Chapter 14
14
CELIA
T he party was larger and more lavish than I had expected. Even though this was supposed to be our date, Gabriel kept being pulled away from me. Everyone wanted to talk to the Gabriel Caruso.
“I’ll find you later,” Gabriel promised another man, waving him off. The man backed away, looking frustrated, but Gabriel didn’t care.
He turned the full weight of his glimmering, all-consuming attention on me. “This is dreadful, isn’t it? I had to attend anyway, so I selfishly decided I’d subject you to the party too. That way, at least it would be a little fun for me.”
God, he was always heartbreakingly handsome, and he was charming when he wanted to be.
“By the way,” he said. “Your puppy ruined my favorite pair of shoes. Apparently, they were also her favorite snack. You have got to give her a name. Something for me to yell.”
I smiled despite myself. “Don’t you dare yell at her.”
His brows arched. The playfulness between us surprised me. “Oh? What are you going to do to me?”
“I’ll disapprove.”
His lips quirked. I hadn’t gotten a real, full smile out of Gabriel Caruso, but the lightness when we talked sometimes felt like a victory. “Well then. I guess she’ll continue to devour my belongings, and by the time I get you into my house, I won’t have any shoes left.”
I never knew how to respond to his confident, charming words. There was a reason people called me an ice queen; apparently, “resting bitch face” compensated for the fact I never knew what to say.
“Gabriel!” someone called, eager to talk to him, and he sighed under his breath.
“It’s all right, go,” I told him, feeling both a rush of disappointment and a sense of relief at the thought of losing his attention. “I’ll be here.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he promised before he turned into another conversation.
I headed into the crowd. Things had deteriorated recently between my family and Moriah’s, but Kara and Natalie were supposed to be coming tonight. The thought of seeing one of my friends, even if we’d put up a front of not being very fond of each other, sent a thrill of joy through me.
I could feel Luca watching me from across the room. He was good at being invisible when he wanted to be, but I’d grown hyper aware of his presence these past few weeks. Every time I caught his eye, something warm flickered in my chest. And every time Gabriel noticed, his jaw would tighten almost imperceptibly.
So, I kept my distance, pretending not to see Luca as I navigated the crowd. It was safer that way, for both of us.
“You look like you’re attending your own funeral,” Natalie whispered, appearing beside me in a flash of emerald silk. “Try to seem at least a little excited about landing the most eligible bachelor in the city.”
I forced my lips into what I hoped was a convincing smile. “Better?”
“Marginally. Though you might want to work on it before—” She broke off, eyeing something over my shoulder. “Incoming. Elena Morrison, two o’clock, and she’s got that look in her eye.”
Sure enough, Elena was cutting through the crowd toward us, her red dress as sharp as her smile. She’d been not-so-secretly pursuing Gabriel for months, and the news of our families’ negotiations had turned her perfectly polite disdain into something more venomous.
“Celia.” Elena’s voice dripped honey-coated poison. “I was just telling everyone how brave you are. It must be terrifying, knowing you’ll have to live up to Caruso’s standards. His expectations of grace, sophistication…” Her eyes flicked dismissively over my midnight-blue gown. “Style.”
Before I could respond, Natalie stumbled, sending her wine splashing down Elena’s dress. “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry!” Her voice dripped with false concern. “I think champagne gets those stains right out, you know. Or wait…is that only for white wine? I always get them mixed up.”
Elena stormed off toward the bathroom, and Natalie grinned.
“You know I don’t care about Elena,” I whispered to her, taking her arm and leading us to the bar. Natalie didn’t have to risk making enemies for my sake. “But thank you. Tonight has been brutal.”
The whispers, the subtle snubs, the way conversations died when we approached. Everyone knew this marriage was being arranged by our fathers, and the society vultures were circling, hoping I’d fail before it even began.
Near the bar, Gabriel held court with seemingly effortless authority. He looked devastating in his tailored suit, every inch the powerful man he was. Women kept finding excuses to drift closer, touching his arm, laughing too loudly at his brief responses. He seemed oblivious to their attention, which only made them try harder. Meanwhile, their husbands and boyfriends glowered from a safe distance, as if Gabriel’s mere presence diminished them somehow.
I caught him watching me with that unreadable expression, the one that made me feel like a puzzle he was trying to solve. He must have just seen the confrontation with Elena and Natalie’s protective impulse. He was probably judging how poorly I’d fit into his world. How much of a liability I’d be to his reputation.
“Celia.” My brother’s voice made my skin crawl. “A word?”
Natalie’s lips parted in alarm, and she reached for my wrist to snag me out of his grip. I gave her a faint shake of my head. She might be able to protect me in public, by causing a scene, but I had to go home with Royal at the end of the night. I gave her a faint smile, trying to project the confidence that I could manage him.
She watched me with worried eyes. She didn’t buy my act one bit.
He took my elbow, steering me into a quiet alcove. His grip was just tight enough to hurt, his fingers finding the bruises he’d left last week during another one of our “family chats.”
“Father’s concerned about your…hesitation regarding this arrangement,” he said softly. “He’s worried you might be getting ideas about refusing.”
“I don’t know what you?—”
“Let me be clear, little sister.” His fingers dug deeper. “If you embarrass us, if you try to back out, there are ways to deal with that. Accidents happen all the time. Even to unmarried daughters of powerful men.”
The threat hung in the air between us, heavy with the weight of past accidents . Royal’s smile never wavered.
“Remember what happened to Maria?” he added softly. She’d refused marriage to one of our cousins. They’d found her car at the bottom of the river. “Such a tragedy.”
“Is everything alright here?” Gabriel’s stern voice cut through the tension between Royal and me.
Royal’s grip loosened immediately, though his smile remained fixed. “Just having a family chat.”
“Good.” Gabriel’s answering faint smile didn’t take away from the dark menace in his gaze. “Then you won’t mind if I borrow your sister. I have an announcement to make.”
He led me toward the center of the room, his hand warm against my lower back. Someone was already tapping a knife against a glass for attention. The crowd gathered, curious and expectant, while I tried to steady my breathing.
“Many of you know that the Carusos and Carmichaels have recently begun to work together,” Gabriel began, his voice carrying easily through the hushed room. “Tonight, I want to make that alliance personal.”
He turned to me, and to my shock, dropped to one knee.
Gasps rippled through the crowd. Elena, who’d just returned from the bathroom, looked like she might faint. Even Royal’s perfect mask slipped for a moment.
“Celia Carmichael.” Gabriel pulled out a ring box. Inside was a massive diamond that caught the light with a thousand sparkles. The stone was set in platinum, surrounded by smaller diamonds that formed an intricate pattern like frost on glass. “Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife? Of joining our families and our futures together?”
My heart thundered in my chest. This wasn’t just a proposal. He was elevating me above the whispers, the threats, even my own family’s control. With him, I might actually have protection from Royal, from my father.
From everyone but him.
“Yes,” I breathed, letting him slide the ring onto my finger as the crowd applauded.
He looked up at me, with those keen, icy-blue eyes. Dante came to my mind, sitting on the ground so he wouldn’t tower over me, looking up at me in much the same way. Except Dante had been nothing but kind.
But…Dante had encouraged me that Gabriel wasn’t like my father. I needed to know more from Dante, and I promised myself I would find him and unravel Gabriel’s secrets.
Because maybe, this could be my way out.
The party transformed into a celebration. Even Elena was suddenly my new best friend, gushing over the ring. Natalie rolled her eyes behind her back but kept the champagne flowing.
When I caught Luca’s eye across the room, he smiled at me. It seemed like a real smile, full of genuine warmth that made my chest ache.
Then I overheard two men talking near the bar, their voices slightly slurred with expensive scotch.
“Shame about his brother,” one said. “I heard that if there was any part of him that was still human after his parents were murdered, the brother’s death ended it.”
I stopped dead, listening.
Who else had lost both parents and a brother? Did they have to be talking about Gabriel?
“Is that what you heard? Please.” The other man scoffed. “Caruso pulled the trigger himself. His own brother—can you imagine? Right between the eyes. Cold as ice, that one.”
The room tilted sideways. I looked at my new fiancé, at his perfectly controlled expression, at the way he held himself like a man who had rebuilt himself. All his careful movements, his calculated responses weren’t just the habits of a powerful man. They were the habits of someone who had learned exactly how much pressure it took to pull a trigger.
The ring on my finger suddenly felt like a shackle. I couldn’t bear to have it around my finger for another second.
I ducked into the bathroom, hiding in a stall. My chest was closing up. I could barely breathe.
I ripped the ring off my finger and gasped as I folded it in my palm, as if that had been the thing that was strangling me.
But I didn’t dare throw it away. I wasn’t stupid.
I’d spent the last five years believing I was responsible for David’s death. And I was, in a way. My head spun, replaying the scene the way I had imagined it so many times: one of my father’s many faceless men carrying out his order, pulling the trigger. I used to wonder which one of them it might have been every time I passed one.
But now I replayed it, imagining Gabriel instead raising the gun.
I let out ragged gasps of breath, and I bent over, bracing my elbows on my knees. I had to calm down. I had to get back out there and pretend to be normal. I needed time to think, to plot, and to plan. I didn’t dare give away how I felt. I had to forget everything until it was time to unpack the truth.
But the thought of putting that ring on again burned .
In the end, I managed to get it back on my finger. I managed to catch my breath. I fixed my hair and lipstick and my mind.
I stepped back out into the noise of the party.
The champagne turned to acid in my stomach as Gabriel caught my eye and smiled, that same smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. I smiled back, wondering if his brother had seen that same expression just before the bullet hit.
“Dance with me,” Gabriel said, holding out his hand. I placed my hand in his and let him lead me onto the dance floor, where everyone could see how perfect we looked together.
His touch was gentle as we moved to the music.
A perfect gentleman. A perfect murderer.
And I would be his wife.
I looked up at him with a blank, bright smile. I would play along however long I had to.
And then one day, I would kill Gabriel Caruso.