Page 19 of The Marriage Debt

“You didn’t think I deserved to know?” I push my plate away and fold my hands in my lap to keep from slamming them on the table.

“It changes nothing.”

“It changes everything for me.” My voice doesn’t rise, but every word feels sharp. “I’m the one whose name is on that petition. I’m the one they’re calling unstable.”

He picks up his glass and takes a drink without looking at me. “And if I told you, what would you have done? Panicked? Called your cousin? Made it worse?”

“I would’ve liked the chance to decide that for myself.” I'm so close to slapping him again, storming out. "You’re hiding things from me."

His eyes lift slowly from the rim of his glass. “I’m not hiding anything that matters.”

“You’re hiding everything,” I say. “You knew what they were doing before I did. You’re tracking my family. You’re burying things I might need to know, and now you’re sitting there like I’m supposed to thank you for it.”

He places the glass down gently, the sound dull against the tablecloth. “If you want to be protected, stop working against me.”

“I’m not one of your men.” Now I'm seething, slowly standing up and leaving my napkin on the half-eaten food.

“No,” he says, watching me closely. “You’re something more unpredictable than that.”

I cross my arms over my chest. “You don’t want a wife. You want a prisoner.”

He doesn’t flinch. “I never wanted a wife," he says coldly. "I want control. There’s a difference.”

I shake my head, too tired to keep my expression in place. “You think obedience is loyalty. It’s not.”

“I don’t need loyalty from you,” he says. “I need you to follow instructions.”

“And if I don’t?”

He shrugs slightly, not as a threat, but as a man who’s already considered every outcome. “Then don’t expect my help when they come.”

I open my mouth to answer, but Lev’s voice cuts through the silence from the other side of the hall.

“Mommy?” He's heard our shouting, something Anton was never shy about either. Lev looks scared, wide-eyed, hands trembling. He doesn’t look at Mateo. He walks straight to me and reaches for me to lift him up in my arms like he’s still three years old.

“Are you angry?” he says, arms around my neck. “I hear you shouting.”

"I'm okay, baby. I'm not angry with you." I smooth his hair, and he buries his face in my neck.

"Can I sleep with you?" he asks, and it's muffled by my hair. I glare at Mateo and blink back tears. I can’t lose my son. I won't. Not to my mother or this monster.

Mateo watches us. His expression doesn’t change. He stays still, unreadable, giving nothing away. It’s as if this moment isn’t his to understand. I stand with Lev still clinging to me. He wraps his legs around my waist, his arms tight at my shoulders, and holds me like he did every time he heard me and Anton arguing.

I don’t look at Mateo again. I carry Lev out of the dining room, up the stairs, and into my room. I lay him down gently and slide in beside him, keeping my arm wrapped around his small frame until his breathing evens out. It's very early for bedtime, but fear always makes him tired. It tires me too, but not as much as this rage I can't seem to quit.

Lev doesn’t ask if Mateo is going to hurt him like his father did. He's naive, too young to know the battle being waged for his future. He just presses himself into the warmth of my side like I’m the only thing in the world keeping him anchored.

It might be the other way around.

10

MATEO

Anton was more of an idiot than I ever imagined. Reckless and bold, he took risks no man in his position should ever take. He pissed off the wrong people, swindled someone or stole. I don't know for sure. Whatever he did, he tried to keep it quiet, and maybe his actions are invisible to me for now, but the Bianchis are well aware, which is why he's dead.

I stalk up the steps, pausing at Lev's door to see if I can hear Lila's voice. I usually hear her singing to him or talking quietly. Tonight when I stop and hold my breath for a second, all I hear is silence. It's soothing, though, the quiet, especially after the day I’ve had meeting with my legal team, uncovering more corruption Anton didn't disguise well. He's lucky Bianchi had him killed. The public prosecutor would have had him hanged for such obvious shit.

Oh my way down the hall toward my bedroom, I pause at Lila's door too. It's funny how a scent can permeate a whole house, like the smell of bacon early in the morning that wafts up to greet me and escort me down to the kitchen. Even outside Lila's door, I can smell her, floral and sweet, like flowers in spring after a thick rain. No woman has ever lived here since my mother, and I've never known the house to smell like anything other than dust and cigar smoke.

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