Page 13 of Deadly Alliance
"You belong to me now," I murmur against her mouth, making sure my words brand her. "You live in my house. You eat my food. You breathe my air. But do not ever, for one goddamn second, mistake this charade for a marriage."
I feel the erratic, frantic pulse beating at the base of her throat against my thumb.
"You are nothing to me," I whisper, twisting the knife as deep as it will go. "A filthy, unwanted complication. You think I’m going to share a bed with Dario Lombardi’s used trash? Even he dumped you when he was done with you. Well, you can sleep easy, Noemi. I will never touch you if I didn’t have to."
Before she can react, before she can formulate a single word of her sharp-tongued venom to strike back, I crash my mouth down onto hers.
It’s a punishment.
It’s a brutal, bruising clash of teeth and lips, entirely devoid of warmth or affection. I dominate her mouth, taking it by force, demanding her submission not out of desire, but out of sheer dominance. She tastes like expensive champagne and bitter resentment. She whimpers, a tiny, frustrated sound in the back of her throat, her hands coming up to push uselessly against the solid wall of my chest.
I break the kiss just as abruptly as I started it, leaving her lips red and swollen, her chest heaving as she stares at me in shock.
I turn my head and look out at the congregation. My eyes find Don Orlando Genovese in the front row.
I give him a slow, chilling smile.
6
Noemi
The drive from the cathedral inside the armored Maybach is a shitty affair.
Cassio sits on the opposite side of the plush leather seat, his body is angled away from me as if my mere existence is an offensive stench. He hasn’t spoken a single word since he forced his mouth over mine at the altar, branding me with a kiss that felt more like a death sentence. He spends the entire ride staring out the tinted window at the rain-slicked streets, like a dark, brooding storm cloud in a bespoke tuxedo.
I stare straight ahead, my spine stiff, my hands are clasped so tightly in my lap that my knuckles ache. I refuse to look at him. Irefuse to let him see the violent trembling that is threatening to tear my body apart.
When the car finally glides to a halt, the heavy iron gates of Cassio’s estate close behind us with a loud, final clang. I get my first look at my new prison.
It isn't a house. It’s a fortress.
Built on a secluded cliffside overlooking the churning black waters of the ocean, the estate is a massive, jagged structure of brutalist concrete, black steel, and floor-to-ceiling tinted glass. It looks exactly like the man who owns it. There is no old-world Italian charm here. No marble statues, no blooming gardens. Just sharp angles and sterile, unforgiving stone.
The door opens. Cassio steps out first, not bothering to offer me a hand. I gather the heavy, ridiculous skirts of my white silk wedding dress and climb out into the freezing drizzle, shivering as the coastal wind bites through the lace sleeves.
Waiting on the front steps are a dozen armed guards and a handful of household staff. As I walk up the steps behind my new husband, I feel their eyes on me. I expect the usual subservience I received at my father’s house, the fearful respect demanded by my bloodline.
Instead, I am met with thinly veiled disgust.
The maids look at me with cold eyes. The guards outright glare, their hands resting lazily near their holsters. They don't seethe new Lady of the house. They see the enemy. They see the daughter of Don Orlando, the man who has been killing their brothers and cousins in the streets for two years. Worse, they know exactly what I am to Cassio: a pawn. An insult. Dario Lombardi’s leftover trash shoved down their Don’s throat.
"Matteo," Cassio barks, not even looking back at me as he strides into the cavernous, minimalist foyer of the estate. "Put her in the east wing guest suite. Post two men at the corridor entrance. If she tries to wander into my side of the house, shoot her in the leg."
He doesn't wait for a response. He simply unbuttons his suit jacket and walks away, disappearing down a long, shadows-drenched hallway, leaving me standing alone in the center of the foyer like a piece of unwanted luggage.
Matteo steps forward. He looks at me with zero sympathy, gesturing vaguely toward a glass-paneled staircase. "This way."
He doesn't offer to carry the train of my dress. He doesn't offer a polite welcome. He leads me up two flights of floating stairs, down a long, white hallway that feels like a psychiatric ward, and shoves open a heavy black door.
"Don't cause problems, princess," Matteo grunts. "Cassio might have promised your father a truce, but nobody in this house gives a fuck about your last name. Keep your head down."
He pulls the door shut. The heavy deadbolt clicks loudly from the outside.
I am locked in.
I stand in the center of the room. It’s massive, aggressively modern, and completely devoid of personality. White walls, a charcoal gray bed that looks like a slab of granite, and a wall of windows facing the churning, violent sea. It’s another cage. A beautiful, sterile, freezing cage.
The adrenaline that has been keeping my spine straight for the last five hours suddenly evaporates.
