Chapter 4
789 Words
"Eat," Dante's voice traveled down the length of the long table. He didn't take his eyes off the documents.
"I'm not hungry."
He stopped chewing. Dropped his fork. The metal hit hard against the edge of the fine porcelain.
Clink.
He looked at me. The silence once again crushed the oxygen out of the room.
"You will eat the entire plate," he said in a flat, dangerously calm tone. "Weak women get sick. Sick people bring bacteria and weakness into my environment. I don't want dirty doctors walking into my house because you decided to go on a hunger strike."
I swallowed dryly. I cut a piece of meat and forced it into my mouth. I chewed until my jaw ached and swallowed it down with the help of the ice water.
Dante went back to reading the papers.
"The Famiglia's priest arrives tomorrow at eight in the morning." His voice changed. It became casual and hollow. As if reading a grocery list. "We will sign the marriage documents in my office."
I stopped with my fork in the air. A drop of meat gravy fell back onto the plate.
"A paper marriage? That's it?"
"The Commission demands that the Capo have a legitimate wife. Your family owed blood, money, and loyalty. We solved all the problems in half an hour. You get my last name and my protection. I get the silence of the old mafia bosses."
"And then?" I asked, gripping the handle of the knife. "What happens after the paper is signed and the door is closed?"
Dante picked up his glass of water. His long, thick fingers wrapped around the glass. He took a sip before answering.
"We will live together. You do not leave the gates of this house without my direct permission. You do not speak to strangers."
I dropped the knife on the plate. Tension squeezed the muscles in my back until they burned.
"If we are husband and wife before the Commission, Dante, they will expect much more than papers. They will expect heirs. They will expect us to sleep in the same bed. They will demand consummation."
Dante pushed the stack of contracts aside. He rested both forearms on the table. The muscles under his black shirt grew rigid as stones.
"You will sleep in my room. Every night." The words came out slow, punctuating the silence. "The maids gossip and the guards report everything to my generals. Our marriage needs to look real behind closed doors. The Commission cannot suspect anything."
He leaned his hard torso forward. His dark eyes locked onto me across the long table. The light from the chandelier cast sharp shadows on his cheekbones.
"But we have rules, Siena. Unbreakable rules."
My name in his rough voice sounded like a lethal warning.
"What rules?" I asked quietly.
"First rule: you don't ask questions about my business. Second rule: you never touch my food, my glasses, or my clothes. Third rule..."
He paused. His jaw clenched hard.
"You will sleep on the leather sofa in my bedroom. It is exactly three meters away from my bed. If you cross that line while I sleep... If you reach out your hand and try to touch my skin or my sheets... I will break your fingers. One by one."
The air fled my lungs. Panic rose hot in my throat, but stopped halfway. The confusion was greater. Mobsters were bloodthirsty predators. They took what they wanted with brute force, using their wives like trash bags or disposable ornaments.
But not Dante. He acted as if I were radioactive. As if my innocent touch were lethal enough to take down the most feared man in the Cosa Nostra.
Fear took a step back. A cold, irrational, and dangerous curiosity took its place in my mind.
I rested both of my palms flat on the wood of the table. I straightened my back. I lifted my chin and stared into the dead eyes of the Capo dei Capi.
"What are you so afraid of, Don Russo?"
The sound of my provocation ripped through the dining room.
Dante didn't blink. His heavy breathing stopped for a full second. He stood up slowly. The chair dragged across the wooden floor with a screeching noise. He looked immense standing up. A mountain of contained violence ready to explode.
He didn't yell. He didn't pull a gun from a holster.
Dante merely locked his gaze on mine. A gaze so dark, so insane and threatening that the blood froze in my veins.
"Ask another question like that, Siena," his voice came out as a low growl, scraping the back of his throat, barely cutting through the silence, "and I will rip out your tongue."
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