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“My dad would never do that to me.” My feet seemed to glue to the ground, too scared to go upstairs and test my own words. “He wouldn’t sell me to the highest bidder.”
A slow smirk spread across his face. He feasted on my rage with open hunger.
“Who said my bid was the highest?”
I launched at him with everything I had.
I’d never hit anyone—was taught that as a woman, making a scene was the most common form of the lower class. So, the slap on his cheek didn’t come quite with the force I was hoping for. It was more of a swat, almost friendly, that feathered his square jaw.
He didn’t flinch.
Pity and disinterest swirled in his bottomless, sterling eyes.
“I’m giving you a couple of hours to get your things in order. Whatever’s left here will stay here. Do not test me on the issue of punctuality, Miss Rossi.” He entered my personal space and clasped a golden watch over my wrist.
“How could you do this?” In a heartbeat, I moved from defying him to sobbing, pushing at his chest now. I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t even entirely sure I was breathing. “How did you convince my parents to give you their approval?”
I was an only child. My mother was prone to miscarriages. She called me her priceless jewel—but here I was, marked with a Gucci wristwatch by a stranger, the watch obviously a small portion of a much larger dowry that had been promised.
My parents cherry-picked every admirer who approached me at public functions and were notoriously protective when it came to my friends. So much so, in fact, that I didn’t have any friends of my own, only females who shared the Rossi name.
Every time I met girls my age, they deemed them too provocative or not sophisticated enough.
This seemed surreal.
But for some reason, I didn’t doubt for one moment that it was also the truth.
For the first time ever, I considered my father less than a deity. He had weaknesses, too. And Wolfe Keaton had just found every one of them and exploited them to his benefit.
He shrugged into his blazer and strolled through the door, his bodyguards at his feet like loyal Labrador puppies.
I shot up to the second floor, my legs on fire, adrenaline coursing through them.
“How could you!”
The first person I aimed my anger at was Mama, who promised to have my back on the subject of marriage. I sprinted toward her, but my dad held me down and Mario grabbed my other arm.
It was the first time his men were physical with me—the first time he was physical with me.
I kicked and screamed as they pulled me out of Dad’s office while my mom stood there with unshed tears brewing in her eyes. The lawyers were all hunched in a corner of the room, staring at papers and pretending that nothing unusual had happened.
I wanted to scream until the entire house crumbled and buried all of us under its ruins.
To shame them, to fight them.
I’m nineteen. I can run away.
But run away to what?
I was completely isolated. I knew no one and nothing other than my parents.
Besides, what resources would I have?
“Francesca,” Papa said with a tone etched with stony determination. “Not that it matters, but it is not your mother’s fault. I chose Wolfe Keaton because he’s the better choice. Angelo is nice but almost a commoner. His father’s father was a simple butcher. Keaton is the most eligible bachelor in Chicago, and possibly the future president of the United States. He is also considerably wealthier, older, and more beneficial to The Outfit in the long run.”
“I’m not The Outfit!” I could feel my vocal cords shaking as the words tore from my mouth. “I’m a person.”
“You’re both,” he retorted. “And as the daughter of the man who rebuilt the Chicago Outfit from scratch, you are to make sacrifices, whether you want to or not.”
