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His sarcasm cuts deep, reminding me of happier times when his teasing was affectionate, not cruel.
“Why?” I demand, my voice shaking with rage.
“Finally, a good question. Now, if only you’d done as you were told and moved back into the house. If only you’d stuck within the boundaries I gave you. This wouldn’t happen.”
“What? You’re doing this because I moved out of the house?”
“No, you. You are going to have to do this because, like your mother, you can’t stop panting after some Italian vermin. They played their tricks and forced us to start an unfinishable war.”
He shakes his head in disgust. “And to think that you were supposed to marry a good, honorable man from a respectable family. Now I’ll need you to clean up your own mess and pay for an army large enough to wipe out those vermin once and for all. You’re marrying the leader of the Shadow Gang.”
His words are like many knives, cutting deep into me, but I refuse to give him the satisfaction of seeing me unraveling. I say with as much sarcasm as I can muster. “Oh, I see. This was an impromptu brokerage. You actually had another loser lined up for me. I wonder, when were you going to inform your broodmare of that match made in Mob heaven?”
His expression hardens, a mask sliding into place. “This is no joke, Adele. This is happening. And if you’d waited that day instead of running off in a childish snit, you would have heard everything you needed to.”
A bitter laugh escapes me, surprising us both with its harshness. “Oh, stuff it. I now know everything you were hiding, including who my real father is.”
His features contort into something ugly and terrifying. “Who is he?”
I can’t believe he doesn’t know. The thought is so absurd that I laugh. “You mean your sister had an affair with your enemy for more than five years, and you never found out who it was? I’m almost embarrassed for you. The Italians would have figured it out within days.”
“Oh, we know it’s Vito Vitelli. Naomi was a sneaky little bitch, but she wasn’t half as smart as she thought she was.” The casual cruelty in his voice hurts, but I steel myself against the feeling.
He continues, his mouth twisting, “Which also means that the scum you were whoring yourself with back in college is your half-brother.”
I see disgust written all over his face, and something in me breaks. “Yes. Well, as you failed to mention that crucial detail to me, guess what, Benjamin? I’ve been doing a lot more than whoring, and I’m now pregnant with his child.”
The silence that follows is thick and overwhelming. His eyebrows fly up, shock stamped on his rapidly paling face. Whether it is from hearing his first name again or the news of my pregnancy, I can’t tell. And there’s something else in his face. An unmistakable terror.
In an instant, he’s across the room, his index finger held up against my lips. “You’d do well to keep your mouth shut,” he hisses, “otherwise you will not leave here with your tongue. And if you dare mention your connection with the Italians to your new husband and his people they won’t hesitate to cut that bastard out of you.”
I jerk my head away from his finger, my heart pounding as I realize that Benjamin is afraid of something going wrong with this arrangement.
Just who the hell is this asshole bartering me to?
He steps back and continues in a cold, detached tone. “In any case, the situation is easily remedied. Tonight, you only have to do one thing. Spread your legs. Which shouldn’t be too hard for you, considering. Tomorrow, I’ll take you back to Boston where you will get rid of . . .” He trails off, glaring at my belly, “your problem.”
All I can do is stare at him. And here I was, thinking nothing could ever shock or horrify me.
“And, oh. Your new husband will not be returning for you. He has a few bullets with his name on them, courtesy of his very own brothers. That should help you get through tonight.”
His words sink in slowly, like poison seeping through my veins. This is really happening. I’m not just playing some sick dress-up game or trying to ward off the cold. I’m going to be forced to marry another man and sleep with him tonight.
The world tilts. My vision blurs, the edges of my sight darkening as my hands begin to tremble. My ears are ringing with the need to flee. My breath comes out in short, ragged gasps, and my legs feel like cooked noodles, threatening to buckle beneath me with every second. It’s like standing alone on the deck of a ship in a terrible storm with nothing to hold on to.
Unhelpfully, my mind decides it’s time to show me flashes of my immediate future—a faceless man’s hands groping me, forcing me—and bile rises in my throat.
Breathe, Addy. Just breathe.
I try to suck in a breath, but I can’t. The walls are closing in. My chest tightens, ribs straining under the constricting pressure of doom. And then Dante’s voice pierces through the fog, the same words he says every time he’s trapped me under him.
Don’t panic. You drown faster when you do.
I cling to them, and I force myself to take a breath—then another—until the room steadies and the tightness in my chest begins to ease.
I focus on the air filling my lungs, the way it cools the fire in my veins. Slowly, my vision clears, the dizziness recedes, and my hands stop shaking.
As if sensing that I’m on the verge of losing it, Benjamin switches his tone to the warm comforting one I remember from childhood—the same one he’d use to talk me down the ledge of panic before another surgery. It should be soothing, if only his next words didn’t completely shatter me.
