Page 10 of Forsaking All Others

And now this?

The loss of my love.

The loss of my family.

And this, the loss of my liberty?

“No,” I said quietly, but the word fell between us like an armed bomb, ticking down.

Dario cocked a thick brow and tilted his head as if I was suddenly vaguely interesting. “No?”

“No,” I repeated through my teeth. “I can accept that Niccolo, the man I loved, will never be mine. I already did that. I can accept that Papà is dead, though I have no idea how to live without him. I can even accept I’ll have to ask you for news of my hospitalized brothers. But I will absolutely not accept being placed like a forgotten toy you obviously do not want anything to do with away on some shelf to rot in isolation until I die.”

“It’s really not up to you,” he pointed out implacably. “You should know this world and your place in it. You do not matter. You are a pretty doll to be set upon a shelf unless I wish to play with you.”

“Vaffanculo,” I cursed him.

“English,” he corrected mildly, looking back at his tablet.

“Fuck. You!” I enunciated. “I am a person, Dario Ferretti, not a bambolina. You can lock me up, but I’ll find a way to break free. You can ignore me all you want, it’s your loss, but I will not be ignored by the world at large the way I have been for the past twenty years. The single silver lining of being your wife is being free of the smothering my father imposed on me. I will not let anyone take away my first taste of freedom before it has even been had. Not even you, my husband in nothing but name.”

He was out of his seat so quickly, one second he was across from me and the next he was leaning over my chair, caging me in with his powerful arms so that his face was inches from mine, his features constructed into an oddly attractive snarl.

Despite his ferocious expression, his voice was a soft hiss as he said, “I did not think I would have to teach a proper Italian principessa the ways of this world. What I say is absolute. I am your boss, your leader, your authoritarian dictator, and your reason for every breath. You live to obey me, Fiammetta Ferretti, and you will not like the consequences if you test my patience. I will not punish you for this outburst because I understand you have had a trying day, but if it happens again, I assure you, I will not be so gracious.”

I cocked my chin higher and glared at him, but I couldn’t speak because a sob was lodged painfully at the back of my throat. Overwhelmed, submerged in an adrenaline crash that featured bone-deep fear for my loved ones and pure exhaustion, I did not have the wherewithal to fight with such a man.

So I wouldn’t.

At least not now.

But he would learn, I determined as I forced my gaze away from his glittering diamond-hard eyes to look out the oval airplane window at the dark night sky, that I was not a bird that could be caged.

Not anymore.

Chapter Four

Fiammetta

Dawn crested through the gaps in metal skyscrapers like a wash of clean water sweeping away the dark night, exposing the skeletal forms of sleek, modern buildings and the asphalt jungle of downtown Chicago. Despite the early hour, traffic on the long stretch of road beside the lake was heavy, and the enormous black Range Rover that carried Dario, me, and a driver wound slowly through the other cars.

I was so tired my eyelids felt like lead, dropping over my dry, scratchy eyes, but I didn’t want to sleep. This was my first view of the city that would be, for the foreseeable future at least, mine. Dario said he owned it, and he was adamant he owned me, which meant, in a roundabout fashion, Chicago was also mine for the taking.

And my first glimpse of it was far from wanting.

I loved the modern architecture blended with the old, the glass married to the stone, the worn wood and the shining chrome. It was a contrast that appealed to the soft and hard parts of me, a visual feast for the eyes that kept you guessing. I pressed my hand to the window, drawing my face closer to the pane so that I could follow the line of a tall building all the way up to the top.

It was everything alien from Sicily. Palermo was our biggest city on the island, with modern conveniences and its own industrial hubs, but everything was densely packed, full of curves and swoops, columns and colors, nothing of the austerity and efficiency of this new world center.

I loved it.

Dario’s gaze burned against the side of my face, but I ignored it, as I had since he retook his seat on the plane and commenced whatever business he was doing on his tablet. He was on his phone beside me, but I knew I had most of his attention, and I did not want it.

Had he never seen a tourist in Chicago before?

I refused to feel young and tawdry in my fascination.

This was my first time in the United States, and I was going to soak it all up, especially if he really intended to lock me in a tower just like my father.