THE MAFIA'S BRIDE

Hades!!

Chapter 3: Hades!!

Valentina POV

The ring would not stop catching the light.

I sat on the edge of the bed and turned my hand slowly, watching the diamond throw cold, sharp sparks across the wall. Every time it flashed I felt the weight of it again—platinum, heavy, permanent. I pressed my thumb hard against the edge of the stone until the pressure became pain. Clean pain. Something I could understand.

My left palm throbbed under the thin bandage. The cut from the oath still burned, deep and insistent, as if the blade had left a piece of itself inside me. I flexed my fingers. The gauze pulled tight. A dark spot had already begun to seep through. I stared at it and thought, This is what being owned looks like.

Mrs. Hades D'Amore.

The words sat in my mouth like something spoiled. I had walked into that ceremony telling myself the choice still belonged to me. I had walked out with blood on my palm and a ring that would never come off. It felt like drowning in troubled waters, alone, screaming for someone—anyone—to save me. But no one was coming. No one ever came.

My eyes stung. I pressed the heels of my hands against them hard enough to see white stars, but the wetness kept coming anyway. My shoulders shook once. Then again. I kept the sound locked behind my teeth. The house was full of people who would enjoy hearing a Castello daughter break.

A soft knock.

"Tina?"

Isabella's voice, careful, almost afraid of the wrong word.

I wiped my face with the back of my wrist and straightened my spine. "Come in."

She stepped inside carrying a small first-aid kit. Her eyes were red. She crossed the room without speaking and sat beside me on the bed. For a long moment the only sound was the faint music drifting up from the ballroom below. Then she took my injured hand and turned it over in her lap.

She unwrapped the bandage slowly. The cut looked worse in the low light—angry, still weeping a thin line of red. She cleaned it with antiseptic that bit like cold fire. I flinched. She whispered "sorry" and kept working, wrapping fresh gauze with the same careful precision she used when we were children and I had scraped my knees climbing the garden wall. When she finished she didn't let go of my hand.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly.

"For what?"

"For standing there. For not being able to do anything while they… while it happened."

I looked at her. The same eyes that used to dare me into every reckless plan. "None of this is on you, Bell. Father would have found a way. He always does. You didn't put the knife in my hand. You didn't force the ring onto my finger."

She held my gaze a second longer, searching. Finding nothing she could argue with, she let out a shaky breath and leaned her head against my shoulder. The scent of her perfume—lavender and something bright, something still untouched by this house—cut through the heavier smells of cigar smoke and expensive flowers that clung to the corridors.

"I hate that you would sacrifice everything for me," she whispered. "It makes me feel so pathetic."

"It's not about you, Bell." I said softly. "Unfortunately, we're just mere commodities in our father's eyes. He would have found a way to sell me off no matter what it took. So don't blame yourself, okay?"

She stared at me for a while, her gaze locked on mine. She sniffled and nodded her head slowly.

"And that right there is exactly what I love about you," I said softly. "That you would try to stop me."

She laughed — a broken, watery sound — and wrapped her arms around me. I held her close, breathing in the familiar scent of her perfume. The only comfort I had left.

We stayed like that until the music downstairs shifted into a slower piece.

Isabella sat up. She wiped under her eyes with the side of her finger and forced a smile that didn't quite reach them.

"We're going down," she said. "We're going to drink their wine and eat their food and look at every single one of them like we own the place. Castellos don't let anyone watch them bleed."

A cracked sound that might have been a laugh escaped me. I took the hand she offered and stood. My legs felt unsteady, as if the floor had shifted while I wasn't looking.

****

The ballroom glittered too brightly.

Crystal and silk and the low murmur of people who had never been forced into anything. Isabella pressed a heavy glass into my hand. The first swallow burned all the way down. The second settled somewhere warmer, loosening the tight band around my chest for a few precious seconds.

We stayed near the bar, half-hidden by a tall arrangement of white roses. We watched the guests pass by, our eyes scanning the crowd with barely concealed disdain.

"Look at her," Isabella murmured, nodding toward a woman in an aggressively red gown. "She's wearing a dress that costs more than most people's houses. And she still looks miserable."

"Maybe she's also being forced to marry a monster," I said dryly.

Isabella snorted. "Touché."

For a few minutes the weight on my chest eased. I could almost pretend the ring was just jewelry. Almost.

Then the air changed.

I felt it before I saw him—a shift, a pressure, the way the room seemed to tilt toward one point.

I looked up.

Hades stood across the ballroom with three of his men. A glass of something amber rested loosely in his hand. He was not smiling. He was not performing the polite interest the other guests wore like masks. He simply watched the room the way a predator watches territory it already considers its own. When his eyes found mine the noise around us thinned, as if someone had pressed a hand over the world's mouth.

His gaze moved over me slowly. Thoroughly. From the line of my throat to the curve of the white silk still clinging to my body, then down to the ring on my finger, and back up to my face. There was no softness in it. Only assessment. Possession. Something darker that made my pulse stutter hard against my collarbone.

For a moment I thought I saw a brief, small smirk tug at his lips. I must have imagined it.

I kept my chin high and stared back. Let him look. Let him see that the girl who had slapped him twice today was still on her feet.

Isabella followed the direction of my gaze. "Is he staring at you?"

"Of course he is," I muttered. "He's probably counting his new assets."

She laughed, but there was no humor in it. "He's insufferable."

"Completely," I agreed.

I held his gaze for a long moment, refusing to look away. I wanted him to know I wasn't afraid. I wanted him to see the fury in my eyes. Then I scoffed, rolled my eyes, and broke the stare.

"Unbelievable," I muttered.

A waiter passed by with a tray. I stopped him, set my glass down, and turned to Isabella.

"I can't do this right now. I'm going to the bathroom."

"Are you okay?" she asked, concern flickering across her face.

"I'm fine. Just... need a minute."

She nodded. "Be quick."

I turned and walked away before the fine tremor in my fingers became obvious to anyone else.

****

The powder room on the east corridor was empty and cool. I locked the door, braced both hands on the marble sink, and faced the mirror.

The woman looking back had hollow eyes and a diamond on her hand that did not belong to her. The white silk still clung like it had been poured on. I turned the cold water on full and splashed my face again and again until the heat crawling under my skin cooled. Water dripped from my chin onto the bodice of the gown.

"God," I whispered. "I don't want to marry him."

I gripped the sink until my knuckles whitened.

I'm still a virgin. I've never been touched by a man. I dreamed of marrying for love. A man who would choose me—not claim me as property. I dreamed of my first time meaning something. And now…

I looked up. My reflection stared back, fractured under the harsh light.

Now I have to give it to a monster.

Heat coiled low in my stomach, unwanted and sharp. A chill chased it down my spine. I clenched my jaw against the sensation and slapped my own cheeks lightly.

"Get it together, Valentina. Don't think about him."

The door swung open.

"Yes, get it together, Valentina."

I spun so fast the room tilted.

A man stood in the doorway, arms crossed, a faint smirk on his lips. For half a second I couldn't place him. Then the years of careful distance my father had enforced snapped into place.

Ray.

Second-in-command's son. The one whose eyes had always lingered too long at gatherings.

"You shouldn't be in here," I said.

He stepped inside and shut the door with quiet care. "You left looking like you needed air. Or company."

"I need you to leave."

He didn't move. His gaze dragged over the dress, the ring, the small cut already forming on my temple. "That gown is wasted on him. Hades doesn't look at beautiful things. He takes them. And you've always been the one thing your father kept just out of reach."

I stepped toward the door. "Get out."

He stepped with me. "You don't want to give him anything. I saw your face downstairs. I can solve that problem for you."

Cold slid down my spine. "Touch me and I scream."

"These walls don't let sound travel. Guests pay for privacy." He tilted his head. "I put a sign on the door. No one will knock."

I lunged for the handle.

His hand closed around my wrist like a vise and yanked. The back of my head cracked against the marble. White light burst behind my eyes. Warmth ran down my temple in a thin, sticky line. The world swam.

I bit the hand that came over my mouth. Copper flooded my tongue. He only laughed—low, delighted—and used his weight to pin me against the sink. My skirt shoved higher. Cold air touched skin that had never been touched. My pulse hammered so hard I felt it in my teeth, in my throat, in the cut on my palm. I twisted, clawed, kicked. His grip only tightened.

Father.

The name formed first, automatic, useless. He was downstairs toasting the alliance built on my blood.

Bell.

She was waiting by the bar, thinking I only needed air. She would never hear me through these walls.

I dragged air through my nose and forced the words out against his palm, muffled and breaking.

"Father—Bell—"

Ray's fingers dug harder. "No one is coming."

His free hand shoved the fabric higher. The cold marble of the sink pressed into my lower back. I could feel the hard line of his body, the intent in every movement. Tears mixed with the blood running down my temple.

Anyone. Please.

And then, humiliating and instinctive and impossible to stop, the last name rose.

Hades.

I never thought I would call for him. Not after the hallway. Not after the oath. Not after I had looked him in the eye and told him I would never be his. The shame of it burned almost as hot as the fear. Ego aside, I could deal with the humiliation later. Right now I needed someone strong enough to stop this.

"Hades!!"

Ray's grip tightened like a beast. I had stopped truly fighting—it had proven useless—but the name still tore out of me, raw and desperate.

My chest locked. I was about to squeeze my eyes shut and block the nightmare out completely when a violent kick slammed against the door.

Every nerve in my body screamed. Hope and terror crashed together so hard I could barely breathe. Someone was coming. Someone was here.

Another kick thundered through the wood, rattling the frame.

Ray didn't even flinch. Lust had swallowed him whole. His eyes stayed locked on me while one hand fumbled with his pants.

BANG!

The door exploded inward.

Ray froze. Fear flickered across his features for the first time.

I blinked through the haze of tears and blood. My eyes landed on the ruined doorway.

Then I saw him.

Hades.

He stood there breathing hard, chest rising and falling like he had just sprinted the length of the mansion. Blood stained the knuckles of his already-injured hand—the same palm that had pressed against mine only hours ago during the oath.

But that wasn't what made my heart stop.

It was the way he looked at Ray.

His hands were clenched so tightly the knuckles had gone white. The gauze on his left palm was already turning red again. In that instant he looked less like the cold, controlled man I had met in the hallway and more like something ancient and lethal that had just been unleashed.

I knew—with the same cold certainty I had felt when the knife first split my skin—that Ray was already dead.

The silence that followed was worse than any shout. It pressed against my skin, against the cut on my forehead, against the ring that still burned on my finger.

And for one terrifying, traitorous second, relief flooded through me so strongly my knees nearly gave out—followed immediately by the bitter knowledge that I had just called for the very man I had sworn never to need.