Page 8 of The Enforcer's Possession
The thought made me want to smash something else.Made me want to tear this entire room apart until nothing pretty remained.
Instead, I took another drink and felt the rage start to shift into something colder.Something more dangerous.
Because rage was useless.Rage was what Papa expected.Dramatic outbursts and emotional reactions that he could dismiss as childish tantrums.He’d been counting on it, probably.Counting on me throwing my fit and then eventually accepting my fate because what choice did I have?
Fuck that.
I moved to my bed and grabbed my phone from where I’d tossed it earlier.The screen lit up, showing a dozen missed calls and twice as many text messages.Adriana.Mama.Even Luca had texted, though his message was just:Are you okay?That was intense.
I ignored all of them and opened my contacts instead.
The list scrolled past my thumb -- names of friends from school, other Mafia daughters in similar gilded cages, a few boys I’d dated when Papa wasn’t paying attention, before he’d tightened his hold on me.All of them useless for what I needed now.
I kept scrolling, my mind working through possibilities.Papa wanted to use me as a bargaining chip?Fine.Two could play that game.But I needed leverage.Needed someone with enough power that Papa couldn’t just dismiss them.Someone who could offer me a way out.If I married Marco, I’d end up as his punching bag.Then again, most Mafia men were cut from the same cloth.They all wanted obedience from their women.
My thumb paused on a name.Antonio Rossi.He had connections, money, but he was too old and too firmly in Papa’s pocket.Next.Carlo Benedetti -- too weak, his family was barely hanging onto their territory.Salvatore Marino -- already married, and probably more sadistic than Marco anyway.
I was halfway through my contacts when my thumb froze.
Dante De Luca.
Even seeing his name on my phone screen sent a chill down my spine.The De Lucas weren’t just powerful -- they were feared.And Dante… Dante was the kind of man mothers warned their daughters about.The enforcer.The problem solver.The one they sent when they wanted someone to disappear permanently.
I’d only met him twice.Once at a meeting between our families when I was seventeen.He’d barely acknowledged my existence, which had somehow been more intimidating than if he’d actually spoken to me.And once last year at a neutral gathering, where I’d felt his gaze on me from across the room and had been too unnerved to even look directly at him.
He was dangerous.Probably more so than Marco, if I was being honest, but in a different way.Calculated instead of cruel for cruelty’s sake.Ruthless but with a code I didn’t fully understand.
And unmarried.
My heart started beating faster as the idea took shape.It was insane.Completely insane.Papa would lose his mind.But that was kind of the point, wasn’t it?
If I couldn’t refuse marriage, I could at least choose who I married.And choosing Dante De Luca -- Papa’s rival’s nephew, the man who’d carved out his own reputation through violence and strategic brilliance --thatwould send a message Papa couldn’t ignore.
It might also get me killed.De Lucas and Lombardis weren’t exactly enemies, but we weren’t allies either.Our families had maintained an uneasy truce.Giuseppe Lombardi had built his power through alliances and political maneuvering.The De Lucas had built theirs through fear and the kind of brutal efficiency that made other families think twice before crossing them.
Approaching Dante would be dangerous.He could refuse.Could tell Papa just to fuck with me.Could use the information against me in some way I hadn’t anticipated.
But he could also say yes.
And if he said yes…
I stared at his name on my phone, my thumb hovering over it.The scotch had steadied my hands, but my pulse was racing now for entirely different reasons.This wasn’t rage anymore.This was calculation.Strategy.The same kind of ruthless planning Papa employed when he was maneuvering for power.
Maybe I was his daughter after all.
I lifted the tumbler and downed the rest of the scotch in one long swallow.The burn felt like confirmation.Like commitment.
Fuck Papa’s plans.Fuck his arranged marriage and his careful alliances.Fuck the idea that I was just a piece to be moved around his board.
I’d make my own alliance.My own marriage.My own terms.
I just had to convince the most dangerous man I knew to help me do it.
My finger tapped Dante’s name before I could second-guess myself.The contact information pulled up -- a phone number I’d never called, had honestly never planned to call.Below it, I’d apparently added a note to myself at some point: “De Luca enforcer.Stay away.”
Well.Too late for that now.
I set the phone down and moved back to the windows, my mind already working through approaches.I couldn’t just call him out of nowhere.Couldn’t text like we were friends arranging coffee.This needed to be handled carefully.Strategically.
