Page 17 of All the Dangerous Things

I knew what she was doing now. She wanted me to remember how it had been. Didn’t she know I’d never forget? The memory of my father was etched into my skin. Literally.

I closed my eyes and rubbed them. I had promised my sisters I’d never be like our father. Itold them I’d never treat them the way he treated us. I’d never use them as pawns for my or the Cosa Nostra’s gain.

When I exhaled roughly, I felt my expression falter. Claudia sighed in return and sat down in the chair across from me.

“Please,fratellone. You cannot force me to marry somebody I don’t love, somebody I don’t want to.”

I kept quiet, thinking about this entire situation, which only had Claudia's face turning red with her anger. But she was strong, my baby sister, and didn’t let her tears fall. She tipped her chin up and pulled her shoulders back, glaring at me with so much animosity that I felt it.

I smirked. “So stubborn and strong,” I murmured and rubbed my eyes again. “Just like Amara.” I exhaled, feeling the weight of…everythingon my shoulders. “I don’t want to,sorellina, but I’m being pressured from the higher-ups. They want another alliance. They want security.” I rested my head on the back of the chair and stared at the ceiling. The sound of the fire crackling should have been relaxing. Instead, it irritated the fuck out of me.

I looked at Claudia to see her shaking her head at her lap. “Let them pawn off one oftheirdaughters.”

“Claudia.” I kept my tone soft. “Look at me.”

It was a second before she looked up at me, but when she did, I sure as fuck felt her wrath like bullets shooting from her blue eyes.

“I’m not Father. And Ineverfucking will be.” I let those words hang in the air between us for a moment. “I would never arrange for you to marry a bastard, someone who’d lay hands on you, or would treat you like shit. I’d put a bullet in his head before I allowed that to happen.”

She said nothing, but her throat worked as she swallowed.

“You’ll get a final say on who it is. If you don’t like him, he’s fucking out. But you know this has to be done. It’s the world we live in, Claudia. It’ll offeryouprotection too. Things are becoming increasingly volatile between the Irish and the Triad. If something were to happen to me…” I cut those words off as I clenched my teeth again and glanced away. “We know the men in our world have short lifespans.”

I stared at her again. I had my wall erected around me—like I always did—but I could see Claudia was trying to work through it. My body was beaten and tired, but all I did was sit there, the weight of the world suffocating me.

Fuck, I knew how I looked right now. My hairwas a wreck after running my fingers through it constantly. I’d just gotten into a brawl hours before and hadn’t bothered changing out of my white button-down shirt that was wrinkled as fuck and stained with blood from the other man.

I noticed Claudia looking at my hands as I drummed my fingers on the desktop. I stared down at the old scabs littering my knuckles and the fresh wounds from tonight.

And when she exhaled and that rage slowly dissipated, I knew she’d listen.

“I have some men who I’ve handpicked. Although I don’t know them personally, they are the best choices of available bachelors.”

She grimaced.

I chuckled softly, knowing exactly what she was thinking. “And no, they’re not decrepit. Older than you, yes, but reasonably aged.”

“I already told you I don’t want to do this.”

I didn’t respond, just kept thrumming my fingers, and stared at her.

“I could just leave, Gio. I could take my inheritance and go.”

“You know you don’t have access to that until you’re twenty-one.”

She clenched her teeth but was smartenough to keep her mouth shut. I was so not in the fucking mood right now.

But then she caved to her desire to argue. “Father set it up. He’s been dead for five years. You’re in charge now. You can release those funds to me. Let me leave. I can change my name and move to a new city.”

I stared at her, feeling a prickling at the back of my neck. There was more going on than what was on the surface.

But I didn't pick that apart right now and focused on the task at hand.

“Claudia, even if I had the power to release your funds—which I don’t because they’re locked in legally—where would you go? You would have to change every aspect of the life you once knew. You would have to pretend to be someone else for the rest of your life.”

I could see on her face that she was mulling over my words.

“You’d never be able to see us again. Never be able to talk to me or Amara. You could never come home.” I leaned forward and rested my elbows on the desk, a fierce expression on my face because I wanted to drill this home.

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