Page 10 of Bound in Ruin

"You are my fiancée, Rosalia, and this is my house," Dominic replies, his tone taking on a dangerously calm, unyielding register. He steps into the bedroom, completely ignoring my protest as he tosses his jacket onto a chair. "You sleep here."

"I said no!" My chest heaves with furious, burning rage.

It is happening all over again. Another room, another fortress, another arrogant man standing over me and deciding where I belong without my consent. I spent a decade being told where to sleep, where to stand, and how to breathe by a man who claimed he owned me, and I would rather rot in a cell than immediately surrender to another master.

"I don't care what deal you made with my father," I spit out, stepping right into his path, refusing to back down an inch. "You don't get to order me around, and you damn sure don't get to dictate where I put my head at night!"

Dominic stops, towering over me, his hard dark eyes narrowing as he looks down into my furious face. He doesn't soften the order. He doesn't offer a single comforting lie.

"You're in my world now, sweetheart," he murmurs, his voice smooth, dark, and utterly immovable. "And in my world, you stay where I can see you."

I open my mouth to tear into him, to scream at him until my lungs burn, but Dominic cuts me off before a single word can escape my lips.

"You either do this the easy way or the hard way," he says, his voice flat, dangerously calm, and entirely devoid of patience. "But the end result is the exact same. You sleep here."

He doesn't wait for a response. Turning his back on me, he walks over to the heavy mahogany dresser, picks up the crystal decanter, and pours two fingers of amber bourbon into a heavy glass. He knocks the drink back in a single, smooth motion, the ice clinking softly against the glass as he sets it down.

"I'll give you some time to adjust," he murmurs, shooting me one last, unreadable look from those hard, dark eyes.

Without another word, he turns and walks out of the suite, closing the heavy oak doors with a quiet, decisive click that echoes through the silence.

The moment the lock engages, the remaining strength drains out of my legs. My knees give way, and I crumple backward onto the edge of the plush, king-sized bed, burying my face in my hands as the suffocating weight of my reality crashes down on me all over again.

CHAPTER THREE

DOMINIC

I leave Rosalia upstairs in my suite, her sharp, defiant voice still ringing in my ears, and head straight down the quiet corridor to my study.

Keane is already inside, standing near the floor-to-ceiling windows with his hands loosely clasped behind his back. The moment I push the double doors open, he turns, his sharp green eyes instantly tracking the mood rolling off me.

I don't say a word as I cross the room and lower myself into the heavy leather armchair behind my mahogany desk, leaning back to look at him.

"The wedding needs to happen immediately," I say, my voice cutting straight through the quiet room.

Keane doesn't even blink. He leans his hip against the edge of the desk, his expression strictly professional. "How soon are we talking?"

"Tomorrow," I reply flatly.

A low, amused chuckle escapes Keane's throat. "You’re going to make a hell of a lot of people mad with that one, Boss. Massimo is expecting a spectacle, and the DeLorenzos are still trying to figure out how you pulled this off."

My dark eyes narrow into a dangerous glare. "Do I look like I give a single fuck about making them mad?"

"Not in the slightest," Keane admits smoothly.

"There's no point in dragging this out or throwing some grand, pathetic spectacle," I growl, resting my forearms on the desk. "Everyone in this city knows this isn't a union of love. I'm not wasting time playing happy couple for the syndicate. We get the vows done, we make the paperwork official, and we get straight to the business part of it."

Keane falls silent for a moment, studying my rigid posture. Then he tilts his head, his tone dropping into something far more quiet.

"Are you planning on telling Rosalia the truth?" he asks softly. "About why you actually took her out from under her father's thumb?"

I look directly at him, my eyes entirely devoid of warmth, emotion, or compromise.

"No."

Keane sighs, running a hand over his close-cropped hair, but he nods in resignation. "I’ll make the preparations for the ceremony tomorrow. But before I get to that... our men caught Harold Sinclair."

Adrenaline sings in my blood, sharp and hot. "Where is he?"