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They carried me toward my room at the end of the hall. Mama trailed behind us, mumbling apologies I was too freaked out to decipher.
I didn’t, for one second, believe that my father chose Keaton without consulting me first. But I also knew he was too proud to ever admit it.
Keaton held the power here, and I had no idea why.
“I don’t want the most eligible bachelor in Chicago, the president of the United State, or the Vatican pope. I want Angelo!” I barked, but no one was listening.
I am air. Invisible and insignificant, but vital all the same.
They stopped in front of my room, their grip on my wrists tightening. My body went slack when I realized they were no longer moving, and I ventured to peer inside.
Clara was stuffing my clothes and shoes into open suitcases on my bed, wiping away her tears.
Mama grabbed my shoulders and turned me around to face her.
“The note said whoever kissed you would be the love of your life, didn’t it?” Her red, puffy eyes danced in their sockets. She was grasping at straws. “He kissed you, Frankie.”
“He tricked me!”
“You don’t even really know Angelo, vita mia.”
“I know Senator Keaton even less.” And what I did know of him, I hated.
“He’s wealthy, good looking, and has a bright future ahead of him,” Mom explained. “You don’t know each other, but you will. I didn’t know your father before we wed. Vita mia, what is love without a little risk?”
Comfort, I thought and knew, no matter what, that Wolfe Keaton would make it his mission to make my life very uncomfortable.
Two hours later, I rolled through the black, wrought-iron gates of Keaton’s estate in a black Cadillac DTS.
Throughout the drive, I had begged the young, pimply driver in the cheap suit to take me to the nearest police station, but he pretended not to hear me. I rummaged through my bag for my phone, but it wasn’t there.
“Shoot!” I sighed.
A man in the passenger’s seat sneered, and I noticed, for the first time, that there was also a security guard in the vehicle.
Where my parents lived in Little Italy, you could find Catholic churches galore, quaint restaurants, and busy parks overflowing with kids and students.
Wolfe Keaton, however, resided on the clinical and prestigious Burling Street. His was a stark white, hulking mansion, which, even among other huge houses, looked comically big.
By its size, I guessed that it had required the demolition of the properties next to it. Running over others to get his way seemed to be a pattern.
Manicured lawns and elaborative medieval-styled windows greeted me, ivy and ferns crawling through the colossal structure like a woman’s possessive fingers over a man’s body.
Wolfe Keaton might have been a senator, but his money did not come from politics.
After we rolled past the entrance, two servants opened the trunk and pulled out my numerous suitcases. A woman who looked like an older and scrawnier version of Clara appeared at the door in a stern, all-black dress and pinned silver do.
She raised her chin, scanning me with a sneer.
“Miss Rossi?”
I got out of the car, hugging my bag to my chest. The jerk wasn’t even present to welcome me.
She strolled toward me, her spine ramrod straight and her hands linked behind her back as she tossed an open palm in my direction.
“I’m Ms. Sterling.”
I stared at her hand without taking it. She was helping Wolfe Keaton with kidnapping and forcing me into marriage. The fact that I wasn’t clubbing her with my Louboutin bag stretched my extent of civility.
