Page 25 of Vow of Silence

I chance a look over my shoulder and note how she walks with her head down, gaze cast to the side at the flowerbeds that line the pathway. A storm brews behind those dull eyes, quiet and deadly.

A lot like me.

I slow my pace so she can catch up and hold my right hand toward her. She glances between the offer and my face, finally settling her warm palm against mine. I wrap my fingers around her hand and continue up the patio steps toward where our parents and family mingle.

It insulted me, at first, that Papa would marry me off like a goddamn commodity. He assumes I’m unable to find love on my own terms, but then I spent a while thinking about it when I should have been asleep. He chose the one woman he knows I risked it all for. He chose the woman for whom I paid the ultimate price.

If he’d wanted to insult me, he could have done it in far too many other ways.

As we reach the door, I cast my gaze down at the woman by my side. Her eyes fixate on the people behind the glass; the sound muted thanks to the thick, reinforced panes. Apprehension coats the downturn of those cherry lips, her brow slightly wrinkled between her eyebrows. Stas hasn’t spoken a word since we left the pergola—a mere few minutes ago—andalready I miss the sound of her voice. I can only imagine what it’s like for her to know she’ll never hear mine again.

I won’t be able to tell her I love her or whisper good morning in her ear as I wake her the best way possible: with bodies sweaty and entwined. I won’t be able to reassure her when she needs my strength, to speak up and defend her when the occasion calls for it.

I’ll never be able to teach our children to speak, should we get that far.

As I reach up and run my fingertip around the shell of her ear, I’m reminded of why I agreed to walk away all those years ago. Because the man I am now will never be the man she deserves.

I’ll never be enough.

A sigh slips through my lips as I turn my heated stare to the man responsible for my suffering. He registers our presence when I depress the door handle and usher Nastasya in before me, breaking his conversation to offer a smug smirk before raking his unwanted attention down her body.

I could kill the man where he stands if it weren’t for our shared last name.

“Here they are, the happy couple.” Uncle Naz’s words drip with contempt. “Sneaking around like forbidden lovers already.”

He fucking well knows I understand the innuendo in his words. I smash my shoulder against him as I walk past, Stas on my other arm. Papa frowns at the interaction, and I offer a dismissive shrug.An accident,I lie.

“Let’s not delay.” Mama claps her hands together, making my brothers rise from where they’d sat in discussion on a far sofa. “The chef has outdone himself tonight.”

We’re ushered into the dining room; Arseni gives me a long look before he walks ahead of his daughter. The wiry man’s lack of good graces has always rubbed me up the wrong way, butafter today, it has me ready to spit blood. His only child had her life threatened mere days ago, and here he is, making her act the part in his puppet show of power. I’m under no illusion that this union benefits him more than it does us, but my question is, what motivated him to pick now to instigate it?

“Boys, sit together.” Mama gestures for me and my brothers to take the far end of the table. “Arseni, have the seat opposite mine, beside Gennaro. Ignazio can sit at the far end to watch the children tonight.”

The clench of my uncle’s jaw must near split his fucking teeth. He pins my mother with a suffering scowl and then situates himself at the opposite end of the solid marble table to my father. I pull Nastasya’s chair out, placing myself between her and my uncle. To my frustration, Alessio sits opposite her, Dion facing my chair.

“Must rip your clenched asshole to have to sit with the kiddies,” Dion teases our uncle. He flicks his napkin into his lap, not bothering to spare the seething elder a glance.

“Somebody has to keep you assholes in line.”

I don’t need to look at Ignazio to know he delivered the line solely to me. He thinks what he did kept me loyal to him—to the family—but all he managed was to create the most dangerous enemy of all. My silence should never be mistaken for submission. Ever.

“Wouldn’t be so bad if there weren’t four empty seats between us and them.” Alessio glowers at our parents. “I don’t know why we have to sit down here like we’re fucking five.”

“Perhaps, so you don’t solicit your unwanted opinions in their discussions.” Dion leans back in his seat, arm slung over the back of our younger brother’s chair.

Alessio flicks his napkin at him, collecting Dion in the face.

Ignazio snatches it out of Dion’s grip before they can start a proper fight. “Perhaps if you didn’tactlike you’re fucking five, you wouldn’t get treated like children.”

“I apologize for my family’s lack of manners, Nastasya.” Dion smiles sweetly at my bride-to-be. “But there’s no point pretending to be anything other than what we are now that you’re one of us.”

“She’s not a De Santis yet,” Alessio snaps.

I slam my fist on the table to shut them both up. Stas takes me aback when she gently rests her hand atop mine.

“Perhaps I never will be.” She tilts her head and locks gazes with Ignazio. “They discuss the terms tonight, am I right?”

My uncle nods, hands tucked beneath his chin and elbows resting on the table. It’s a relaxed stance, yet he somehow manages to make it arrogant—just like him. The staff slips through the service door to table our first course.

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