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“Please don’t ask me to promise something when I don’t know what I’m agreeing to. I can only promise to listen and try to be understanding. I want to work toward ending this captor-captive situation if this is what this is about.”
“Sort of,” he admits. “We can’t keep going like this or at this pace. I’m going to share some information with you, but to be clear, I’d never let you use it against me. My family’s life depends on that.”
“So what are you saying? Spell it out for me.”
“Kai would probably disagree, but I find myself in a unique situation, so I’m going to tell you my plans for you and how it benefits us both. Should you not agree, well, like I said. My family comes first.”
“You’d kill me,” I finish. He didn’t say the words, but he doesn’t have to.
“That wouldn’t be my first choice, but there would be no way I could return you to your father. I would have to ensure that you never stepped foot back in this country again, or I would have to kill you.”
“Wow. That’s some choice,” I say. “Go along with what you tell me; if not, either face death or likely be sold.” I can read between the lines.
“Look, I don’t want either of those things. I want you to be my wife and work with me.”
“Marriage is supposed to be about love … not coercion and ultimatums.”
“Not in the world you were born into, little bird. Hence why your father is willing to trade your virginity for more power. Love is arbitrary and only complicates things.”
I can feel his arctic stare but can’t bring myself to look at him. He’s not giving me much choice at all. “So what are your plans for me?” I ask, staring at my intertwined fingers for something to focus on.
He pushes off the table and pours me a glass of wine from his wet bar in the enclave of his office. He hands it to me before sitting across from me now, no doubt to see my reaction to whatever he is about to spring on me. I finish off the wine in nearly two gulps. He notices, but doesn’t speak on it.
“We both know that to be betrothed to an Italian Mafia heir, one must be pure. Once you’re no longer a virgin, your father will not be able to marry you to any notable member—only someone of lower rank and status.”
My eyes snap up to him. “Yes. That’s why it has been so important for me to stay pure. My father said we needed to merge with the Lombardis to strengthen our power for future generations. I never wanted to be part of this underworld, but my marrying Niccolò would deter the other families from considering rising against us later. But you already know that. It’s the reason you want to marry me— so your clan can have that power.” I’m on a roll. It’s all making sense now, and I can’t believe I didn’t put the pieces together before now. “Only you’re not Italian, so it doesn’t matter that you’re an Irish boss. My father would never give you my hand in marriage. But if you dirty me up where no other high-ranking Italian would want me, he’d have no choice but to consider it.”
I get up from the sofa and pour myself another glass of his wine, and he doesn’t stop me. This is worst than I thought.
“I knew you were smart, little bird—that given enough context, that you’d figure it out without me having tospell it out. So now I can move on to how this benefits us both.”
He gets up and joins me at the wet bar. I get one sip in before he takes the wineglass from my hand and sets the drink back on the bar.
“How could that possibly benefit my family or me?”
He tilts my chin up. “For starters, you don’t want to marry Niccolò. You’re in love with me, remember?”
“Love is arbitrary and only complicates things, remember?” I say, delivering his words right back to him. His face lowers to mine, his breath a caress.
“Touché, but you have an opportunity to marry a man you actually love who you can trust will fiercely protect you. Our clan can provide that same merge of power that the Lombardis would have afforded your father, if not more. But as you have so astutely guessed, it starts with you, due to us not being Italian. With my father deceased, I’m looking for my rule to be more diverse.”
“And what benefit do I get out of this?”
His lips graze mine. “You mean besides me?”
“Yes. It has to be more than just me getting out of marrying Niccolò,” I say, my voice shaky from his closeness.
He steps back and runs his hand through his hair. “We’d end this captive-captor situation, as you put it, and begin to plan what we’re going to tell your father about where you’ve been. You’d get to save Amerie and have her come stay with us while we plan our wedding. You’d no longer be a pawn to be used for power. You’ll be my queen and treated as such— free to do what you enjoy, with security of course. But you wouldn’t be transferred to yet another gilded cage to be locked away and hidden by her husband.”
“What do you mean save Amerie?” I can’t even focus on the other appealing things he mentioned because it sounds like my one and only friend is in trouble.
“Your father has her locked away. She’s being tortured everyday they don’t find you because she help you sneak away.”
“How can you possibly know that?” My breath hitches for a different reason. I’ve put my friend in harm’s way.
“My clan have an allegiance with your family. I met with Matteo, and he asked me to help find you. He needed to be discreet since not many know that you even exist. When I inquired what he knew thus far, he told me that he managed to find out the truth from your housemaid, Amerie. She had been assisting you to sneak away. Your father says if you died, she would suffer the same fate. Until then, she is enduring the daily punishment of whatever your father sees fit.”
“Nooooooo!” I scream, dropping to my knees. The day he caught me with Mr. Doyle’s phone, a man answered when I call her phone. I rationalized that my father’s men just had her phone to monitor her calls in case I called. She has been in trouble this entire time. “This is all your fault. I’ve been here a long time already. That means you knew she was being tortured everyday that I was gone and you still kept me from my family. This could have ended by now. How could you ask for my trust and do this?”
