Page 169 of Captivated

Well, them … and Joe.

At the head of the table, her uncle stood with a smile as his gaze landed on her. “Liliana, we are all so very proud of you for what you’ve been able to do, and what you are yet to do. And we certainly can’t wait to see where you go from here.”

Her father raised his own glass, and the rest of the table followed suit.

“To a Marcello principessa,” her father murmured. “To one of mine.”

“Principessa,” the word echoed from several voices.

To her, being a mafia princess had never really felt like the weight around her throat that some liked to claim it to be. No, to her, being in this family was all she had ever known, and she was grateful for them.

Sure, they could be a little overbearing, and a touch too loud. Oh, they didn’t know how to mind their own business, and they could bicker like nobody’s business, too. But that was also family.

And all they ever gave to her was unconditional love, and a constant flow of adoration and support. Who could say they had all of that?

Because she could.

And she loved them for it.

She always would.

This was the moment Liliana had once loved the most about ballet. When the curtains closed, and the applause roared. When she bowed with the rest of the dancers, and she could hear thousands of feet rising from their seats. When the lights became brighter, and she could truly appreciate just how out of breath she actually was.

These were those moments.

Instead of feeling what she used to feel, all Liliana could bring forth was a sense of … completion.

Not even resignation, or sadness.

That heaviness was gone, too.

There was no weight around her neck, and no wishing to find something she used to have when she put on her pointe shoes, and moved like air. There was no rush of adrenaline in every fast beat of her heart, and gone was the longing to get it back.

It just felt done.

Liliana didn’t have time to think on it for long because the curtain was pulling open again, and the dancers were stepping forward. Her arms were linked with the two women on either side of her, both dressed in similar pearl-white costumes with their hair slicked back into tight buns, and their faces painted identically.

Yet, she knew her family would be able to pick her out easily.

She found them in the front row easily enough. Her mother sitting beside her father, and the trail of her siblings next to them. Just behind their row sat her uncles, aunts, and the rest who had been able to come.

But it wasn’t all of them her gaze was drawn to. It wasn’t them who made a tangible, visceral clenching sensation start to grab at her chest, and her stomach.

It wasn’t their gazes who met hers, and pinned her in place even as the dancers moved to bow again.

It wasn’t them.

Because it was him.

Joe.

Then, her heart jumped.

And stopped.

Joe grinned in that way of his—something she found he liked to save just for her. A simple tilt of the edge of his lips that spoke of sin, love, and darkness. It made her hands tremble, and her knees weak.

He raised his hand a bit to wave two fingers at her, and winked, too.