Chapter 12
The telescope he gave me catches the late afternoon sun behind me, beautiful and suffocating all at once. Everything in this rooftop observatory reminds me of his thoughtfulness, his control, how he pays attention to what I love and uses it to bind me tighter.
Some things even marriage to the mafia can't erase. Sarah, my best friend from childhood, the only person who knew Emma before she became nobody, then somebody else entirely.
The door to the rooftop opens with that particular silence that means Alessandro. My whole body goes rigid, caught in the act of reaching for my past.
"You look lost, stellina." His voice carries across the garden, soft but inescapable.
I don't move. Don't turn around. Looking at him makes thinking harder, makes me forget why I need to remember who Emma was.
"Just thinking," I say to the city laid at my feet, to the roses, to anything but him.
"About?"
"About who I used to be." The honesty surprises us both.
His footsteps approach, expensive Italian leather barely whispering against stone. "And who was that?"
"Someone who had a friend named Sarah. Someone who knew her own phone number, her own address, her own last name without having to think about which one I'm supposed to use."
He stops beside me, not touching but close enough that I feel his warmth. His eyes drop to the phone in my hand. "Sarah? You want to call her."
Not a question. He always knows what I want before I ask, maybe before I know myself.
"Yes."
"Then call her." He reaches into his pocket and hands me his cell phone. "I'll be listening, but you can call."
His casual violation of my privacy makes heat pool in my belly at his complete control, my body already trained to his ownership. Of course he'll monitor the call. Nothing in this house happens without Alessandro's knowledge.
I dial anyway, desperate for a voice that knew me before I became his.
Sarah answers on the third ring. "Hello?"
"Sarah, it's me. It's Emma."
Silence stretches across the line, then: "Emma? Oh my God, Emma! Where have you been? You just disappeared from the Hewson house, no explanation, nothing! Penny told me you just vanished one night."
Sarah, being friends with another Hewson maid, would have heard about my sudden departure through the servant network. I glance at Alessandro, who leans against the doorframe. His eyes never leave my face, reading every micro-expression like a map to my soul.
"I got married," I say, the words tasting strange. "It was sudden."
"Married? Emma, you didn't even have a boyfriend! Unless…" Her voice drops. "Are you okay? Did something happen? Are you pregnant?"
"No, nothing like that." I cut her off before she can guess too close to the truth. "It's complicated."
"Complicated how? Emma, you sound scared."
I force a laugh that sounds hollow even to me. "I'm not scared. My husband is… he's good to me."
"Your husband." She says it like she's tasting poison. "Emma, who did you marry?"
I pause a moment, checking in with my husband, who nods.
"Alessandro Rosetti," I finally say.
The silence this time is deafening. When Sarah speaks again, her voice shakes. "Emma, Alessandro Rosetti? The actual mafia? Girl, they say he once dissolved a man in acid for touching his car. What are you doing?"
"You can't tell anyone," I blurt out.
"Is he hurting you? Girl, I'll come and get you. Or…or, meet me for coffee and I'll have a car waiting."
My spine straightens, and words I don't expect pour out. "It's not like that. He's gentle with me, gives me things. He gave me the stars. He bought me a telescope because I mentioned loving astronomy once."
"Listen to yourself! You're defending a man who owns you?"
God, she's right. When did I become the woman who defends a criminal?
"I'm someone else now," I say quietly. "Frances Rosetti. That's who everyone thinks I am."
Alessandro shifts against the doorframe, watching me navigate this conversation. Hearing me explain it all to Sarah adds another layer to our strange reality.
"Frances? Emma, what have you gotten yourself into?"
"I can't explain everything. I just needed to hear a familiar voice, to remember that Emma existed before all this."
"Of course you existed! You exist now! Just because some rich criminal dressed you up doesn't mean—"
"He protects me," I interrupt, surprising myself with the vehemence. "He broke a man's fingers for touching me. He's teaching me to be more than invisible."
"You were never invisible to me," Sarah says softly. "You were my best friend who helped me through mom's death. Emma, what about Tommy? Does this man even know about your brother?"
"He knows," I say quietly, aware of Alessandro's sharpened attention. "He knows everything. About Tommy, rotting in prison."
“Why did he marry you? How did he even know you? Did he force you into this?”
I laugh. “A Rosetti doesn’t force a servant to marry him.”
"Emma, this is insane—"
"I have to go," I say, noting Alessandro pushing off from the doorframe. "I just needed to hear your voice. Remember, you can’t tell anyone."
"Emma, wait. If you need help, if you need to escape—"
"I don't need to escape." The words come out sure, confident, and I realize with a sick twist in my stomach that I mean them. "I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. Take care. I love you."
I hang up before she can respond, before her doubt can infect whatever delusion I'm building to survive this.
Alessandro watches as I walk past him without meeting his eye. Neither of us speaks about the phone call, about my friend's horror, about my defense of him. The silence feels heavy with things we're both thinking but won't say.
Last night's promises hang between us like morning-after bruises, invisible but tender to the touch. The corruption he promised under the stars happened in smaller ways: his thumb on my pulse, his breath on my neck, my shameful wet heat at his restraint.
I wander into the sitting room off our bedroom, touching expensive things that belong to someone else's life.
A crystal decanter reflecting rainbow light.
Silk curtains that whisper wealth with every movement.
Each object reminds me how far I've fallen from Emma's world.
Or risen, depending on whose perspective matters.
Two weeks since I walked down that aisle as someone else. Two weeks of designer clothes, supervised freedom, and a husband who watches me like I'm both precious and breakable. The servant girl who scrubbed floors feels like a ghost, someone I dreamed about once.
I catch my reflection in the floor-length mirror and freeze.
The woman staring back wears a designer dress in deep blue silk. Diamond earrings catch the light, the wedding ring weighs down my hand, a pearl bracelet circles my wrist. Every piece marks me as his, as Mrs. Rosetti, as anything but Emma the servant.
The woman staring back could be any mafia wife. Expensive, empty, existing only as an extension of her husband's power. How many others have stood where I stand, watching themselves disappear into their husband's empire?
"I don't recognize you," I whisper to the stranger in designer clothes.
My hands shake as I remove the jewelry, each piece heavier than the last. The earrings first, then the bracelet, each removal like shedding skin that never quite fit.
The wedding ring sticks, of course it does, and I have to twist it past my knuckle.
Even my body is betraying Emma, swelling to keep Mrs. Rosetti's chains in place.
The designer dress whispers against my skin as I sink onto the velvet sofa, expensive fabric that would have taken me months to afford on my servant's salary. Even the way I sit has changed. Spine straight, ankles crossed, the posture of someone who belongs in places like this.
Until I sag.
Alessandro finds me crying on the sofa, my carefully applied makeup running in black streams down cheeks that no longer feel like mine. He kneels beside me, movements careful and controlled, like approaching a wounded animal.
"Tell me," he says simply.
"I don't know who I am." The words come out broken. "Sarah heard a stranger on the phone. You married someone who doesn't exist. And I'm changing into something I don't recognize."
His thumb brushes away a tear with devastating gentleness.
"You're wet," he observes, and we both know he doesn't just mean the tears.
My thighs clench involuntarily, my body responding to his proximity even through my breakdown.
This is what he's done to me, made me crave him even when I'm falling apart.
"You're my wife."
"You say that like it solves everything."
"Doesn't it?"
"You've had two weeks to make me yours. I've had two weeks to forget who I was. Neither of us is finished yet."
He studies my face like he's memorizing every tear track. "You're becoming who you were meant to be. Not the servant, not the fake heiress. Something new."
"Something you're creating." It's not quite an accusation.
"Something we're creating." His hands frame my face, forcing me to meet his eyes. "You think I haven't changed since that chapel? You think claiming you hasn't altered me in ways I never expected?"
The admission surprises us both. Alessandro Rosetti doesn't admit to change, to being affected. But here he is, kneeling on an expensive rug, offering comfort to the servant girl he married by accident.
"I'm accepting it," I whisper. "This life, these clothes, you. I'm accepting becoming yours even though I know it means losing everything I was."
"Not losing. Transforming." He pulls me against his chest, and I let him, needing the anchor even if it's the very thing drowning me.
"You're still the girl who loves stars. Still the woman who would sacrifice everything for family.
Those parts don't disappear just because you wear silk instead of cotton. "
His cologne mingles with something underneath, gunpowder, maybe, or just the metallic scent of violence that clings to men like him. I breathe it in like an addict, hating how it makes me feel safe.
His arms around me feel like safety and danger combined, like home and exile all at once.
"You know I'm yours as much as you're mine,” he says. “That's enough truth for now."
The word 'enough' keeps echoing between us. His possession is enough for him. But the question that burns in my chest, that I can't voice, is whether being his will ever be enough for me.
"But is it enough for me?" The question slips out before I can stop it, whispered against his shoulder where he might not hear it.
He does, of course. Alessandro hears everything, especially the things I don't want to say.
His arms tighten around me, and for a moment I think he'll push for an answer. Instead, he just holds me while I fragment into pieces. Emma, Frances, Mrs. Rosetti, none of them quite fitting anymore.
"You'll figure it out, stellina," he murmurs against my hair. "You'll decide who you want to be."
The irony doesn't escape me. The man who controls everything offering me this one choice. But maybe that's the point. Maybe the only identity that matters now is the one I choose to build from these broken pieces.
I pull back enough to look at him, this beautiful monster who's reshaping me with every passing day. "What if I choose to be someone you don't like?"
His smile is dangerous and tender at once. "Impossible. Every version of you belongs to me."
His lips brush my forehead, gentle in a way that makes my chest ache.
"Show me the stars tonight," Alessandro says against my hair. "Show me what Emma Rosetti sees in them."
His hand slides from my back to my hip, grip tightening possessively as he pulls me flush against him. I feel his arousal pressing against my stomach, and my body responds instantly, heat pooling between my thighs.
"And one night, maybe not tonight, but one night soon, after you've shown me every constellation you love," his voice drops to that dangerous whisper that makes my whole body clench with need, "I'll teach you new ways to see stars."
He stands, pulling me up with him, his hands spanning my waist. His mouth finds my ear, breath hot against my skin. "On your knees, stellina. Under Perseus and Andromeda. Where you'll learn exactly what Emma Rosetti was born to become."
My legs threaten to give out at the dark promise in his voice. His thumb strokes along my ribcage, just below my breast, and I arch into his touch without meaning to.
"No more pretending, no more fighting,” he continues. “Just you surrendering to what we both know you crave."
His hand slides up my throat, fingers wrapping around it gently but with unmistakable possession. My pulse hammers against his palm, and he smiles that dangerous smile that makes me wet.
"Soon, Emma, you're going to beg for your corruption. And I'm going to give you exactly what you need. What only I can give you." His thumb presses against my pulse point. "Every dark thing you've been dreaming about since our wedding night."
I can't breathe, can't think, can only feel the promise of what's coming. The stars that once meant escape now become witnesses to my willing destruction.
"Soon," I whisper, the word sealing my fate.
His smile turns predatory, satisfied. "Good girl.”