Chapter One, Pressure Cooker #3
My cousin Caro had got out of our life by force. Sure, he’d failed. But being banished to England had inadvertently given him the best life he could imagine, and I was jealous.
I wanted to be banished so I could work for a pretty woman that was mildly terrifying. It seemed far more fun than whatever bullshit currently occurred in my rain-drenched city.
“Your father would be proud.” Marcello added.
The words felt like a kick in the gut, the air knocked from my lungs.
Giorgio. Proud. Two words that should never have been in the same sentence.
My father had been a tyrant, a man who ruled with an iron fist and never thought twice about the people crushed beneath it.
He didn’t care about alliances or marriages or the future.
He cared about control, and he’d sacrificed everyone and everything to keep it.
I wondered if Dante realized how much he sounded like him.
I wondered what Dante would have thought, if he ever found out how my father had really died and that it had been someone he considered beneath him who had put the bullet in him.
A stripper of all things. One who hadn’t finished high school, threw up when she saw blood, and exclusively wore rainbow when she did whatever the fuck she wanted without a thought for consequences.
The thoughts of Heaven’s actions were enough to temper my anger as my uncles stood one by one, their chairs scraping and groaning under the strain.
I loved her. There was no chance in hell I was going to risk her safety either. Especially when I agreed with what she’d done.
Salvatore walked past me, clapping a hand on my shoulder hard enough to make my jaw clench.
I wanted to grab his face and put it through a window, but that kind of went against my ruse of playing pliable, loyal nephew.
Plus, my mama would have made me clean the glass up and I was in no mood for housework.
“Welcome to the real world, nipote,” he said with a dripping sense of condescension.
“You’re going to hate every fucking minute of it, but glad you’re finally on board.
” He paused, his hand still resting there.
“Is your mother still around? I was hoping to see her before I left to discuss what she’s doing for a husband after your wedding ends.
You know she cannot stay single; it isn’t a good look for her. ”
I didn’t look at him. I didn’t look at any of them. I kept my eyes on the table, on the small cracks in the wood, the scratches that someone had tried to polish away.
“Mama has gone to stay with Vincente for a while. We didn’t want her to be in this house grieving on her own, and she is eager to help set up the nursery for his baby. But I will let you know when she’s home and you can discuss marriage options with her then.”
It was a lie, impossible to discover, so long as mama stayed wherever she was most of the time.
Vincente happened to have the fortune of having fallen in love with his arranged wife, and she with him.
And as much control as my uncles felt they had, they knew better than to try to piss off a pregnant Bratva princess by showing up to her home unannounced to try to catch me in a lie.
Salvatore muttered curses, but hastened to leave himself and finally allow me the room back.
My chest ached and my throat was tight, but I did nothing but stay still, counting my breaths as if it was the only thing that kept me on the ground.
I got swallowed into the sea of silence while time trickled on. Nobody disturbing me, not even my younger siblings, no doubt running their nannies ragged.
I sighed and ran a hand through my beard as I slumped back in the chair. The glass of whiskey beckoned me again.
It had been untouched all day and night. That was the only thing I’d controlled in that room. Not the conversation, not my future, not the goddamn marriage they’d forced down my throat. Just the drink.
But now, even that control felt like a lie.
‘Your father would be proud.’ Dante’s words stuck in my flesh like barbed wire. That kind of lie didn’t even bother cloaking itself.
I exhaled slowly; the sound cut through the choking silence. My tattooed hands rested on the table, palms down, as if grounding myself would somehow stop the storm raging in my chest.
It didn’t.
My fingers curled against the wood, but the pressure building inside me didn’t ease. It only tightened like a noose around my lungs.
The whiskey bottle sat on the table, half-empty and worn, its label chipped at the edges. It was out of place in a room so grand, and yet perhaps for that reason I’d not moved it. Perhaps it reminded me of something honest, of something real.
Or maybe because it was Giovanni’s brand, and I didn’t want to even look at it if he wasn’t by my side, talking crap about how whiskey needed to be aged a few decades or was worth being poured down the drain.
My hand moved toward the bottle before I could stop it. I hesitated, inked fingers hovering just above the glass. It wasn’t a big decision. Not really. It wasn’t like I hadn’t had worse nights, worse moments, where whiskey had been my only companion. And yet, tonight, it felt like giving in.
I hated that they’d won. I hated that they’d left this room with smug grins and empty threats and a deal they’d manipulated me into.
But what I really hated was the fact that I couldn’t even be angry with them—not fully.
They were just following the same rules my father had laid down years ago.
Power above all else. Sacrifice for the family. Bend or break.
I took the bottle and slowly unscrewed the cap. It stung instantly. The back of my throat burnt even before I had time to pour more into my glass and fill it almost to the top.
With a drink, I am in control; it is a matter of my choice.
I stared at the whiskey: deceptively peaceful, like it didn’t hold the weight of every poor decision I’d ever made.
I tilted the glass, swirling the liquid around, watching patterns shift and change.
My grip tightened, and I raised it to my lips, downing the lot in a few gulps. The burn was immediate—almost comforting in its sharpness. It sank down my throat, settled in my chest, and warmth spread through me like an old friend I didn’t want to admit I’d missed.
With a sigh, I set the glass back.
For a moment, the world was quieter. Less sharp. Less everything. The bitterness in my chest dulled, and in its place, the warmth of the whiskey spread, into which I let myself sink.
My eyes wandered back to the bottle still sitting there. Half-empty. Like me.
I poured another glass, then tipped it back again. It settled in my stomach like a stone as my hand lingered on the rim, the empty glass pressed against my palm.
Poor Amara Romanov. A girl destined for nothing but a pawn’s role in a vicious game. One she’d either been raised to play, or was just as unwilling a victim as me. Only worse because she no doubt worried about me.
She was probably going to cry herself to sleep tonight, thinking she was marrying a piece of shit who’d only want what was between her thighs, for the next few decades of a miserable, empty life.
Tomorrow, the games would start again, and I would worry about it then. The same went for the endless, suffocating obligations of being a De Luca. But for tonight, I could drink until I forgot I was an unwilling member of a wicked game.
I could drink until I was just Emilio again. Not someone whose surname was his only worth.