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A brisk wind kicks up through a window that’s cracked to let fresh air in. I shiver and wrap my cardigan more tightly around me and look at his room, but I don’t see anything but me, at the altar, dressed in white.
No.
Romeo’s speaking in heated Italian, gesturing with his hands. He won’t be happy when I tell him I’m not marrying him, but I’m not so hard up I will let myself be forced into something like this.
He hangs up the phone and shakes his head. “Motherfucker,” he mutters under his breath. “Mama and the girls will be up with your dress. Let them help you. We don’t have much time, but they’re confident they can get you ready in time.” He glances at his wristwatch and curses again. “Two hours.”
“Ah, yeah. About that? I’m not getting married to you, Romeo.”
I watch as his spine stiffens and he grips his phone more tightly. “Excuse me?”
“I can’t even believe you’re serious right now. You… just assumed that for six million dollars I’d take your ring and that was that?” My heart beats faster and my palms feel damp. This is the strangest conversation I’ve ever had.
His eyes flash at me, making him look even more dangerous than ever.
“You think this is about the money?” he asks.
Six million dollars on the line? Why wouldn’t it be?
With a shrug of his shoulders that’s anything but casual, he continues. “This has nothing to do with money, Vittoria. The money’s only secondary. My family has more money invested than most small countries, and we do not need my grandfather’s money. No.” He shakes his head. “This is about power and those that wield it.”
I am so over these games and his assumptions. “And… what does that have to do with me? So you boys like to play high-stakes games? Got it. You want to be like… the most powerful Underboss that ever lived? Got that too. Maybe you need to earn the next ranking of made man or… or something, but I won’t be the one to get you there, Romeo. Nope. Not me.”
“Vittoria.” He gives me what he probably thinks is a warning glance. I sidestep in case he gets ideas.
My temper’s ignited, but I don’t bother to hide it. I’m fired up now, and there’s no turning back.
“You think I’m that easy, too? That you’ll put a ring on my finger and I’d be all, yes, Romeo, whatever you say, Romeo. That I wouldn’t have an issue with being under your absolute rule like a slave?”
“Ah, slave,” he says in a low voice that belies the fury in his face. His nostrils flare, and his cheeks heat with color. “I like the sound of that.”
“Of course you do!” I want to slap his face, but I remember what happened the last time I did that, and don’t wish to find myself over his lap again. “Well look again, Romeo, because I’m no goddamn Juliet.”
“You’re goddamn right you’re no Juliet.” His jaw clenches along with his fists, as if he’s barely controlling his rage. “If you were mine, I’d whip you for your insolence and language.”
My jaw slackens. Not exactly convincing me to say I do.
He can go fuck himself.
“My father’s Boss of the Rossi family,” he says, his jaw tight. “With a wife, I take his throne. If you were mine, he couldn’t touch you.”
I feel as if I’ve been doused with cold water. So being his wife wouldn’t be just about Chanel bags and Louboutins.
His father couldn’t touch me.
“And if I don’t do this?”
His lip curls, and he bares his teeth. “I couldn’t stop him.”
I shake my head. “I don’t need…”
“You can defend yourself?” he growls, stepping right into my space. He grabs my shoulders and gives me a shake. My teeth rattle, and I try to pull away, but he’s got me tight. The man’s an inferno, my arms are on fire where he’s grasped me. “Can you, Vittoria? Tonight, here in this room, when the lights go out and everyone’s in bed? And he comes to you to punish you for humiliating him.” His voice thickens with anger and frustration, and even though his tone lowers, I hear every word as if he’s shouting them. “He’ll force himself on you. Rape you. Humiliate you. Hurt you.”
The mental vision this invokes makes me physically ill.
“You’d let him do that?” Why wouldn’t he? Does he owe me his protection?
I stifle a scream when he grips my hair so tightly it burns. Tears prick my eyes. “Let him? He’d find a fucking way. Do you know what his nickname is?”
I shake my head. Of course I don’t.
“The Skull,” he says with a look of disgust. “Do you know why?”
I shake my head again. My stomach clenches, and I want to be sick.
“Because his signature move when he murders someone is a knife up the back of the skull. A modern-day scalping. He doesn’t care who the fuck you are. He’d make you pay for what you did today.”
