Page 34 of The Marriage Contract

I wave her off. “It wasn’t that bad. I was just being dramatic.”

“Wearein a theater,” she says, smiling.

She walks down the stage steps, then moves to the back of the theater and out the door into the hallway. I sit on the stage, letting my legs dangle as I look across all the empty seats. In the future, once this deal is done and I’ve got enough money so that I don’t have to work second jobs, at least for a while, I’ll be able to start my career for real. I’ll be able to fill these seats. I’ll be able to bow after a performance and soak in the crowd’s applause. I’ll be able to dedicate myself to my art.

That’s enough motivation to feel okay about ending this fake relationship. It has to be. Yet, annoyingly, it feels like I’m lying to myself. I guess I should just be grateful I’m not well-known enough for any of the Morettis to recognize me and ruin the game.

I narrow my eyes as a small canister smashes through one of the windows and slides across the floor with ascrapingnoise. It’s so surreal that I wonder if this is some elaborate way for Maria to continue the scenario game.

Bang.

My vision erupts in a blinding haze of white, my eyesight blurring. There’s anotherbangthat makes the inside of my skull feel like it’s tearing apart. I turn, crawling. I can hear voices shouting. Is that a gunshot?

I keep crawling, panic driving me. Tears stream down my cheeks as my vision slowly clears. Smoke fills the room. I can’t seewhere I’m going, but I keep moving forward. I sob and distantly hate the sound of the sobbing. I hate how weak it is.

What the hell’s going on?

I scramble behind the curtains. I can feel my heart beating in my throat, trying to choke me, closing off my airwaves. My head is light. I’ve experienced nothing even remotely close to this. I want to scream, but my throat is too tight.

Slowly, I climb to my feet. My head feels heavy as if it will tip me over, so I sidestep to keep my balance. Somehow, I’ve doubled back on myself. I thought I was heading toward the changing rooms, but I’m standing on the stage again.

Men run up onto the stage, big and burly, with guns. I can’t distinguish their features through the smoke and my streaming vision, but I see their shapes. It must be the security detail. They’re going to take me home: no, not home but to Dario—my Dario. In the mayhem,my Dariodoesn’t seem like an impossible phrase.

“Hey, I’m over here!” I yell, then start choking on the smoke.

The men rush toward me. At the last moment, I realize my mistake.

The man in front raises his pistol and aims it at me. “Time to go, slut.”

Feeling pathetic and useless, I burst into tears.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

DARIO

“Don’t start a war?”I roar down the phone at my father on speaker as I speed through the city, my hands tight on the steering wheel, blood boiling through my body like a call to violence. “Are you fucking joking? The Romanos attacked Mother and my fiancée. Theytook her, and you want me to be calm?”

“Your mother is safe. The men got her out.”

“And they left Elena!”

“They didn’t leave her,” my father says as I speed around the corner to the theater. The police are already here, a cordon out front, which means I’m too damn late to get any information. I’m unsure what I will find, but not Elena, the one thing Ineed. This can’t be happening. “They tried to rescue her, too, but the Romanos had already taken her by the time they arrived. They didn’t abandon her, son.”

“Do you think that makes any of this better?” I bellow, then hang up and call Allessio. “What’ve you got?”

“No activity at their safe house on the docks, Dario,” he says. “I’m going to check their warehouse in the industrial district now.”

“Good.”

I hang up again, then call Paolo. “Anything on the financial records? They had to plan where to take her to pull a stunt like this. Somewhere new, possibly. Somewhere they think we won’t know about.”

“I’m on it. I’ve narrowed it down to five possibilities already.”

“Keep narrowing,” I growl, then hang up and call Rocco.

“Boss,” he says.

“Four cars outside Elena’s aunt’s apartment at all times. If her friend goes anywhere, you follow. Let me make something clear, Rocco. Ifanythinghappens to either of those women, I will feed you every one of your teeth. Do you understand?”

---