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Breakfast is cold and silent. I pick at my oatmeal, studded with dried fruits, sipping at the coffee next to it. Salvatore doesn’t say a word until he’s finished his eggs and sausage, and then he stands up, putting his phone in my pocket. “I’m leaving for the day,” he says brusquely. “Business meetings. Don’t bother trying to run, Gia. It’s not worth your efforts, and I’ll know.”
My heart sinks. I can hear the cold finality in his voice, and I know he’s not bluffing. He looks at me, and his expression is so hard that I briefly don’t recognize him.
“I know you don’t believe me,” he says calmly. “But the Bratva don’t want you back for the reasons you think. Neither does Pyotr. And if you were to escape, you would regret it. I promise you that.”
He strides towards the door, leaving without a backward glance. And it takes me a moment to realize that he didn’t say whether the Bratva would make me regret it—or if he would.
—
The morning passes in a frustrated haze. I do my best to avoid the staff—Frances still wants answers about what to cook, Agatha wants to fill me in on more of how the household works, and Leah is probably bored out of her mind with nothing that I really need her to do—and I don’t want to deal with any of them. I lock myself in the workout room and do Pilates until I’m breathless and sweating, the memory of Salvatore in here with me yesterday still burning in the back of my mind. I go upstairs to the bedroom afterward and make myself come, trying to ease the frustration, and take a shower.
I still have most of the day left. I could settle in somewhere and read, but my focus feels fractured. I keep thinking about how angry Salvatore was this morning, how cold he was when he left. I want him to hurt as much as I do, to be frustrated and miserable with his choice, but it’s just now occurring to me that I could put myself in danger that way.
Salvatore says he wants to protect me. That his only goal is my safety. But he’s also a man—a dangerous one, at that. My father’s enforcer. Once upon a time, a mafia soldier. And he’s my husband. According to every tradition that matters in our world, I belong to him. He can do as he pleases with me.
A shiver runs over my skin. It didn’t occur to me that I might have cause to fear him. It gives me pause, just for a moment—but I’m still so angry that I’m not entirely sure if I care. A part of me wants to make him lash out, just so I can throw it in his face. So I can point out that he forced me to marry him to ‘save’ me from the supposed Bratva threat, and yet he’s the one hurting me.
But he hasn’t hurt me yet. Not really. He’s just frightened me a little.
I flop back onto the bed after my shower, wearing nothing but my panties, wondering what to do with the rest of my day. It’s a warm late spring afternoon, and I’m considering putting on a bikini and going down to the pool when a knock comes at the bedroom door.
“Who is it?” I call out, half-hoping it’s Salvatore, come back early. If he walked in and found me like this, it would make it all too easy to torment him further. But on the other hand, I don’t think he’d knock.
“It’s Leah, ma’am.” Her voice is timid. “There was a delivery for you.”
That piques my interest. I have no idea who might have sent me something, but a small part of me hopes that it might be a gift from Pyotr. Something to remind me that he hasn’t forgotten about me, that he still intends to get me back. To give me hope that Salvatore isn’t telling me the truth about the Bratva’s disregard for me now that I’m no longer a means to a treaty.
Pyotr loves me. I know he does. I know mafia marriages aren’t typically made for love, but ours was different. That’s why my father arranged it in the first place. He knew it was different, and he wanted that for me. A love like he had, when my mother was alive. What my marriage would have flowered into, if Salvatore hadn’t stolen all of that away from me.
“Ma’am?” Leah’s voice comes through the door again, and I grab my robe, throwing it on and belting it.
“Come in,” I call out, and the doors open a moment later. I catch a glimpse of the curious look on Leah’s face as she sees me in my robe in the middle of the afternoon, but my attention is quickly diverted by what she’s holding in her arms.
It’s a long, black matte box decorated with a wide black ribbon, a narrower box stacked atop it. “This came for you,” she says, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. “Where should I put it?”
“Um—you can set it on the bed.” I get up, moving out of her way, and Leah quickly deposits it where I was sitting. “Thanks.”
Leah pauses. “Is there anything else you need, ma’am?”
“No. You can just call me Gia,” I offer. “‘Ma’am’ makes me feel very old.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Alright,” she says simply, and I resist the urge to let out a frustrated huff. At least Claire and I were friendly with each other. But Leah is stiff and formal, clearly unwilling or unable to try to be friendly. I wonder if it’s how Salvatore has always run the house—but I’ve seen that Frances and Agatha are more at ease around him.
Maybe they all just don’t like me. The thought irritates me, because I don’t want to be here any more than they seem to want me here. It’s not my choice.
“You can go,” I tell her, my curiosity over what might be in the boxes overriding everything else. I’m still hoping it’s something from Pyotr, and as soon as Leah leaves and closes the door behind her, I slide the ribbon off of the larger box and open it.
When I lift the lid, I see sheets of silvery tissue paper, a thin cream-colored card atop it. I open the card, and immediately see Salvatore’s name in thick script.
My heart sinks a little. Not something from Pyotr, then. But I’m still curious, and I read the note, wondering what possessed Salvatore to send me a gift.
I believe our argument this morning got out of hand, Gia. I want to make it up to you. Inside is a gift that I hope you will wear tonight. I’ll be home at seven, with plans to take you out to dinner.
–Salvatore
I bite my lip, more than a little confused. He was angry with me this morning, and cold, but he seems to regret it now. He wants to take me out to dinner—for what purpose? To soften me? To make me happier? I don’t know what to make of it, but I lift the tissue paper, looking at what’s beneath it.
It’s a beautiful black silk evening dress. When I lift it out of the box, the silk slithers expensively through my fingers, and I can’t help but be impressed by his choice. It’s fitted through the waist and hip, splitting mid-thigh and spilling open from there. It has a sweetheart neckline and off-the-shoulder sleeves, and I can tell by looking at it that it’s exactly my size. Next to it is a flat velvet box, and my heart flutters despite myself as I reach for it.
