingertips burned with the need to hurt something.
Cristian didn’t move to sit behind his desk, didn’t make the effort to create distance between us, he leaned on the side of it as if he knew I needed to be away from him. I did not sit down. That would mean I would be too close to him. Instead, I lingered by the door.
“Of course, I doubt that this has to do with the crime against a woman but more about who the woman belongs to,” I added, a bite to my voice.
I was glad it wasn’t shaking, even though that’s what I felt like on the inside. Shaken. Like someone had picked me up and rattled my very bones.
Cristian was observing me. His eyes were mostly focused on the area of my face that was already starting to bruise. It was still hot and throbbing, but I refused to acknowledge it.
“You’re right.” His voice sounded strange. It was even but detached in a way the likes of which I’d never heard from him. Like he was forcing himself to be calm. Everything about his body language was taut, wired. His mouth was a thin line, jaw clenched. I wasn’t sure if it was because of what had happened to me or because of what happened to something that he thought belonged to him.
Wasn’t I meant to be untouchable as the bride of the Don? If I wasn’t, that questioned his position, his power.
“If it were anyone else, you’d be staring at their corpse right now,” Cristian continued. “But Lorenzo is not anyone else. His blood protects him.”
I thought about his ramblings in the kitchen. The mania in his eyes. “He’s their son?” I deduced. “Vincentius and Sofia’s?”
Cristian nodded once. “Yes.”
“And usually, the title for Don goes to the first-born son.” I spoke slowly as all the pieces started falling into place.
Cristian’s face was unreadable. “Right again.”
“But not this time?” My eyes went to the portrait on the wall.
This was the brother of the dead girl. The one who everyone so adored. That had been so special, so beautiful, her loss leeching from all of them without them uttering a word. The loss had changed them all, transformed Cristian into a soulless monster, Lorenzo into a violent piece of shit. Vincentius and Sofia into people with something broken in their eyes.
He’d spoken about her, Lorenzo. How I was nothing like her.
I hated that. That everyone in this family had known her. Adored her. That, if I somehow ended up marrying Cristian, I’d forever be compared to the princess, forever fall short. Because I was not soft, gentle, with an innocent, heart-shaped face. My loss would not leave holes in people for years to come. Jessica would be upset, sure. She’d mourn me for a time. As would Aiden. But they’d recover. Live. Eventually they’d talk about how tragic it was that a friend they used to have died so young. I would be forgotten.
