Page 8 of Wicked Bloodlines

Sofia Marchesi was not what I’d expected. Her chestnut hair was swept up in a perfect chignon that exposed the long line of her neck and the sharp architecture of her cheekbones. Amber eyes, the color of whiskey held up to firelight, swept the room like someone unsure of their footing but determined to see any threat and meet it head on. I knew the look. Wore it on many occasions.

She wore a tailored dress in slate gray, muted and elegant, the kind of armor disguised as fashion that said more about the wearer than any display of skin ever could. Her posture was perfect, her makeup flawless. Even though a hint of defiance glimmered in the depths of her eyes, her expression remained carefully polite and neutral. She looked like a woman attending a state dinner, not one being sold to a stranger. Or a woman who knew exactly what would happen to her and why.

Her gaze found mine across the room, and I saw her mask fracture. The slightest widening of those amber eyes, a flash of something raw and unguarded before she locked it down. Her hands, folded at her waist, trembled. Just barely. A vibration so subtle that anyone else in the room would have missed it entirely. But I’d spent my life reading people to learn their tells. I knew fear when I saw it, but I also saw her courage as she continued to stare at me, not backing down an inch. She was terrified. And she’d die before she let anyone see it.

An unfamiliar discomfort that had nothing to do with the suit filled my chest. I’d expected a pawn in this woman. A pretty, polished piece of nothing that I’d install in a guest suite and ignore until the wedding Dario orchestrated. What I saw now was something else entirely. Something deceptively soft with a spring trap ready to cut your dick off if you got too close.

Sofia held my stare for two full seconds before ducking her head to Dario as introductions were made. When she looked up at my brother, her smile didn’t reach her eyes. Not even close. And standing in that gilded room, surrounded by lies dressed in expensive fabric, I realized this arranged marriage might be significantly more complicated than my brother had promised.

We took our seats. Dario at the head of the table, naturally. Cesare to his right, leaning his cane against the chair. Sofia sat beside her father, and I dropped into the chair across from her, close enough to catch the faint scent of her perfume, a clean understated scent like rain on warm stone. Staff poured our wine while Dario and Cesare circled each other with words, but my attention remained on the woman on the other side of the table from me.

“The Rossi expansion along the eastern corridor presents a threat to both our interests,” Dario began, his voice carrying that measured cadence that made everything sound inevitable. “Their acquisition of four shipping companies in the past five weeks suggests a coordinated strategy.”

Cesare nodded, the movement regal despite the slight tremor I noticed in his left hand. “The Rossis have always been ambitious beyond their station. Vincent’s father was a small-time bootlegger’s son playing at empire. The son has more polish but the same fundamental hunger.” He lifted his wine glass, studying the light through the ruby liquid. “Our families together would present a unified front they couldn’t breach.”

“Our ports. Your connections with the Calabrese, the Ferraro, the old Sicilian networks,” Dario agreed. “In exchange, the Luca family guarantees the financial security and physical protection of the Marchesi family. The specific numbers are in the documents my attorney has prepared.”

I barely listened. I’d heard the pitch. Knew the numbers. My role in this room wasn’t to negotiate. My job had now become to study Sofia. Not because I saw her as a threat, though the jury was still out on that, and not because my brother told me to. I studied her because she’d caught my attention. There was more to Sofia than she presented but I didn’t get the sense it had anything at all to do with my family. Her body language screamed that she wanted as far away from her father as she could get. So Sofia just became a puzzle, one I had to solve.

She’d selected her wine glass, lifting it by the stem and bringing it to her lips for a measured sip. She didn’t drink to enjoy. She drank to have something to do with her hands, to mask the fact that those hands wanted to shake.

When Dario mentioned specific dollar amounts, her pupils dilated fractionally. When Cesare countered with conditions about maintaining Marchesi autonomy in certain operations, her jaw tightened by a millimeter. She was listening to every word, processing it, filing it away. This was not a woman along for the ride.

Dario and Cesare continued their elaborate dance of power and politesse for another twenty minutes. Then Dario stood, gesturing toward the sideboard where Alessandro had arranged the formal documents. “Shall we review the specifics? My brother has prepared the contractual framework.”

Cesare rose smoothly. “Of course.” He didn’t glance at Sofia as he left the table. Didn’t check on her. Didn’t offer a reassuring word or even a performative squeeze of her shoulder. He simply walked away, leaving his daughter alone with me as if she were a coat he’d draped over a chair.

The silence between us was immediate and total. The ambient noise of the room faded to background static. I leaned back in my chair, studying her openly now that there was no pretense of polite conversation to hide behind.

She met my stare without flinching. Up close, the composure was even more impressive. Her face was a mask of cultivated indifference, but I could see the brittle composure threatening to shatter.

“I have no illusions about this arrangement.” Her voice was cool and composed, a slight musical undertone winding through my insides to weave invisible ties with her I’d never be free of. Had she slapped me, I’m not sure I’d have been more shocked. I’d never been as grateful for all my experience. Otherwise, there was no doubt she’d know exactly how thoroughly she’d rattled my world. Just by speaking.

I leaned forward, resting my forearms on the table. The white cuffs of my sleeves contrasted sharply with the dried, scabbed over splits on my knuckles from the earlier fight. I didn’t hide them. “As long as you play your part, we’ll get along fine.”

Her amber gaze dropped to my hands, lingered there for a beat, then returned to my face. She knew what those scrapes and cuts meant. What I was. “And what part would that be?” she asked. Not confrontational. Clinical. Like she was gathering information for the upcoming battle.

“The one where you smile for the cameras, attend the functions, and stay out of my way.” I kept my voice as cold as I could when I could feel sweat trickle down the center of my back.

“How charming.” The words were dry as dust, delivered with such precise neutrality that I couldn’t tell if she was amused or contemptuous. Possibly both. “And your part?”

“I protect you and pamper you. You’ll enjoy the status of my name.”

That landed. I saw it in the way her fingers tightened around the stem of her wine glass before she deliberately relaxed them. She knew, as well as I did, that being connected to the Luca family made her both protected and targeted. She recovered fast, that practiced mask sliding back into place like a visor.

“How reassuring,” she murmured, and took another measured sip of wine. “Thanks for the reminder of exactly what my role here will be.”

The meal arrived shortly after. Dario and Cesare returned to the table, and conversation resumed its choreographed rhythm. But something had shifted in the air between Sofia and me. A current, live and dangerous, humming beneath the polite surface.

Everyone had tells they couldn’t suppress. Reflexes broke through even the best training. But Sofia Marchesi’s composure wasn’t the absence of emotion, it was the active suppression of it, a constant, exhausting performance that never cracked. I recognized it because I saw a version of it in Dario every day. The difference was that Dario had spent forty-two years perfecting his mask. Sofia was younger, and whatever she was hiding required more effort to contain.

She played a game. I didn’t know what kind yet. But I intended to find out.

As dessert was cleared, an espresso panna cotta neither of us touched, I caught her watching me with those amber eyes when she thought I wasn’t looking. The expression was gone before I could fully read it, replaced by the porcelain blankness she wore like armor. But for a fraction of a second, I’d seen raw terror.

Trapped. She looked trapped. But she also looked prepared for battle, to fight her way free. Sofia Marchesi wasn’t just a chess piece being moved across the board. She was a player. And that made her either the most valuable ally in the room or the most dangerous liability. Either way, I needed to figure out which before she figured out how to use me first.

The deal closed the way all deals in our world closed. Handshakes and smiles that meant nothing and contracts made in blood that could only be broken with blood. Dario took care of everything, ensuring Sofia would be transported to Villa Luca this evening. She’d have her own suite in the east wing, the family’s private quarters. The wedding date would be set within the month, pending Alessandro’s review of the legal arrangements and the prenup. Her belongings could follow at a later date. They discussed it all as if scheduling a furniture delivery rather than relocating a human being, and I noticed the slight flair of Sofia’s delicate nostrils. The only tell she had.