Page 68 of A Beautiful Crime

All we are our marionettes.

Even myself, papa my very own puppeteer.

And Constantine promises me with pretty words of being his Queen but words are lies until proven to be true by action.

I’m only someone else’s marionette, except my strings are to be controlled and manipulated by a different master.

From one gilded cage to another.

Will I ever experience life with no strings?

“We made a deal, Donati,” papa reminds him harshly.

I feel Constantine shrug his shoulder. “A deal with no contract and no signature. Tell me, Savio, do you handle all your business with this amount of incompetence? Are you really this dense?”

He forces my papa’s word down his throat and forces him to eat it.

If he were anyone else there would already be a bullet placed between his eyes.

Papa breathes through his nose. “I thought you were a man of your word. A man of honor like your papa.”

Papa wouldn’t be able to notice it, and I wouldn’t have either if I wasn’t plastered against him. But Constantine stiffens against me, if only for less than a second.

“How do you think I’ve earned my name? Because I’m a man of my word?”

Papa shakes his head in frustration and his eyes show disgust. “You truly are the devil.”

“Si, I am,” he says proudly. “Now agree to my demands, Savio, or this arrangement is over before it even begins.”

I see the defeat in papa’s eyes. As much power he has as a Don he will never be as powerful as Constantine. And to wound his own pride he needs the allegiance with The Donati Famiglia . Otherwise everything he’s built will come crashing down around him.

“I agree,” papa mutters.

“Louder, Savio. I’m afraid I can't hear you.” There’s a cruel pleasure in his voice.

Papa pinches his nose between his fingers before sitting up straight in his chair. “I agree,” he repeats louder this time.

“You forgot something.”

“What?” Papa asks in exasperation.

“To thank my fiancé. Thank her, Savio. Thank her for saving your Famiglia .”

I’ve never wondered before if papa had ever truly hated me, but at this moment, I feel that he does.

Being forced to thank his daughter, a woman, for saving his empire.

He’s punishing me in his mind, I just know it.

“Thank you, Carina.” Except there isn’t an ounce of gratitude in his words at all. I expect it, of course. How could I not? This is a man, after all, who not only abuses me, but gives his son permission to do so as well.

As Constantine positions me back to his side to then lead us out of my papa’s office, for what may be the last time, a heavy feeling resides inside my chest.

With each step we take down the long corridor it only intensifies.

The heavy feeling spreads like a virus. Infecting all that I am until slowly I recognize what it is I’m feeling.

Pietro greets me with a charming grin as he opens my door. I’m so lost in what I’m feeling that I don’t even acknowledge him. I can’t. I ignore everything and everyone around me.

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