Page 56 of Malevolent King

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SOFIA

My room in Casa Nera sat on the third floor, isolated along a dark hallway. I’d always enjoyed the seclusion of my room. It sat at the end of the building and was round. A turret room for a Mafia princess who had one too many dragons guarding the gates.

I paced inside the darkly furnished room. I had never been allowed to change anything about it as a child, so while other girls were leaning into their rainbow unicorn phases, I was lighting candles on the walls beside dark oil paintings depicting naked bodies writhing in pain or pleasure, it was hard to tell.

A huge four-poster bed dominated the center, and heavy red velvet drapes hung at the corners. I still pulled them at night. The insides held a secret. Once, when I’d been scared in my cavernous, creepy room, my mother had sewed small luminescent stars inside the material, safe from Antonio’s judgmental eyes. Once I was in bed, with the curtains pulled, I drifted high among the stars, and my mother’s memory stayed there, by my side. It was the only place I felt close to her anymore. In a way, I was glad her memory had faded from the walls of Casa Nera, considering the dark deeds that were contained within and the procession of women my father had paraded through, the last one not much older than me.

I stopped, catching my reflection in the dark carved dressing table along one wall. My face stared back. I looked haunted, and I was, by the man downstairs. It was my luck that instead of being haunted by a ghost, I was haunted by a demon who was very much alive. Alive andhurt.Now I was pacing to fight the impulse I had to creep downstairs and free him. My father would murder me if I did.

Tearing my eyes away from my reflection, I flopped on my bed with Silvio’s words going around and around in my head. He was hotheaded and full of vengeance. If I wasn’t careful, Nikolai Chernov would never leave this house alive. It shouldn’t upset me as much as it did.

I still tingled from the memory of Nikolai’s eyes on me in the basement earlier. It had been all I could do not to scream at the first bloodied sight of him. He had cracked jokes and grinned at me, his face a bloody mask. Niko was a man who laughed during torture and held death with a warm embrace. He was also the man who had resigned himself to being tortured to save my life. No one had ever sacrificed like that for me except my brother, but the two couldn’t be compared. My father would never hurt his heir too badly, while Nikolai Chernov? He was fair game, and my father was a vicious person.

A soft knock at the door sent me bolting upright, nerves springing to life in my belly. Angelo was off for the night since I was safely back in my room. My father didn’t worry about my safety at home or anywhere inside Casa Nera. He had no idea about Silvio and his lecherous intentions.

“Sofia, are you decent?”

I was both relieved and apprehensive at the sound of my father’s voice.

‘Yes, Papa,” I called.

I stood and dutifully smoothed my hair as my father unlocked my door. Yes, that’s right, I could lock it with a key, but my father had a copy. There was nowhere to hide from Antonio inside his own house.

He pushed the door open and entered.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing, I just came to talk,” he said.

Of course, there had to be something the matter, seeing as I could count on one hand the number of times my father had been in my room.

His gaze slowly traveled over me. I could read the disapproval from here.He wandered to a photo on the wall. In it, my mother, Leonora, beamed at the camera, pregnant and joyful, her hand protectively over her swollen belly. Renato had the same one in his room.

“You know, she’d want to see you married by now, Sofia,” Antonio said heavily.

My stomach lurched. What fresh hell was this now? “I’m only twenty-two.”

Antonio shot me a look and my words deserted me.“So was she when she had Renato. Already married and out of her parents’ house. Already benefitting the family.”

I swallowed, knowing he wasn’t looking for a response.

“She understood her duty, even if she failed to be responsible for her children.”

“She hardly meant to get ill,” I pointed out, knowing it was futile, yet unable to listen to him talk disparagingly about my mother.

“She was weak,” Antonio muttered, and cast me a sideways look. “So far, you’re proving to be stronger. You were smart to help catch Nikolai. I was proud of you.”

Something twisted and horrible moved through me. I felt like crying bitter tears for a second.“So, that’s what it takes to make you proud? Dragging a man back here to pull pieces from?” I heard myself ask before I could stop it.

Antonio’s eyes narrowed. “Be careful you don’t show too much compassion for a prisoner. A rival from another family, no less. Compassion is a weakness that must be cut out before it rots the entirefamiglia. This is why you need to start a family. A woman shouldn’t live too long at home. She needs to make her own way.”

He wandered into the middle of the room, and something about his look sent gooseflesh dimpling across my skin. I knew before he spoke what he was going to say.

“I’ve arranged a match for you. Your fiancé is Vincenzo Moroni, of the Sicilian Moroni family of New York. Even despite the problems, I’ve still secured you a don.” He had the nerve to look proud of himself.

“A fiancé. Just like that?” I wrapped my arms around my cold chest as though it might keep my panic inside. It didn’t work.

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