Page 50 of Savage Union
The answer should be simple. He killed my father. He forced me into this engagement. He controls every aspect of my life now.
But when I imagine him gone—Liam in his place, or worse, being passed around as a prize in the inevitable power struggle that would follow—my chest tightens painfully. Vito is cold, demanding, occasionally cruel, but there's an order to his world, a strange sense of security in his iron control. He hasn't hurt me physically. He's allowed me contact with my family. He even gave me a taste of freedom today, however brief.
And there are moments—rare, fleeting moments—when something passes between us that feels almost like understanding. Like recognition. Like we're two people shaped by the same harsh world, playing roles we never asked for but have learned to inhabit perfectly.
I turn onto my side, facing away from him, and close my eyes. The Irish are coming for him. Coming for me. Days, not weeks. And I have a choice to make.
Warn him and betray Liam, potentially trapping myself permanently in this gilded cage.
Or stay silent, let events unfold, and trade one cage for another—with no guarantee the next one will be any less confining.
I've spent my life caught between powerful men and their ambitions. My father. Vito. Liam. Each one seeing me as a means to an end, a piece to be played in their games of power.
Perhaps it's time I started playing my own game.
Sleep comes eventually, but my dreams are filled with blood and broken promises, and a pair of dark eyes that see too much.
CHAPTER 15
Rina
A sudden movementbeside me tears me from sleep. I blink in the darkness, disoriented for a moment until I remember where I am—Vito's bed, Vito's room, Vito's life that's slowly consuming mine.
Another jerk, more violent this time. I turn my head to see Vito's silhouette thrashing against the sheets, his breathing harsh and irregular. Moonlight filters through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting his face in silver and shadow. His expression—usually so composed, so controlled—is twisted in what can only be described as anguish.
A nightmare. The great Don Vittore Rosso has nightmares.
I lie perfectly still, watching him struggle against whatever demons haunt his dreams. This should please me, shouldn't it? To see him vulnerable, suffering. To know that beneath the cold, calculating exterior is a man capable of fear.
His arm flails out, nearly striking me before I shift away. I should leave the bed, maybe go sleep in my old room for the night. This isn't my problem. After everything he's done—killing my father, forcing me into this engagement, controlling my every move—why should I care if he can't sleep peacefully?
And yet, I don't move.
"No," he mutters, the word strangled and desperate. "Don't. Please."
Please? I've never heard that word from Vito's lips before. Not genuinely.
He thrashes again, his body rigid with tension. The sheet has slipped down to his waist, revealing the sculpted planes of his chest and the scars I've pretended not to notice—a jagged line across his right shoulder, a circular mark near his collarbone that can only be a bullet wound, smaller marks scattered like a constellation of past violence across his skin.
It would be so easy to kill him now. The thought comes unbidden, startling in its clarity. He's trapped in his nightmare, unaware of his surroundings. There must be a weapon somewhere in this room—a gun in the nightstand, perhaps, or something heavier I could use to strike his head. One moment of decisive action and it would be over. Vito Rosso, the terror of New York, the man who murdered my father and upended my life, gone by my hand.
But I know what would happen next. His men would find me here, covered in his blood. My life would be forfeit. My mother and sister would pay the price for my rebellion. And without Vito's protection, who knows what would become of them in the chaos that would follow?
No, far better to let the Irish handle it. Cleaner. Safer for everyone I care about. Just a few more days, according to Elena, and this will all be over one way or another.
"Father!" Vito cries out, his voice raw with an emotion I can't quite identify. Pain? Fear? Grief? "Stop, please. I'll do better."
The words send an unexpected chill through me. I know that plea, have uttered similar ones myself in moments I try to forget. The desperate bargaining of a child trying to appease an angry parent. Was Vito once that child?
He twists violently, sheets tangling around his legs as he fights an enemy only he can see. A thin sheen of sweat makes his skin gleam in the moonlight, his face contorted in a grimace that speaks of old pain, deep and unhealed.
This powerful, frightening man who commands respect with a single glance, who orders deaths as casually as others order coffee, is trapped in a nightmare where he seems helpless, young, afraid. The realization is jarring, forcing me to see him differently than I have before.
Not just the Don. Not just my captor. A man with a past, with scars both visible and hidden, with fears that chase him into the dark.
"No more," he murmurs, his voice choked. "Please... no more."
Something in his tone breaks through my detachment. Before I can question the impulse, I reach out, my hand hovering over his shoulder. I shouldn't touch him. He's made it clear how much he values personal space, how carefully he controls physical contact between us. But the raw anguish in his voice overrides my caution.
