Page 10 of Claimed By Him

“Remember when we had that chat at my and Antonio’s wedding?”

I frowned. “Not really…”

Mia smiled cheekily. “You were hitting the red wine pretty hard…” That got a chuckle from me, and she squeezed my fingers before letting go and smoothening her dress down her thighs. When she spoke, her voice was serious, maybe a little calculating.

“I sat down with you, and you warned me, over a glass of wine and a cigarette, about living the life of a don’s wife. You said I had to be prepared to come second.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Well, red wine aside, I think I was pretty on point with that jewel of advice.”

“You also said that your family would forever control your life.”

I lifted my hands. “Obviously, I was right.”

“Yes.” She nodded. “But… I guess I’m starting to see how you can take back that control. You don’t need a man to put you first if you put yourself first, before him.”

My eyes slid to hers, interested. “What do you mean?”

She looked thoughtfully up at the bookshelves. “You’d need to be the one to actually develop this idea, but basically… take a look at the list. Don’t think about whose life you’d best fit into. Think about who could fit into the life you want for yourself. That could mean marrying someone who you’ll never see or someone you’ll spend all your time with, depending on what you want to do with your time.”

“I’m not sure I’m following…” I shook my head.

“Okay, maybe an example will help. Either you can marry a man who truly doesn’t care, who won’t give a shit if you live in a different country like Italy where you run your own brand.”

“Okay…” That sounded a bit pessimistic, but alright.

“Or you can marry a man who actually wants to help you get what you want. That doesn’t mean he has to love you, just that he wants to support your business ideas.”

“So, someone who’ll let me do what I want, as long as it involves his permission.”

She tilted her head from side to side. “Something like that… all I’m saying is have a plan and then make the decisions that will benefit that plan.”

“Huh,” I said in a high-pitched tone, impressed. She touched my hand again.

“It will work out better than avoiding the decision entirely.”

Mia’s wisdom never failed to baffle me. It was like she was truly born for this life but married into it. I was born into it, but maybe I could marry out of it. Maybe there was someone on that list, or, not on the list, but still suitable enough, who could pull me into a whole new lifestyle. One far away from this violence and suffocating, narcissistic behavior. One that might still be controlling, but on my terms.

* * *

“Thanks, Gio.”I closed the door of the black Mercedes town car Gio used to drive me around and walked to his open window. “We’re just having a girl’s night in so,” I patted his arm, “no need to worry. You can take the night off.”

Gio smiled, but it always had more to it. More behind it. As though there was always something he wasn’t telling me, and I knew that was probably true, more often than not. But I’d learned in this family to stop demanding answers and just let the men do their jobs. Arguing about the truth was a pointless ordeal.

As long as he accepted my lies, I accepted his. We were on the same page about that.

He was dropping me off outside Ari’s place—she had an apartment in Downtown Manhattan, and I had one in the building right behind hers. No one knew about it except her. I’d bought it after my father died when I was 18, and my inheritance paid out. I only needed a small chunk of it to buy this tiny little loft studio apartment. It wasn’t much, but it was mine—my space to be entirely alone.

I chose to buy close to her so that I could do exactly this—have Gio drop me off, let everyone believe I was safe at her place, then hop on over to my own apartment. I always used to stay at her’s but now I had true freedom—it didn’t matter if she was home or not or if she had a guy sleeping there. I just needed to be dropped off outside and walk through her building to the back door where I could skip out through the alleyway and enter my building, all the way to the top where my loft was.

Back to Gio’s smile—I wasn’t sure what he suspected, but I was positive that my owning an apartment wasn’t it. He probably just thought I was lying about not going out tonight. And I wasn’t, truly! I planned to just stay on my own tonight.

After that talk with Antonio and then Mia, I had a lot to think about.

“You behave, Fi.” His voice followed me.

He’d been my bodyguard for five years already, our relationship wasn’t close in terms of discussing everything, but we were close in the sense that he was my protector, and I was his princess. It didn’t feel weird. It was more of a father-daughter relationship than I had with my own dad.

I walked away after a small wave and entered the lobby of Ari’s building.

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