Page 40 of The Forbidden Husband

“Ms. Aria, please tell me more about yourself now that you’re married to my nephew.”

I bit my lip and nodded. “What would you like to know?”

He chuckled. “We learned that you graduated from law school with exceptional marks. Why did you go to law school? What are your plans moving forward?”

That wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have. “I just really like learning. Law school seemed like the best option given the life we live.”

Giovanni nodded, crossing his fingers as he rested his palms on the table.

“And you intend to utilize the degree, I assume?”

It surprised me to see his eyes full of genuine curiosity. No malicious anticipation or manipulation as I had grown to expect in my own upbringing.

“I don’t have any plans yet. I need to take the bar exam first.”

“If you had adequate time to study, would you pass it?”

I nodded. “Probably so.”

Definitely, I wanted to tell him. I had all the textbooks memorized from cover to cover. I knew the examples of every case. I knew all of it, and there wasn’t a single question they could ask that I wouldn’t anticipate.

My pocket vibrated lightly, and I took a deep breath, sitting up straighter.

“I need to wash up and use the ladies' room before the first course,” I told him, pulling the napkin from my lap and standing with a smile. Enzo grazed my hip with a hand, and I offered him a small smile in turn.

Could he see my anxiety and anticipation? Could he feel the way I didn’t want to go to the bathroom or give my father anything significant?

When I reached the hallway toward the restrooms, I veered inside and locked the door behind me, pulling my burner phone from my pocket. I didn’t bother waiting before dialing my father’s number with a deep breath.

He answered, and when I heard his voice, my body didn’t stiffen and turn into a puddle of fear as it always had in the past. I didn’t know why. Nothing had truly changed. He still owned me, and he still had the leverage to keep me from misbehaving. He had all the power.

But his voice didn’t draw up the same level of fear as it had mere weeks before.

“Calling is a risk that you should know better than to take,” he chastised immediately.

“It’s one we need to take.”

He sighed as if my call was somehow inconveniencing him. It was always the small shows of power that he preferred. It didn’t matter what I was sacrificing by being here for him. I was just another employee to him.

“What is it?”

“We have to call this off.”

He busted out laughing, and I clenched my jaw. “I knew you were impressionable, but I never took you as stupid, Aria. This isn’t something that can be called off. There are too many parts in motion here. Too many things are contingent on you doing your fucking job. Are you telling me you can no longer do your job, Aria?”

The threat was palpable and unspoken.

“They have five times the numbers we think they have. They have a foothold in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Brooklyn. They have business alliances in every subset of the city. Your territory. The Russians’ territory. All of it. We have to call it off because if you pose a genuine threat, they will destroy us. It won’t even be a war. They’ll eliminate us immediately.”

“Where the hell are you getting this information?”

“From Enzo.”

“Oh, Enzo,” he said with a malicious lilt to his tone. “You’re fucking him for information, I assume?”

I felt the flush creep up my cheeks. “The information I received is solid.”

“Fuck,” he shouted, and something shattered on the other side of the line. I couldn’t tell what was happening, but when he spoke again, a hard impatience filled his tone. “Tell me about the forces he has in our territory.”

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