Bound by Vengeance!

Chapter Four

Isabella's Pov

Dinner with the Castellanos was an exercise in awkward tension so thick I could barely force down a few bites. Luca's mother Lucia regarded me with thinly-veiled disdain the entire time, making little effort to hide her contempt.

"So, Isabella," she drawled in that deep, gravelly tone of hers. "What quaint little village did my son manage to unearth you from?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but Luca cut me off with a warning look. Right, I was just the obedient little wifey ornament here.

"She comes from an affluent family with property in Milan," he supplied crisply. "Not that it's any of your concern, Mother."

Lucia's eyes glittered with derision as she took a pointed sip of her wine. "Affluent," she echoed in a mocking lilt. "Is that what they're calling those thieving little turncoat sects these days?"

My cheeks burned with humiliation. I wanted nothing more than to protest her bald insults, but Luca continued eating as if she hadn't spoken. As usual, it seemed Mother's venom was something to just ignore and weather through.

The truth was, I knew precious little about my family's "affluent" background and dealings. Father always kept that side of things very private from me and the servants. All I knew was they had made their fortunes through shipping, trading, and other somewhat shadier businesses over the generations...

A subtle cough drew my attention across the table. Marco, the mysterious stranger from last night, was observing me with an amused smirk. Like he could plainly see the gears turning in my head and found it richly entertaining.

"It seems Isabella knows less about her pedigree than even we do," he interjected in a deceptively smooth tone. "Though I'd be curious to hear how much the esteemed Riccis had to... compensate to secure a wife of such impeccable virtues for you, Luca."

My fork slipped from my hand, clattering against the plate as I gaped at him. Did...did he just boldly imply that my own father sold me into this marriage?

Lucia's laugh was a throaty rumble of wicked delight. "My my, the duplicitous dog does have a point. Just what devastating circumstances befell the Ricci clan to force them into pawning off their sweet daughter here?"

"Enough," Luca growled in a tone that brooked no argument. He shot Marco a look that could temper steel.

The other man merely shrugged and took a long swallow of wine, never breaking his mocking stare in my direction.

After that, my appetite fled entirely. I spent the remainder of the interminable dinner pushing food around on my plate in tense silence. No one paid me any further mind or invited me into their conversations, which seemed to mainly revolve around thinly-veiled talks of business dealings, underworld politics, and power plays between rivals on the streets.

When Lucia finally rose to retire for the evening, Luca gave me a pointed look to follow. I quickly pushed my chair back and fell into step behind him without a word, grateful to be leaving.

Once we were alone in the hallway outside, Luca turned on me with an inscrutable look. "You look upset, wife," he stated flatly. "I'd have thought an insipid little social debut like that would be a nice warmup for you."

I opened and closed my mouth, at a total loss for how to respond to that. Luca continued studying me with that intensity that made me want to squirm.

"You'll get used to how things are done around here," he said after a long pause. "Mother, Marco, the whole lot of them. It's a pit of vipers but you're in the viper's nest now. Best not to go sticking your hand in and acting shocked when you get bitten."

With that ominous little homily, he turned and started up the main staircase, leaving me to hurry after him on my own. My head was left spinning over his words and the mysteries surrounding my new situation.

Why WAS my family forced to pawn me off in such an unorthodox arrangement? I knew we'd fallen into some dire circumstances lately, but Father had always been so secretive about the details. Could it really be as Marco implied, that they had literally sold me off for profit to this criminal family?

And just what was the extent of the Castellanos' business that made them so reviled and feared? There was clearly some deep enmity and unsettlingly violent history between them and my own relatives that I wasn't being told...

Lost in my whirlwind of troubled thoughts, I didn't even realize Luca had stopped partway down the upstairs hallway. I nearly plowed directly into his back before instinctively freezing in place.

He turned slightly to pierced me with those depthless dark eyes, head c****d minutely to one side. Like a panther weighing whether or not to pounce on its prey.

"I can hear those gears turning from here, bella" he murmured in that low, gravel rough tone. "so many little questions ricocheting around in your pretty head, hmm?"

My breath hitched softly in my throat at being so directly called out. As always with Luca, I felt pinned in place by his sheer magnetic force. This strange, intense mixture of fear, breathless tension...and an undeniable spark of something else entirely.

"I...there are some things I don't understand about all this," I found my voice at last, keeping it carefully neutral. "About why my family felt the need to...to give me away as they did."

One dark brow inched up infinitesimally at my hesitant phrasing. Luca regarded me with that same inscrutable, slightly mocking look for a beat. Then, shockingly, he threw back his head and unleashed a rough peal of laughter that made me flinch.

"Give you away?" He echoed in a lightly taunting tone. "Oh you precious little naïf. That's putting an almost romantic filter on just how ruthlessly your scumbag father sold you out to settle his debts and save his own skin."

The bluntness of his words was like a slap to the face. My mouth dropped open, stunned by this latest blow of harsh reality.

"You believed the lies they fed you, didn't you?" Luca scoffed, shaking his head in mordant amusement. "About what a respected, affluent family you come from through honest dealings and nobility of character?"

He reached out with one long finger to trace a feather-light path across my cheek. The shockingly intimate caress sent a tremor down my spine.

"Wake up and smell the truth, wife," Luca murmured, his expression suddenly deadly serious. "Your family is composed of two-bit grifters, liars, cheats...criminals who were simply outmatched by the bigger player they tried to go to war with. And you're nothing but a hard-won spoil from that conflict to be used and cast aside once you've served your purpose."

With that brutal parting shot, he spun on his heel and continued down the hall, leaving me frozen in his wake. My entire world felt like it had just lurched on its axis, scattering the naive assumptions I'd clung to for so long.

Luca's words rang with a bitter, damning truth, as grotesque as they were. Everything was a lie, this was all some manner of sordid, transactional punishment for misdeeds committed by my relations long before I was born. I truly was just a piece in some larger, dangerous game between criminal families vying for power.

Hot tears of anger, shame and total devastation threatened to spill down my cheeks. But I angrily blinked them back, determined not to give the Castellano brute the satisfaction of seeing me crumble.

Instead, I gathered the last tattered shreds of my dignity and held my chin high as I followed the path down the corridor that Luca had taken. The path further down the rabbit hole into this unimaginable new life of brutal awakenings.