Page 8 of Brutal Union
Remaining daughter. My sister is all he has left now to trade. And he'll keep her safe by sacrificing me completely.
"I'm Valentina Rosetti now," I say, testing the words. They burn my tongue. "Your wife. Your prisoner in this tower forty floors above the city."
"My wife," he agrees. "The prison part is up to you."
I laugh, harsh and bitter. "Right. I can leave whenever I want. Just walk out the door."
"Once you accept what you are now. What we are." He moves to the window, touches something that makes the tint clear. Chicago spreads below us again, beautiful and unreachable. "This is your world now. Everything money can buy. A husband who'll give you anything except freedom."
"You mean a captor who forced me at gunpoint."
"I mean a husband who took what was his." He turns to look at me, and there's something in his eyes I don't understand. "You signed the wedding contract the moment you threw that wine."
The weight of that settles over me. He's been planning this. Every move my father made, every alliance attempted, all of it watching and calculated by the man who now owns my name.
"Legal and binding," I whisper, staring at the ring that burns on my finger.
"Welcome home, Mrs.Rosetti," he says, his voice dark as aged whiskey.
The words echo through the penthouse as he heads toward his office, leaving me alone with my new reality. Mrs.Rosetti. The title feels like a brand, marking me as his property for anyone who looks.
I stare at the ring until my vision blurs. The diamonds throw rainbow patterns on the walls, beautiful refractions from my beautiful cage. Everything here is beautiful. The art, the views, the marble that will soon know every pace of my captivity. Even the shattered Ming vase looks lovely in pieces.
The city lights begin to twinkle as evening falls. Forty floors below, people are living their lives, making choices, believing they're free. They don't know that high above them, in the most beautiful prison money can buy, Valentina Bernardi just died.
And Mrs.Marco Rosetti was born at gunpoint.
Behind me, I hear his footsteps returning. Slow, measured, inevitable as everything else about him.
"Come, Mrs.Rosetti," his voice cuts through my spiraling thoughts. "Let me show you our bedroom."
Our bedroom. The words make me dig fingernail-shaped moons into my palms.
His footsteps close the distance between us. I feel him behind me before he touches me, his presence like a shadow falling across my skin. His hand covers mine, fingers sliding over the wooden beads I've been clutching like a lifeline. His thumb traces the rosary's crucifix, then moves lower to the ring that won't come off no matter how hard I pull.
"These won't protect you," he says softly, his breath stirring the hair at my neck. "Not from me."
The beads feel suddenly fragile beneath his touch, my mother's prayers meaningless against his proximity. His thumbcircles the platinum band on my finger, pressing it against my skin like he's branding me all over again.
"Nothing will protect you from me," he continues, and it's not a threat. It's a promise. A fact. The same certainty with which he says the sun will rise.
His other hand settles on my waist, fingers spanning the torn lace of grandmother's dress. I can feel the heat of his palm through the ruined fabric, marking where I belong to him now.
"Come," he says, and it's not a request. His hand slides from the rosary to my wrist, his grip firm but not painful. "Your new life is waiting."
I have no choice but to follow. His fingers encircle my wrist like another ring, another chain, leading me away from the windows and toward the hallway I explored earlier. Toward the master bedroom with its California king and silk sheets I swore I'd never touch.
My bare feet whisper against the marble as he guides me forward. Behind us, the city continues its life, unaware that Mrs.Marco Rosetti is being led to her marriage bed by a man who took her at gunpoint.
And the ring, his ring, catches every light we pass, throwing diamonds like promises across the walls of my beautiful new cage.
4 - Valentina
Marco’s fingers encircle my wrist like another ring, another chain, leading me away from the windows. My bare feet whisper against cold marble as we move through his penthouse, past artwork I’ll have decades to memorize, toward a hallway I explored earlier but never wanted to enter.
The master bedroom door looms before us like the entrance to a new circle of hell. He pushes it open with his free hand, guiding me inside with that grip that's firm but not painful, not yet.
The torn lace of grandmother's wedding dress trails behind me like a ghost, catching on the doorframe before ripping further. I clutch Mother's rosary in my free hand, the wooden beads cutting crescents into my palm. Her prayers couldn't save her from a marriage that killed her. They won't save me from this one.
