Page 98 of A Bossy Proposal

“I know, but Mancini is Italian…and it feels like I’m asking a wolf to protect me from the bear,” she murmurs.

I reach out, tilting her chin up so our eyes meet. “I’ll have someone check him out before we talk to him.”

Her gaze softens before she says, “What if he refuses?”

I take a deep breath, steadying myself before answering. “Then we figure something else out together. But you have to try.”

“Okay.” I see that familiar flicker of determination spark back into her expression. It’s fleeting, like a flame igniting under the right conditions, then caught by the wind again.

“I need to do this,” she says finally, conviction building in her voice once more. “I can’t let my past define me.”

“Exactly,” I reply, my heart swelling with pride at her resilience.

“You have.”

“Sorry?” I reply.

“You’ve let your past define you.”

“About that,” I start, my voice low and serious. “If we’re moving on together, I have to tell you about her, Annika. But not just her, what happened to me when I was younger. How it defined me.”

She tilts her head, waiting for me to continue.

I take a deep breath, steeling myself for the confession. “I met her at the Omerta Academy.”

Amelia’s eyebrows raise, but she remains silent, encouraging me to go on.

“She was Russian, and her name was Annika. We were together for a year, but...” I pause. “She ended it because she had an arranged marriage to a Russian man. It broke Dom for years. Not me. You see, I was kidnapped when I was a young boy.”

“Kidnapped?” she whispers.

“I was eight,” I say, my voice growing distant as the memories surface. “A man grabbed me from outside our home. And he held me in a basement for five days.”

Amelia’s hand finds mine, squeezing gently.

“The bastard kept me tied to a chair, barely fed me. He’d call my father, making threats, demanding ten million dollars.” I clench my jaw. The fear from those days is still raw. “I remember the cold concrete floor, the smell of mold, his voice. Which was always angry, always threatening to kill me if my father didn’t pay.”

“Your father paid?” Amelia asks softly.

“Immediately. Didn’t even try to negotiate.” I run my thumb over her knuckles. “When he came to make the drop, the kidnapper got cocky. Started waving his gun around, bragging about how easy it was to take me and told him he wanted more money.”

“What happened?”

“My father shot him. Claimed self-defense when the police arrived.” I let out a hollow laugh. “Nobody questioned it. Rich man protecting his son—case closed.”

Amelia shifts closer, resting her head on my shoulder. “Your father must love you very much. To pay without hesitation like that. To kill him without hesitation.”

“Maybe.” I pause, considering her words. “Or perhaps he couldn’t stand the idea of looking weak. With my father, it’s hard to tell where love ends and pride begins.”

The warmth of her body against mine anchors me to the present, away from those dark memories of the basement.

“That’s why I struggle with him now,” I admit. “Everything’s about control with him. Even love comes with conditions. He’s never let me forget what he did for me. And the reason I used to pull back from…love. You never know when it’ll change.”

Amelia’s hand finds mine.

“Annika got closer than anyone, but I felt safe because of Dom. But after Annika left without a second thought, leaving Dom broken hearted,” I swallow. “I knew I never wanted to get involved with anyone again. That’s why I watched others at Club Elysium. It was my fix. It was safer that way.”

“Safer to not love?”

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