Page 14 of Savage Union
My heart hammers against my ribs, but I stand my ground. "I belong to no one."
"Keep telling yourself that." His words echo Dante's from earlier. "But the sooner you accept reality, the easier this will be."
"I create my own reality."
His laugh is low, almost intimate. "Such fire. Perhaps that's why the Commission chose you."
"The Commission didn't choose me. You did."
Something shifts in his expression. "Is that what you think?"
"Isn't it true?"
He studies me for a long moment. "Go change. We're having dinner with guests tonight."
"Guests?" The abrupt subject change throws me. "I'm not playing happy fiancée for your friends."
"They're not my friends. They're business associates." He's already walking toward his office. "Wear the red dress in your closet. We leave in an hour."
"And if I refuse?"
He pauses, looking back with those cold, calculating eyes. "Don't push me, Caterina. Not tonight."
There's something in his voice—not just threat, but something almost like... concern? Before I can analyze it, he's disappeared into his office, leaving me alone with the unsettling feeling that there are currents moving beneath this situation that I don't yet understand.
And if I want to survive—if I want my family to survive—I need to start swimming with the tide while I figure out how to control the ocean.
CHAPTER 4
Rina
My head poundswith each precise click of Vito's Italian leather shoes against the marble floor. We've been back in the penthouse for less than five minutes, and he hasn't spoken a word since we left the restaurant. The silence is worse than shouting.
"Go to your room," he finally says, voice controlled but barely containing the rage simmering beneath.
"Gladly." I kick off the ridiculous heels I'd been forced to wear with the red dress. They skitter across the polished floor, landing at odd angles that would normally drive him insane. Tonight, he doesn't even flinch.
That's how I know I've truly fucked up.
I make it halfway up the stairs before he speaks again. "We'll discuss your behavior in the morning."
"Can't wait," I mutter, not turning around.
I slam my bedroom door hard enough to rattle the frame, then press my back against it, sliding down until I hit the floor. The dress bunches around me, a pool of crimson silk that matches the absolute bloodbath of a dinner we just endured.
What was I thinking? The Commission members were exactly as terrifying as I'd imagined—old men with dead eyes who've ordered more hits than most people order coffee. Yet there I was, challenging Vito's authority, questioning decisions, refusing to play the adoring fiancée.
"You have a death wish, Caterina," I whisper to myself, pressing the heels of my hands against my eyes.
I don't know how long I sit there before exhaustion drives me to change. I hang up the dress—it costs more than a semester of college tuition—and pull on the softest pajamas I can find. Sleep evades me, though. Every time I close my eyes, I see Vito's face as Carlo Bianchi asked if I was "properly trained yet." The way his jaw tightened when I laughed and said no man could train me. The dangerous stillness that settled over him when I deliberately knocked over my wine glass, staining the pristine tablecloth.
By morning, I've convinced myself Vito might actually kill me after all.
I wake to the sound of voices in the hallway. One is Vito's—controlled and commanding as always. The other is familiar from yesterday—Dante. I press my ear to the door.
"The situation at the pier requires my personal attention," Vito is saying.
"Understood, boss," Dante replies.
