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The world seems to slow down around me. “What was it?” I ask again in a whisper, my throat tightening. But I think I already know.
“Your father asked mine to make sure that his family was provided for. That you, in particular, would always be provided for financially, enough to ensure that you would never have to worry about housing or food or necessities and then some.”
The money. One huge mystery of my life, cleared up in an instant. “The money was fromyou?”
“Not me, specifically,” Luca clarifies. “From the family. But those are bank accounts that I will inherit, once I become the Don.”
I feel as if I might pass out. “You?” I croak, taking a step back. “You’ll be—”
“Yes. My father was underboss. He died avenging your father, Sofia. And he made sure, before he went after the men who killed his best friend, that I was aware of the promise that he’d made years before—that I was to marry you, if the Bratva ever became a danger to you. If they ever tried to use you to take our family down, or hurt you in any way. Until that day came, however—ifit came at all—you were to be left alone. The money would be sent anonymously, your tuition and rent paid anonymously, etcetera. Your father hoped that it would never be necessary.”
“He used to tell me that he wanted me to leave Manhattan after college. Maybe even to go to college overseas in Europe—” It hits me then, all of it. The plan that I’ve always had, to go to Europe and play in an orchestra there, the plan that my father planted the seeds of all those years ago—it was to get me away from the life he lived. To keep everything that’s begun to happen now from happening at all.
“I shouldn’t have gone to that club with Ana,” I whisper. I’ve never regretted something so much in my life.
Once again, I see that flicker of sympathy. “It would probably have happened anyway,” Luca admits. “The Bratva isn’t known for forgetting about the cards they have to play—and you have always been a card, Sofia. A chess piece in a game that is bigger than you or I. Your father hoped that it wouldn’t, but he was being optimistic. In those last moments before his death, I can’t blame him. He wanted to believe that his family would be safe, despite everything he knew to the contrary.”
I can feel my stomach tightening, and for a second I think that I’m going to be sick. Luca is still between me and the door, but the only thing that I know in this moment is that I’m getting the fuck out of here, one way or another.
“I’m not a card,” I say tightly, glaring at him. “I’m not a chess piece. And I’m sure ashellnot marrying into the mafia!” I can feel my chest heaving now, my breath coming faster. “The people that you work for hurt my mother. My father is dead because he worked for them. And now you tell me that you’re going to be the head of this organization one day, and yet I’m supposed to marry you, whether I want to or not?”
I lean towards him, my eyes blazing angrily as I spit the next words into his face.
“Fuck that.”
Before Luca can respond, I dart around him, running for the door. I’m still barefoot, but I don’t care. I’ll replace Ana’s shoes, there’s no time to stop and grab them, or get them on. I’m not going to stay here another second with this man, who thinks that he can tell me what I’m going to do, who I’m going to marry—that he can change my entire plan for my life in a few minutes because of something that happened years ago.
I’m sorry, papa,I think as I make a break for it, snatching the bedroom door open and careening out into the hallway.If this is really what you wanted, I’m sorry. But I just can’t believe that.
I don’t have time to take in my surroundings. I slip a little on the smooth wood of the hallway floor, steadying myself against the wall before racing for the stairs that lead down to the main floor. I can hear Luca’s footsteps behind me, and I’m so terrified that I can hardly breathe. For the second time tonight, all I can think of is that I have to escape.
Luca almost catches up to me, close enough to grab my hand while I’m still on the stairs. He tries to pull me backwards, to turn me around, but I have a death grip on the banister as I yank my hand out of his, lurching forwards.
I’m still dizzy from the drugs that the Russians gave me, and I slip, tumbling down the last few stairs to the floor. The air rushes out of me as I land, and I catch a glimpse of Luca’s worried face in the seconds before I manage to scramble to my feet again, ignoring him as I make a break for the front door of the apartment.
Why would he be worried about me? He doesn’t even care about me personally.I don’t believe for a second, either, that he really cares about a promise made by two dead men, however close he and his father might have been. I’m valuable to him in some way—he did call me a chess piece, after all. That’s the only real explanation I can come up with for his insistence that we go through with this.
For a brief second, I think that I’m going to make it. I’m reaching out for the handle of the front door when I feel Luca’s strong hands on my waist for the second time tonight, and he drags me backwards, spinning me around to face him.
“No!” I scream, clawing at his face, but he grabs my wrist effortlessly, backing me up towards the door. When I try to slap him with my free hand, he grabs that too, and pushing me back against the door and pinning my hands above my head. His body is nearly touching mine, and I realize that he’s breathing hard too, his chest heaving as he looks down at me, his gaze fastened on mine as surely as his hands are fastened around my wrists.
I twist in his grasp, but he’s too strong. He’s stronger than he looks, even, and I can feel the power in his grip on me, see the way the muscles in his arms flex as he holds me there, like a butterfly under a microscope, fluttering uselessly. I stare up at him, feeling the last bit of fight in me drain away as he watches me. “I won’t marry you,” I whisper, but I know it’s useless. For some reason, nothing I say seems to change his mind, even though he claims he didn’t want it either.
He said hedidn’twant it, I recall. And as I look up at him, I wonder what he meant by that.
“You said that you didn’t want to marry me.” I lick my dry lips, and I see his gaze flick downwards, drifting over my mouth. “Not that youdon’twant to marry me.”
Luca is silent for a long moment. “None of that matters, Sofia,” he says quietly.
“Why?”
“Because regardless of what I want, or what you want, wewillbe married.”
“But—why?” I press again, knowing that I sound for all the world like I’m twelve again, begging for a different response to a question that I don’t like the answer to.
“Because,” he says simply. “You’re mine.”
And then he bends his head, my hands still pinned above mine, and his lips come crashing down onto my mouth.
