Page 27 of The Kingpin’s Bride

Santino studied me the way he used to when I was younger, and still learning how to hide the sharper edges. Whatever he saw made his expression shift into something closer to understanding, and quieter concern. He set his cup down on the low wall.

“Then do it cleanly,” he said. “And Matteo.”

He waited until I looked at him again. “Don’t lie to yourself about what you’re taking. Girls like that don’t come without cost. They come with ghosts. With histories. With the kind of damage that doesn’t stay quiet just because you put a ring on it. Make sure you’re willing to pay for it. All of it. Because once you claim her in front of the Families, there is no putting her back.”

I nodded once. The coffee had gone lukewarm in my hands.

Inside the house, Aurora called our names. The girls’ voices rose in a chorus behind her, high and insistent. Santino put a hand on my shoulder, brief and solid, the same weight he had used when words had not been enough. Then he turned back toward the light and the noise and the life he had built. I followed him in.

The decision sat in my chest like a stone that had finally found its place at the bottom of the river. Heavy. Settled. Impossible to ignore.

Three weeks.

Aurora met us in the hallway with the youngest, Selena, on her hip. The little girl reached for Santino immediately, small hands opening and closing like she knew exactly where she belonged. He took her without hesitation, pressing a kiss to the top of her dark hair while the other three swarmed around his legs again, talking over one another in the particular chaos only children could create. Francesca was trying to climb his other leg. Angelica held up a new crushed flower like an offering. Elisa refused to let go of his calf. The baby girl was tucked safely against his chest, content. Trust the most terrifying man I knew to have all daughters. And he spoiled them rotten like princesses.

I stayed near the door.

My sister’s eyes found mine over the top of her daughter’s head. She didn’t ask questions. She never did when the answers were the kind that stained. Instead she simply studied my face the way she had when we were younger and I thought I could hide everything from her. The same quiet assessment. The same refusal to look away.

“Stay for dessert,” she said.

“I can’t.”

She nodded once, accepting it without argument. “Then don’t be a stranger. The girls ask about you. Francesca tells people her uncle is the tallest man in the world.”

I looked at the four of them, Francesca halfway up Santino’s side, Angelica solemnly presenting her ruined flower, Elisa clinging like a limpet, Selena safe against his chest, and felt something cold and distant settle behind my ribs.

This was the life Santino had built after the blood. Soft edges. Loud rooms. Children who had never watched a man die on a restaurant floor. Children who would never know the particular silence that followed a clean kill.

It was not the life I was choosing.

I left before the feeling could turn into something I didn’t want to name.

The drive back into the city was quiet. The sky had gone the deep blue that came just before full dark, the kind of blue that made the city lights look sharper. I kept both hands on the wheel and let the plan settle into its new shape.

Three weeks until the auction. Three weeks to make certain Dario stayed exactly where I had put him, bleeding, terrified, and obedient. Three weeks to ensure every man who might raise a paddle against me understood the cost of competing. Three weeks to watch her dance under those lights.

I did not go straight to the penthouse. I drove to After Dark instead.

The club was open, the early crowd thinning the main floor with quiet money and quieter hunger. Men in expensive suits who never even looked at the dancers’ faces. Women who came to watch other women be looked at. The usual.

I took the private stairs up to the security office without announcing myself. The man on duty straightened the second he saw me, spine going rigid the way they all did. I didn’t bother with names.

“Show me the feeds from the secondary stage. Live.”

He pulled them up without a word. Multiple angles. The secondary stage under its usual wash of blue and gold light. The small crowd gathering near the front. Morena was on.

The same emptied-out grace she wore every night now. She moved like someone who had accepted the ending, every turn precise, every extension of her arms deliberate and hollow. Her eyes stayed down. Her hands trembled only once, when she lifted them above her head and the stage lights caught the faint red marks circling her throat from the night before. The marks Dario had left. The marks I had stopped him from making worse.

I watched until the set ended.

She collected the tips with the same blank face she always wore now, fingers quick and efficient, never lingering. Then she disappeared toward the staff hallway without looking at the crowd. Dario was not waiting. Good. He had learned at least that much.

The feed showed the empty stage for a few seconds before the next dancer stepped into the light. I left the office without a word and took the stairs back down.

The shadowed column near the back of the main floor was empty. I claimed it, ordered a whiskey, and stayed until her last set was finished. The glass sat untouched on the small table beside me. Condensation ran down the sides.

I watched Rena the way I had watched her for weeks, silent, patient, certain of the outcome. She never looked for me. She no longer needed to. The weight of my attention had become part of the air she breathed in this place. I could see it in the way she held her shoulders, the way she never quite let the performance reach her pretty blue eyes.