Page 11 of Masked Don

One breath leaves him, slow, through his nose. Almost a laugh. His fingers flex once at his side.

“As you wish, Bella.”

Bella. God help me, I want that word in my ear while he fucks me into oblivion, until I forget I ever had another name.

The crowd starts to buzz.

“Who is she?”

I walked in tonight at the very bottom of the food chain.

A rabbit with a tray. The help. Nobody in this room was supposed to notice me, let alone wonder who I am.

Now the senators are looking. The men with guns under their jackets. The old men at the front tables who decide who lives and who disappears.

One sentence from the Big Bad, and I’ve climbed higher in this room than I could have in a lifetime of carrying trays.

Every masked face in the Velvet Room is turned on me.

Mine.

He said it like a fact. Like the weather.

And every single person in this room believes him.

I turn my head a fraction toward the Big Bad beside me and keep my voice low and level.

“Who are you?”

“Tonight?” His voice stays low, for me alone. “The reason no man in this room will ever speak to you like that again.” His eyes stay on Luca. “Now smile, Bella. Let the bastard watch what he lost.”

Without looking away from Luca, he works a ring off his own little finger. Old gold. A dark stone, worn smooth at the edges by somebody else’s years.

Then he takes my hand, in front of everyone, and slides it onto mine.

Slowly. Like there’s no one else in the room. Like he has all the time in the world, and he’s choosing to spend it on this.

It’s still warm from his skin. It fits like it was waiting for me.

I look down at it, and something in my chest goes very quiet.

I close my fingers around it before I can stop myself, like it might slip away if I don’t hold on.

“That’s his mother’s ring,” someone whispers behind me. “He’s never taken it off. Not once.”

I have no idea what it means. Every single person in this room does.

The Big Bad guides me forward, his hand low on my back, through the center of the room. The crowd parts for us without being asked. Near the bar, Kelsey presses both hands over her mouth, eyes shining.

We’re almost to the exit when Luca’s voice cracks across the silence.

“Do you have any idea whose ring you’re wearing?”

Heat flares in my chest, sharp and clean.

“Not your concern anymore,” I say, without turning all the way around.

The Big Bad doesn’t look at Luca. Doesn’t answer him. Doesn’t so much as turn his head. To him, Luca isn’t there at all. His eyes stay on me.