Page 248 of Alessio

“Do. You. Understand. Me.”

Ginevra lifted her head, and met Kev’s stare from across the room. She felt her mother’s hand find hers on the couch, and grab tightly to keep her grounded. Right now, she just had to get through this day. They could figure out the rest later.

Surely.

“I understand,” Ginevra lied.

Lied, because no.

She would not marry someone chosen for her.

She wouldn’t do anything they wanted.

Kev’s gaze narrowed. “You know, I can see that fight in your eyes, Ginny. All of us Calabrese … it all looks the same, and I see it.”

Good.

She said nothing.

“But don’t worry,” Kev added, smiling in that cold way of his, “you will learn, and I will break you like I did the rest of them. Remember, you were warned.”

A cold chill slipped down Ginevra’s spine, but she refused to show her fear. Like her anger or heartbreak, her fear would make them think they had won, too. They didn’t deserve anything from her, not even the emotions in her heart.

It was only once her half-brothers had left Ginevra and her mother alone in the apartment—although, not before explaining they would have guards posted at the door to watch them—that her mother finally turned to her.

Teary eyed, Marie grabbed both of Ginevra’s hands as the wetness slipped down her cheeks. Usually, her mother was a ray of happiness. Always smiling, so strong, and never sad. Lately, it seemed like sad was all she knew how to be.

That broke her heart, too.

Ginevra dragged in a ragged breath, and for the first time, a tear streaked down her own cheek. She didn’t try to wipe it away, her mother’s hands keeping her from moving. Not that she cared, now. Her mother could see the emotion. It was them that couldn’t.

“It’s okay,” her mother whispered, nodding fast, “I promise it’ll be okay, Ginny.”

“It won’t.”

Marie shook her head. “It will. I will figure out a way to get you away from them, and this marriage. I will, I promise.”

“Ma, don’t—”

“They don’t scare me. It’ll be okay, Ginny.”

Except it wouldn’t.

It really wouldn’t.

It was the quiet whispers from the hallway that made Ginevra and her mother pull away from each other. A quick check over her shoulder confirmed what she figured, her seventeen and fifteen-year-old sisters waiting at the end of the hallway, standing close together like they were the only things keeping each other up at the moment.

They probably were.

“It’s okay,” Ginevra whispered to her sisters, seeing the tears in their eyes. This was not their life, either. This wasn’t what they knew, or how they expected to be treated. They shouldn’t have to watch their new half-brothers force their sister into a marriage she didn’t want with a stranger, but this was their new reality. And it was terrifying. “Greta, Giulia, it’s okay, I promise.”

It would have to be.

For them, for her mama … she was going to have to be strong. Because if not her, then would Kev or Darren go for them next?

Ginevra couldn’t safely say no.

That left her to keep them safe.