Page 41 of Mafia Kings: Dario

I carefully walked down the shadowy center aisle until I reached the candelabras. A box of matches sat beside them on the table, and I lit the candles one by one until the entire room was glowing with light.

Now that I could see more, I gasped at the domed ceiling. It was painted with angels and clouds so beautiful that they should have been in a far grander church.

The stone walls were hung with tapestries, their faded colors depicting the twelve stations of the cross.

I stood there in awe… until I heard footsteps behind me.

I whirled around to see Dario in the doorway. He had paused at the threshold and was watching me.

“Are you afraid you’ll burst into flames if you come in?” I taunted him.

He smirked, then walked into the chapel and looked down at his hands as if examining them. “No flames of hell yet.”

“Give it time.”

He chuckled and looked around the room. “I haven’t been in here since… I don’t know when.”

“Ever?”

“As a child, I used to come in here to pray… but that was a long time ago.”

I could imagine him as a small boy sitting in the dark wooden pews, looking up at the angels… and the image softened my heart.

“Do you like it?” he asked.

“It’s beautiful,” I admitted.

“Good. Then you won’t need to leave the estate.”

Our argument at the dining room table came flooding back, along with all my resentment at being his prisoner.

“I need to go to church,” I said stubbornly.

His eyes flashed with anger. “Youneedto OBEY me.”

“‘Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord,’” I said, quoting Ephesians. Then I added mockingly, “You mean like that?”

His smile was dangerous. “Minus the husband and wife part… yes.”

I stood tall and looked him directly in the face. “I’ll do what you order me to, because you’ll kill me if I don’t. But submit to you?Never.”

Maybe it was the wine that made me so brave.

Maybe I was emboldened by the fact that we were in a chapel.

I thought that Dario would at least respect the fact that we were standing in a holy place.

I was wrong.

He grabbed the back of my hair again like he had last night and pulled gently, forcing me to look up at him.

My heart beat rapidly with fear –

But excitement, too.

The feel of his body against mine as he stared down at me –

The anger in his face –

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