Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
Sin’s words settle into the cold night air between us, unspoken but heavy.
I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until I feel the ache in my ribs.
“Say it.” My voice is barely a whisper, but it feels like a demand.
His gaze burns into me.
“I had those blueprints to get you out.”
A laugh bellows from my chest, “There’s no fucking reason to get me out. I’m so sick of this…”
He cuts me off. “Your family is arranging something for you.”
A chill slithers down my spine. “I already know that.”
“No, you don’t.” His voice is sharper now, edged with something raw. “This isn’t just about business, Magnolia. It’s about you.”
I swallow hard, my pulse pounding in my ears.
“Then tell me.”
Sin exhales, dragging a hand down his face, like he’s trying to hold himself together. Like saying the words out loud will make them real. “They’re setting you up for a deal that they think will keep you safe, but will be permanent. No escape. No way out.”
Dread curls inside me, wrapping around my ribs like a vice. “What kind of deal?”
His silence is my answer before he even speaks.
When he finally does, his voice is quiet but devastating. “You know the party that’s happening tomorrow?”
I recall mom asking Cameron if it should still happen, Cam insisting we need the unity. The workers buzzing around decorating. “Yeah, I’m sure you’re invited since we’re all working together now.” I roll my eyes.
“The party is for you.” He grits his teeth, “It’s a wedding, Magnolia.”
I take a step back, shaking my head, my thoughts spiraling. “No,” I whisper. “No, they wouldn’t.”
“They would.” Sin’s eyes darken, his jaw locking tight. “And they are.”
A sharp laugh bubbles out of me, but it’s bitter, hollow.
“That’s ridiculous. They wouldn’t force me into a marriage.”
“They don’t see it as forcing you.” His voice cuts through my panic like a blade. “To them, this is securing your place. Securing their power. They think they’re doing what’s best for you.”
I shake my head harder, the air feeling too thin. “No. No, my mother wouldn’t…”
“She would if it meant keeping you safe.”
“From the Russians?”
Sin hesitates.
And in that tiny second of hesitation, I know.
I know whatever he’s about to say is going to break me.
When he finally speaks, his voice is low, steady, brutal.
“From me. Because when you marry who they chose for you, I won’t be able to be within a city from you.”
The night feels colder.
Like the ground has been ripped out from under me.
“What?” My voice is barely above a whisper.
His jaw tightens, his entire body coiled with tension.
“As long as I’m in the picture, you’ll never fully belong to them. That’s what they think.”
He exhales sharply, his nostrils flaring.
“Cameron wants you to be untouchable, Magnolia. And the only way to do that is by making sure you belong to someone else.”
A tremor runs through me.
This isn’t real.
It can’t be real.
I force myself to breathe. “Who?”
Sin’s lips press together. “Zeik Caputo.”
Everything inside me shatters.
The name alone is enough to rip the air from my lungs, to set fire to whatever fragile hope I’d been clinging to.
Zeik.
The one person I’d never let myself fear, because I never thought I’d have to.
I force out a hollow laugh, but it sounds as broken as I feel. “You’re lying.”
“I wish I was.”
I shake my head. “Cameron wouldn’t…”
“He would. He would also throw it in my face that you came home in his clothes the other night.” Sin rolls his eyes, “But that’s obviously not true.”
“Yes it is…” I say quietly and Sin steps away from me.
“Are you?” He looks around the darkness, his eyes giving way the emotions swirling inside of him. “You and him?”
“No!” I step forward, placing my hand on his solid chest. “I’m only yours.”
“Then why?” A blaze of fury is roaring behind his ghost eyes.
This brings us to a point we need to discuss, “The other night, when you fell asleep… I went into the office to look at my bookshelf, and I saw the blueprint on your desk.”
Sin steps forward, his voice lower now, urgent. “You want truth, you want it all? I’m giving it to you, from here on out. I knew they were going to make you marry him.”
My hands shake. My breath comes too fast. “How do you know?”
“My intel is constantly running name checks for our family, your name is included in that.” I nearly smile that he’s still protecting me, but I didn’t imagine it would be from my own family. “Your name popped up at the courthouse for a wedding license.”
“This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening.”
“The moment I found out, I got the blueprints so I could pull you safely tomorrow if that is what you wanted. Magnolia, if you don’t do something now, it’ll be too late. Since the Russian mafia entered your home… they left that bullet.”
“How did they know the same exits as you?”
“I don’t know. No one has been in my house; my guess is they acquired the same blueprint.” Sin grabs my wrist, grounding me as I spiral. “Look at me.”
I do.
And what I see in his eyes, pure, unfiltered desperation, steals the last bit of fight I have left.
He pulls the collar of his jacket up against the night and stands so close I can see the tiny scar by his eyebrow, the way the light catches the dark in his hair.
The air between us thrums with all the familiar things, danger and tenderness, the old rules that tell us to be apart and the new ones that pull us together.
I press my hands into the pockets of my coat just to feel something steady beneath my fingers.
“I will not let them take you from me,” he says, his voice low and steady, and it cuts through the night like a promise. The words make the world narrow to the space between our faces. “But I need to know if you’re going to fight this, or if you’re just going to let them decide your fate for you.”
My pulse answers him, a hard, urgent drum at my throat. “What do you want me to do?” I whisper, and it feels odd to say so little when everything inside me wants to spill out.
He steps forward and takes my hands like he’s anchoring himself, like he’s anchoring me. His palms are warm, callused, familiar. Home. “Marry me,” he pleads, “Marry me instead.”
My lips part and close again without a sound. I hold his hands tighter because I don’t trust my legs to hold me.
“If you marry me, they can’t touch you,” he goes on. His voice breaks on the next line, quick and ragged with feeling. “They can’t force you into a deal. You’ll already belong to me.”
Belong. The word threads through me and warms like sunlight on cold skin. It’s not ownership, God, it can’t be that, but the idea of a place to stand that isn’t built on blood and bargains. I breathe, and the night fills me with it.
“Sin…” I start, and my name from his mouth is both a question and a blessing.
He presses his thumb to the inside of my wrist, a small, steadying motion. “I know it’s fast,” he says, and I hear the urgency like a sob. “I know it’s insane. But it’s the only way to stop this before it’s too late. Let me be the one who decides your future. Not them.”
He leans in closer; the smell of mint and smoke and him wraps around my senses.
His face is close enough that I could count the faint freckles across his nose if the moon were brighter.
His thumb traces the line of my jaw, and for a second I forget how to be anything other than present, eyes and hands and breath and blood.
Tears burn behind my lids. “You’re asking me to go against my family,” I say, and the sentence trembles because the truth of it is both a blade and a release.
His mouth softens into something I’ve only seen in the rare seconds when he lets his guard go. “I’m asking you to choose.” There’s a patience under his words that I didn’t know he had. “Choose us.”
I close my eyes because the world is splitting into two sharp edges, and I am standing on the seam.
The Rusco’s. The house that taught me how to hold my tongue, to measure my steps, to hide the parts of me that would make me vulnerable.
The Donati’s. Fire and storm, the family that taught me how to stand up and bite back.
I have always been pulled between them like a tide.
Saying yes feels like treason and salvation at the same time.
“I don’t belong to the Rusco’s,” I whisper to the night. “I don’t belong to the Donati’s.” The confession tastes like iron and relief combined. “But maybe, I want to belong with you. Not to you. With you.”
He laughs, a sound that is surprise and joy and something tender.
“I know that,” he murmurs, and the joy in his eyes makes something in my chest loosen.
Then his grin turns dangerous in that way I love.
“But I still like the thought of you being mine.” He leans in until his breath ghosts my mouth. “Mind, body, and soul.”
My answer trembles on my lips like a bird. “What if I say yes?” The question is small and vast.
His thumb brushes my lower lip, and when he speaks, his voice is a vow folded into a whisper. “Then you’ll never have to wonder if you’re free again. I’ll stand between you and whatever they send. I’ll fight for you. I’ll make this world learn your name on your terms.”
He reaches into his coat, fingers closing on something small and cool that glints faintly in the lamplight.
It’s a ring, but not the usual plain diamond you see in movies.
This is something made to be remembered.
The band is obsidian, dark as a storm cloud but polished so the edges catch light.
The center stone isn’t a conventional diamond; it’s a custom-cut cognac diamond, honeyed and warm at its core, shot through with tiny, internal flashes that make it look like morning light trapped in amber.
Flanking it are two slender sapphires the color of the midnight ocean, set like small watchful moons.
The setting is hands-on: tiny claws, almost vine-like, that hold the stone as if it were a living thing.
Along the inner band, a narrow strip of rose-gold peeks through, where a delicate inscription is stamped, small enough to be intimate, only for me.
Fino all’ultimo respiro
“What does this mean?” I wipe a falling tear.
“Until the last breath.”
When I extend my hand he slides it onto my finger, the metal is cool and then it warms, settling as if it belonged there already.
“This is… so stunning Sin,” I whisper. My voice comes out thin and ridiculous. The ring takes up space on my hand and in my chest all at once.
His mouth tilts. “I didn’t want your family’s gold,” he says softly. “I wanted something that felt like you.”
“You had this made,” I say, staring at the tiny midnight sapphires. “This wasn’t… last minute. When did you say you found out about the wedding?”
“Two days ago.” His fingers find the edge of the band, rubbing the curve in a small, private gesture. “I had it designed months ago. I sent sketches, then samples.” He casts his eyes up, amused and tender. “Magnolia.”
“So, this isn’t because of them,” I say. “Not because of the bullet or the threats.” The park hums low around us, crickets small as static. The fountain tip-taps like a nervous metronome. “This was always going to happen. You were planning to ask when you got me back.”
Sin’s thumb brushes the top of the ring, over the tiny cut of the cognac stone.
“I was going to do it when things felt right, when you realized I was your future and despite a ground war, we were meant to be.” He looks at me, and his eyes are all of the places I want to be.
“This isn’t improvisation. This vow was made in quiet rooms months before anyone came knocking. ”
My hands tremble around his. “So, all of this, bringing me here, this wedding…” I say the words with venom. “That didn’t force your hand?”
“It forced the timing,” he admits. His laugh is soft, almost a sob.
“The threat on your life.” His fists clench, “Everything going on… your sham wedding that’s being held tomorrow against your wishes.
I wasn’t going to let them make our timeline for us but I wanted to ask you because I wanted to ask you. I need to now.”
Tears sting; I swallow them down because there is a fierceness in me now, a part that wants to match him blow for blow. “You could have just…told me,” I say, voice raw.
He touches the corner of my mouth with a finger, gentle enough I flinch at the contrast with his usual roughness. “I wanted to make sure you were back in my arms before I asked,” he says. “I wanted you free to answer. Not cornered. Not bargaining. Free.”
“But we are cornered,” I say, because the world keeps getting in between us. “They want to decide for us.”
“Then let me write the next line.” He bends to press his forehead to mine, breath shallow and sure. “Let me write it with you.”
“What if I say yes,” I ask, because the question is less of a doubt and more of a surrender that I’m eager to make.
“If you say yes,” he answers, his voice is iron wrapped in silk, “I will build a wall between you and the world, only allowing who you want inside. I will make the world learn not to touch your name unless you say so. I will make sure your life belongs to you first.”
I close my eyes and feel the weight of the band, the small curve against the pad of my finger, the tiny words pressed inside. “Ask me again.”
“Marry me, Magnolia Rusco. Marry me tonight.”