Chapter 8
LUCIA
The dress is a size fourteen. It’s the blood-red silk Dominic ordered me to wear—a color designed to mark me as a target. I am absolutely not a size fourteen. Dominic knows the exact measurements of my body. He had this gown delivered to my apartment this morning with a handwritten note.
Wear this tonight. No alterations.
The zipper sits halfway up my back. Twenty minutes of shallow sips of air finally forces the heavy fabric to surrender enough to close. It has not surrendered much. The thick seams pull across my hips. The rigid neckline cuts into the soft flesh at the tops of my breasts.
It creates a spilling line of skin. My fingers tug at it constantly.
It’s structured and obscenely expensive, but the seams are screaming.
The designer crafted this piece for a woman who takes up significantly less space in the world.
That is the entire point. Dominic does not send clothes out of brotherly care.
He sends clothes designed as calculated, physical punishments.
He dresses me to force a hyper-awareness of my own body.
He wants to remind me exactly how much of me requires containment.
Two hundred people pack the grand ballroom of the Costa Foundation annual Gala.
Massive crystal chandeliers scatter fractured light across the vaulted ceiling.
A hired string quartet plays Vivaldi in the corner.
The elegant, sterile music provides the perfect cover.
Men in ten-thousand-dollar tailored suits negotiate territory deals and drug shipments over trays of miniature crab cakes.
The air suffocates. It reeks of aged bourbon, sharp designer cologne, and white lilies already turning brown at the edges.
I press my back against the east wall. A tall crystal glass of gin and tonic sweats in my right hand. The liquid is untouched.
My eyes scan the crowded room. The tactical protocol Dominic drilled into my brain since childhood runs on a continuous loop.
Identify the money. Identify the threat. Identify the exit.
Three exits exist in this ballroom. The closest sits exactly seventeen steps behind my left shoulder.
It leads through a narrow service corridor to the underground loading dock.
I counted the steps the exact second my heels touched the marble floor.
Counting grounds the panic. Counting is a survival mechanism.
Tyra is at home with Rosa. Asleep by now. Eight-thirty on a Saturday night. Pink unicorn pajamas. The ragged stuffed grey wolf tucked under her chin. Rosa sent a text message an hour ago confirming a clean plate of pasta.
My daughter is four years old. She is the only clean, beautiful thing in my entire life.
That fact sits in the center of my chest like a heavy, jagged stone every single time I walk into a room full of cartel monsters.
My gaze shifts across the perimeter of the ballroom.
The exits are not clear.
Nick stands by the main double doors, his presence a dark, immovable monolith.
Beneath his custom suit, the Kevlar plates of his tactical vest press against his massive chest. I don’t know the names of the men lurking in the shadows, but I feel the shift in the room.
The three bodyguards Dominic hired are moving.
I can see the subtle signals—the way the valets outside hold themselves with a soldier’s posture, the way the kitchen staff seems suddenly, lethally efficient. They are a phalanx of wolves who are already colonizing the house’s defenses from the inside.
The air leaves my lungs.
The memories from the morning assault my nervous system.
The intense, desperate heat of Jude’s mouth consumes my thoughts. The taste of mint. The punishing crush of his body trapping me against the pastel yellow wall of the nursery. The absolute, terrifying safety in his dark eyes.
The scorching burn of Rafe’s rough palms dragging up my bare thighs flashes next. The feral hunger in his stare. The urge to let him tear the emerald silk to shreds right on the closet floor.
The dark, territorial promise Nick whispered against my neck overrides the string quartet.
I tip my chin down. Making eye contact with any of them in this public, high-stakes space is a fatal error. The tension connecting the four of us is a live wire. It threatens to burn the entire ballroom down.
They guard the doors. They watch the shadows. They are executing their contracted duties.
A sharp, double-click of static erupts in the small earpiece Nick forced me to wear under my hair.
“The team is on the kill-switches,” Nick’s low, cold baritone vibrates against my skull. “We have the eyes. Eyes on you, Principessa. Give me a signal if you’re compromised.”
I don’t answer. I can’t. But the realization that there are more of them—more monsters in the shadows waiting for a signal—makes the air in the ballroom slightly less suffocating.
They have no idea about the bomb resting against my ribcage.
The hard metal edge of the stolen master USB drive bites into my skin. It sits tucked inside the thick lace of my bra. The punishing tightness of the blood-red silk dress presses the metal into my sternum. Every shallow breath grinds the evidence of my treason into my flesh.
Dominic stands at the front of the ballroom.
Forty-four years old. Tailored charcoal suit. He has our father’s sharp jawline without a single ounce of the old man’s softness.
He leans into the shoulder of a city councilman.
The sterile, calculated Costa smile flashes across his face.
The smile he keeps for useful assets. My brother runs the criminal family the way a sociopathic surgeon runs an operating room.
Cold. Precise. Certain the body bleeding out on the metal table has no vote in the procedure.
I am the body on the table.
The knowledge has been building for weeks. The subtle shifts in his behavior gave it away. The way his cold eyes tracked my movements across a room. Phone calls dying the second my heels clicked into his study. His sudden interest in my daily schedule.
The question he lobbed last Tuesday with rehearsed, terrifying casualness. How is the little one? Growing fast? Dominic never asks about Tyra. Not once in four years. When the established pattern shifts, danger follows.
He steps up to the microphone.
The string quartet stops. A sharp squeal of feedback echoes through the speakers. Two hundred faces turn toward the front of the room. They offer the trained attentiveness of people whose bank accounts and lives belong to a single man.
“Thank you all for being here tonight.”
Dominic’s voice fills the cavernous room. Low. Smooth. Unhurried. The cadence of a man who has never once been interrupted.
“The Costa Foundation has always been about strengthening bonds between important families.” He grips the edges of the wooden podium. “We build bridges. We secure the future of this great city. Tonight, I am thrilled to announce a new, permanent bond.”
The ice in my crystal glass shifts with a soft clink.
“My sister Lucia will be joining the Ferraro family.”
Dominic finds my face in the massive crowd. He smiles at me. The expression does not reach his cold, dead eyes. His smiles never do.
“She and Calix Ferraro are officially engaged.”
Deafening applause erupts.
The sound hits my body like a rapid series of strikes to the stomach. The truth crashes down in one wave. The heavy blood-red silk dress. The specific guest list. The tight security.
This is not a charity party. This is a public auction block.
Every person in this room understands the definition of the word engaged in our violent world. It does not mean love. It does not mean choice. It means territory. A corporate merger dressed in white lace and expensive diamonds.
I am the asset being transferred. Dominic is trading my flesh to secure the western port alliances.
Two hundred stares land on my shoulders. Pairs of eyes press into my skin like dirty thumbprints. The wealthy woman standing beside me breathes a loud sigh of congratulations. The bright, sickening relief on her face screams the truth. She is just glad the sacrifice is happening to somebody else.
Years of brutal Costa training take over.
My face gives nothing away. My body remains still. The punishing dress acts like a straightjacket.
I do not scream. I do not drop the glass. I do not run for the service exit seventeen steps behind me.
The applause crests. Dominic raises his champagne glass. Two hundred crystal flutes rise in unison to celebrate my permanent imprisonment.
Calix Ferraro separates from the crowd near the open bar.
He walks toward me. His stride is unhurried. Arrogant. He moves with the entitlement of a man who has never questioned whether the ground beneath his expensive shoes belongs to him.
Thirty-eight years old. Dark, dead eyes. He is handsome the way a brutalist skyscraper is handsome. All harsh structure. Zero human warmth. Broad shoulders. A sharp Roman nose. A mouth that appears generous right up until the moment he opens it.
His smile makes cocktail waitresses bring the check faster. It makes women on the street clutch their purses without knowing exactly why.
He stops too close.
The heavy, suffocating scent of expensive sandalwood and sharp bourbon invades my airspace.
“Lucia.”
He grabs my left hand before my arm even twitches. He folds my trembling fingers into his crushing grip. He lifts my hand and presses his cold mouth to my knuckles.
The gesture is strictly for the room. Calibrated to the exact millimeter. Tender. Proprietary. The wealthy new fiancé greeting his beautiful bride.
A photographer lifts a heavy camera. The bright flash blinds me for a fraction of a second. Two women near the champagne fountain tilt their heads together, whispering behind manicured hands.
My face remains a blank mask. I pull a controlled, shallow breath into my burning lungs. The tight ribs of the dress strain against the expansion.
“But look at the bright side.”