I made it. Violetta won’t have to read about the numbers in my will and find the lawyer herself. It’s here. The secret is safe. The crown is safe. She’s safe.

  Behind a locked door to the back room of Mille Luci, I take out a new phone and dial the number the receptionist gave me. When the lawyer picks up, I recognize the voice immediately.

  “Nazario?”

  Emilio Moretti’s consigliere—Il Blocco—coughs dry and hard.

  “Santino DiLustro.” He says in Italian, “You made it.”

  “So did you. I thought they buried you in the sea.”

  He tsks. “No. I know how to stay low. But you? You’re a big piece over there now.”

  “Big piece over a small territory.”

  “With a target on your back so big a child could hit it.” Nazario Coraggio is a born consigliere. He never holds back advice, whether you want it or not. “Emilio said you were the patient one. The one who sees the whole…” He stops for a coughing fit. “You lost the picture when you married her so fast. No courtship, no nothing.”

  “I had no choice. Damiano was going to claim her.”

  “You could have started sooner.”

  Explaining that I stalled because of Rosetta is pointless. My guilt and regret mean nothing to him. “I did what I had to do.”

  “You did what you wanted.”

  Arguing with a man who’s right will get me nowhere.

  “How much longer is this lecture going to go?” I look at my watch even though he can’t see the cue over the phone. “I have things to do.”

  “You do.” He wheezes. “You have to secure your position before you get what you were promised, or it’ll be taken away from you.”

  “By who? I ran the Tabonas out already.”

  “They’re trash. It’s the Orolios you have to worry about.”

  “I have Damiano under control,” I say.

  He sighs as if his point is a target a child could hit, and I’m missing it over and over.

  “You have to play defense for a few more days. Don’t make any moves.” He coughs twice and swallows the rest behind a guttural groan. “Fortify your position.”

  “Bene. I will.”

  “You do not appreciate how precarious your situation is.”

  “I do.”

  “Cosimo’s looking for a reason to hit you.”

  “Cristo, can you make your point more clear? Or would you like to come here and knock me over with a lead pipe?”

  “I’m an old man. All I want is to see this thing put in safe hands. Then I can die.”

  “It will be safe.”

  “I know.”

  He gives me a time to be at the lawyer’s office. I don’t write it down.

  “Violetta?” I call up the stairs.

  She’s supposed to be home, but she’s not in the kitchen or by the pool. I keep looking. She’s not in her room and she’s not answering when I call her name. I turn the corner around a blind hallway in my own fucking house, and I’m stopped by cold metal against my cheek.

  It’s a gun.

  Someone shorter than me is holding it. I look without moving, but I already know who it is.

  “Violetta,” I say softly, with my hands up. “You’re not going to shoot me.”

  “You’re a liar.”

  She has my grandfather’s gun with the World War Two bullets still in it, and she knows I’m telling the truth. She’s not going to shoot me, but her eyes are red-rimmed and her mouth is twisted into a snarl. She thinks she might pull the trigger, and what she believes she’s capable of is more important than what I think she’s going to do.

  “Put that down.”

  “You said you’d call it off!”

  There’s no point in pretending I don’t know what she’s talking about.

  “I said I will stop the ‘mbasciata. I can’t now. Not without the crown.” I speak calmly, but it’s not stopping the trembling that’s taken her over from her face to the two hands holding the revolver. “Do you know how to use that?”

  She clicks the hammer back, proving she watches television, but not that she understands how sensitive the trigger is.

  “Gia says the wedding’s still on. They’re doing it. What the fuck, Santino?” She takes a hard sniff, and her breath hiccups. “Why are you letting this happen?”

  In the shake of her hands and the break of her voice, she’s losing control of herself, and that trigger’s like a virgin dick in a wet cunt. The slightest friction and it’s all over.

  “I can…” I don’t finish the sentence on purpose, because I don’t want her to react.

  Instead, I grab her wrist and push it away, wrestling her down. The gun fires, leaving a long path of smoking splinters in the hardwood floor.

  That could have been my brain.

  If she’d killed me, what would happen to her?

  How many men would come for my wife? And what would they do to her?

  The thought of her being torn apart because I’m not here to protect her steals every ounce of my control. I become what I am and always was—an animal.

  23

  VIOLETTA

  The opposite of love is apathy, and there’s nothing indifferent about my feelings toward my husband. I hate him for letting me love him almost as much as I hate him for loving me.

  And I don’t want to shoot him. I don’t even want to hurt him. But I don’t know how to get through to him that what he’s allowing is worse than a sin, and I don’t know how to get out of the situation in the hallway without shooting him. I’ve gone too far.

  When he wrestles me to the floor, the gun goes off. The power of it against my palm is so great that it loosens my fingers, freeing itself—and I’m grateful to Santino for making sure the bullet landed anywhere but his skull.

  He gets off me and picks up the gun. For a moment, I’m sure he’s going to give me a taste of my own medicine in the form of a bitter threat of death.

  Instead, he points the gun anywhere except at me. I’m in a crouch when he opens the cylinder and lets the bullets clatter to the floor. He swallows fire and breathes rage.

  “Do you know what you almost did?” he growls, tossing the gun onto the hall table. It makes a clattering racket that echoes off the walls. I can still get to it, but it’s empty.

  I’m terrified and aroused at the same time, but I’m also angry enough to get my feet under me. “Killed a liar.”

  In one step, he has me by the throat, pressing me to the wall. I’m submissive, powerless, and immediately wet. He doesn’t hold me hard enough to choke me, but he’s forceful enough to pin me still with the pulse at the base of his hand throbbing against my neck. Intoxicating danger and solid protection mingle in my brain, and the blood in my veins thrums with electricity. I let him handle me, knowing he would never, ever harm me.

  “You want to know what they’d do to you?” he says through his teeth. His grip tightens on my neck, but my nipples harden and an insatiable need grows between my legs.

  Maybe I don’t want to know, but I nod against his hand.

  “Tell me,” I croak. “But don’t lie again.”

  Santino snarls and pushes me into my bedroom, snarling and grumbling to himself in indecipherable Italian. I land on the bed on my back with my legs akimbo, struggling to get them under me quickly. Instead of fear, the knot of desire grows bigger and tighter, pulling the threads of my humming nerves together into an ever-spinning ball of need at my core.

  “You’re going to let him marry Gia. For money.”

  “To stop a war!” His voice rumbles across my chest and I really think I might combust before he even touches me.

  Santino grabs the neckline of my dress in both hands and pulls them apart, ripping the dress in two, leaving me exposed and backing away, yet ready to be ravaged.

  “You’re an animal,” I say, flinging myself at him with no plan but to get closer without giving an inch.

  He grabs me by the waist and throws me over the gold-painted dresser. The carved wood edges dig into the tender skin of my stomach. My pussy quivers at the pain and the roughness of his hands as he flings the back of my dress up and spreads my legs apart.

  “You’re an animal,” I repeat, but this time, it’s not an insult.

  From behind, he shoves my thong aside to split my most sensitive lips. I gasp at his touch and he murmurs to himself in Italian. His finger runs the length of my seam, rough like the rest of his touch, and I begin my slow, glorious death.

  “How are you so wet?”

  “Fuck me and find out.”

  He smacks my ass. “That mouth.” He smacks it again. Hard. “Do not speak to me like that in my own home.”

  “This is our home,” I manage.

  “You cook!” Smack. “You clean!” Smack.

  My ass burns from his blows, and still I want more.

  “You run the house.” Smack. “You talk to the other wives about who’s a whore.” His hand drops to my right nipple and pinches hard. I see stars behind my eyelids and my breath catches in my throat. I’m seconds from coming and there is nothing else in life I need more, right now, than this. “But you do not get into my business.”

  “Gia’s my business!”

  “Nothing!” His fingers work my nipples so hard the pain threatens to morph into an orgasm. “You hear me? Nothing of this again!”

  I summon all my strength, open my eyes, and look over my shoulder. “Make me.”

  He takes me under the chin and pulls my head back. He’s so tall and long that his torso covers me. “I’ll choke the back talk out of you, Forzetta, God help me, I will.”

  “Fucking try.”

  He lets go, but the pressure of his body pins me hard against the curved edges of the wood. I hear him unbuckle his belt.

  “Tell me how bad I am.”

  “You are so fucking bad.” His belt is out of the loops with a whick. “Why does torturing me bring you so much joy?”

  “Because you’re a good man.”

  “And you need to learn your place.”

  “What are you going to do about it?” I give us both a last taste of defiance before complete surrender.

  He wraps the belt around my neck and holds it closed while his other hand opens his pants to release his cock. I am a fool. I underestimate his ability to take me places I don’t think I want to go until I arrive.

  “I’m going to stop you from talking.” He yanks me back by the belt. “You like that. Eh?”

  “I love it.”

  He pushes my legs open with his feet, holding them wide.

  “Because you are a naughty fucking American girl.” In one thrust, he’s deep inside me, pulling me to him by the throat.

  “I’m so bad.”

  “Just take it.” Santino presses my hips down.

  He doesn’t want it to be easy. God help me, he wants to destroy me and I want him to. I want him to take me to the edge more than he wants to go there.

  “Hurt me,” I egg him on.

  “I’m going to break you.” He smacks my ass and the sting is pure pleasure.

  “Yes.”

  “Stop talking.”

  He rides me like a jockey using a belt as a rein, hips at a gallop, then a canter, then a run, faster and deeper than any man his size should. I squeal.

  “That’s what your voice is for. Now take it.”

  This is not sex. It’s punishment. It’s violence. It’s a drug and I’m an addict.

  “You like when I talk.”

  “I like when you’re fucking quiet!” he roars.

  Then he picks me up, throws me over his shoulder and pitches me onto the bed, dropping me onto my back. Towering over me, he grabs behind my knees and pulls me to him, the back of my dress sliding against the duvet, and spreads them wide.

  “Your mouth needs to talk less.” He shoves four fingers inside me, tugging on the hood of my clit, sending shockwaves of bliss up my spine. “And your cunt needs to talk more.”

  His fingers are slick when he pulls them out.

  “I want more.”

  He shoves them in my mouth. I taste myself, gurgling around hard knuckles.

  “You don’t know what you want.” He heaves his massive cock into my waiting, begging cunt. He’s loose and feral, angry and passionate, trying to impale my heart with every thrust.

  “This is what you need.” He grunts, cupping my jaw with his palm and pushing his fingers into my mouth. “To be put in your place.”

  The heady fumes of an orgasm build into a mindless fog. I am nothing. I do not exist outside him and the building promise of release. He owns me. I’m his toy. His American whore. His growling in Italian comes from the other side of an ocean.

  “You. Stay. Out. Of. My. Business.” His thrusts punctuate each word.

  Euphoria finally cracks open. Everything goes rushing to my pussy as the earth opens and the heavens cry, and I scream his name the moment before he thrusts me into voiceless oblivion.

  He curses, closes his eyes, and lets his fingers slide from my mouth when he comes. He stumbles back with his dick out, shiny and wet, leaving me panting on my back. I wipe the hair from my face, but my arms are overcooked noodles and flop back to the bed.

  Santino takes me by the ankles, spreading them to the width of his arm span and wedges himself between my legs. Is he going to fuck me again? Right now?

  “Are you hurt?” he asks with his forehead touching mine.

  “I’m fine.”

  He doesn’t seem satisfied. I pull him down to me.

  “No. Mi…” he starts, but can’t finish without swallowing. “Mi dispiace.”

  The Italian words for an apology are “I am not pleased,” and in this case, he means it literally. He’s not pleased with himself. He’s ashamed and regretful.

  “Look at you. Look what I did. Your dress is torn. Your throat will be bruised. Inside… I hurt you.”

  “I’m fine,” I say again.

  “No!” he shouts, standing, still fully dressed with his dick out. “You want to help Gia. Where’s my excuse? I wanted to hurt you for no higher reason. This…” He holds out his hand to indicate my body as if what he sees is illustration enough. “This is not what a man does. A man keeps his wife safe, even from himself.”

  When I get up on my knees, I feel the back of the torn dress draping over my calves and wrestle out of it.

  “I asked you to do it.” I toss the ruined dress on the floor. My thong’s so stretched out it’s falling off, so I roll onto my back and whip that off as well. “I begged you. I egged you on.”

  “That’s not a reason to beat you like a dog.”

  “Stop, please. It’s not like that.”

  I throw the destroyed underwear to the side, and when I do, he sees me from behind and falls in the ornate wingback chair as if he’s been pushed. I get up and check the mirror. My bottom is almost fire engine red. I don’t remember him spanking my ass that much, but I was distracted by my craving for more. Admittedly, it hurts—just like my sore pussy and aching shoulders. I can find plenty of other parts in pain, but Santino’s posture is hunched. He’s covering his face, but not his eyes, as if he has to look at me to understand the wrongness of it.

  “No,” I say. “What we did together is beautiful. Please don’t turn something so good into a sin.”

  “It’s not good!”

  “If I said stop, would you have stopped?”

  He rubs his jaw, unable to meet my gaze. “I don’t know.”

  “Would you have wanted to stop?”

  “Yes, but… I was outside myself. Violetta.” He comes to me and cups my face, finally looking me in the eyes. “I lost control. This time, you liked it. What if next time you don’t? What will I do then?”

  “You’ll stop.” I reach for him, laying my hands on his cheeks. He looks confused, perplexed even. He doesn’t look like the mighty ruler who defends against hardened killers and mouthy women. “You’re my husband. Mine. I won’t let you give in to inertia. It’s my job to make you a good man, Santino, a great man. I’ll fight an army to clear you a path between you and who you really are.”

  I let my hands slide away and get off the bed.

  “I know you want to help Gia, and I know why you think you have to wait. But you can’t. There is no time.” I look away. “Because I’m worried about the baby.”

  I look back at him, waiting for the recognition of what I’m saying.

  He whispers my name like a prayer.

  “I’m worried if we’re having a girl, and you don’t stop this from being okay right now…” My sobs rush so fast, I can barely get the next part out. Santino reaches for me, but I put my hands out to keep him away. “I’m afraid you’re going to sell her.”

  “No.” His first word of denial is laced with awe and surprise, but falls on deaf ears.

  “I didn’t kill you, but I will. To protect her, I will slit your throat while you sleep.”

  “Why are you talking like this?”

  “Because I mean it. I love you, but I’m not making empty threats. My daughter will be born free.”

  “No child of mine—” he starts, but I put my hand over his lips.

  “No child. Say it. Say no one will be born with a price tag.”

  Without a stern word or command, he takes control of the conversation, tenderly holding my neck and jaw in his huge hands and putting the tip of his nose to mine.

  “I swear to you now, my wife, my Forzetta, my blood violet, that as far as my territory stretches, every daughter and son will be born free. There will be no more arranged marriage. No debt brides. No forced weddings. So help me God, I’ll burn in hell for everything I’ve done, but not for breaking this promise to you.”

  I take him by the wrists and put his palms on my belly. “Your promise is to her.”

  “Sì.” When he agrees in Italian, I believe him, releasing doubt and fear.

  “Thank you.” My voice cracks and the tension flows out of me, because believing him is all I want right now.

  He kisses the tears from my cheeks and neck, getting on his knees and wrapping his arms around me with his ear to my stomach, listening to the sound of life growing inside me.