20. Chapter Eighteen #2
It was all just grooming me for the highest bidder. Not even a real marriage alliance. Just a trade for territory and protection.
"I want to kill him." The words slip out before I can stop them.
Dante's hand tightens on my waist as my father turns on the spot, and for a moment I think he'll see me. My heart pounds but I refuse to look away.
"I need to speak with him," I decide, already moving forward.
Dante grips my arm, stopping me with an iron hold disguised as a lover's touch. "Not here, Francesca. Not publicly."
I meet his eyes. "I need this, Dante."
His hard gaze shifts to a look of recognition of the pain I can't quite hide. After a moment, he nods.
"In our box. Where privacy is assured." His voice drops lower. "I'll have Marco arrange it."
True to his word, by the time we ascend the grand staircase to the private boxes, Dante has orchestrated everything. Marco stands silent at the corridor's end. Vincent is positioned near the main entrance.
Antonio Castellano enters our box with the smooth confidence of a man accustomed to owning whatever space he occupies. His eyes find mine immediately, showing only the barest flicker of recognition.
"Francesca," he acknowledges, voice cool as a winter morning. "You look well."
I remain seated, refusing to stand for the man who traded me like livestock. "Father. How unexpected to find you in Rome."
His gaze shifts to Dante, who leans against the box's far wall, watching the exchange with predatory focus.
"Ravelli," my father says, the name holding neither respect nor fear.
" Castellano ," Dante returns with equal coldness. "Surprising to see you venture from your fortress. Especially after our... business arrangement."
My father's jaw tightens at the deliberate reference to my sale. "Some matters require personal attention."
"Like checking on your merchandise?" I interject, unable to stop the bitterness from bleeding into my voice.
His attention returns to me, assessing rather than paternal. "I see your circumstances haven't improved your manners."
"And I see trading your daughter hasn't improved your soul," I counter. "Tell me, Father, did you at least secure a good price? Was I worth enough territory to justify erasing twenty-six years of pretending you cared?"
He sighs, the sound weary and somehow condescending. "Always so dramatic, Francesca. This wasn't personal. It was necessary for our family's survival."
"Our family?" I laugh, the sound hollow even to my own ears. "Don't you mean your empire ? Your legacy? Your fucking ego?!"
"Careful," he warns, glancing toward the doorway where other opera patrons pass. "You've always had a regrettable tendency toward emotional displays."
"And you've always had a talent for cruelty disguised as strategy," I reply, rising now to face him directly. "Was I always destined for sale, Father? Did you plan it from my birth?"
A shadow passes across his face, there and gone in an instant.
"The Volkovs threatened our southern territories," he explains, voice dropping lower. "The Ravellis offered protection in exchange for certain... concessions. If not you, it would have been your brother."
The mention of my brother almost shatters my heart. "You would have traded him too?"
"I would have done whatever necessary to preserve what I've built." He straightens, unapologetic. "But the Volkovs specified you. Something about keeping the bloodlines clean."
Each word carves deeper wounds than I thought possible after a lifetime of his emotional distance.
"Fuck you," I whisper, tears threatening despite my determination to show no weakness.
He almost flinches, instead, he looks down and adjusts his cufflinks.
"You were raised to understand our world, Francesca. Don't pretend shock at how the game is played."
Dante pushes off the wall, moving to stand beside me. The heat of his body provides unexpected support as my father continues.
"Besides," Father adds, gaze sliding dismissively over Dante. "The arrangement was with the Volkovs, not directly with... him ."
"And what had you planned, exactly?" I demand, furious that even now, he can't acknowledge Dante's presence properly. "Which old man would you have eventually sold me to? Which strategic alliance would have justified whoring out your daughter?"
"Language, Francesca." My father sighs as if I'm a child throwing a tantrum. "Your education was meant for more significant alliances. The Bourbons expressed interest. Even the Fukuda family had inquired. Your bloodline, your training, your virgin status—"
"Stop!" I hiss, disgust rising like bile. "I'm not a fucking thoroughbred."
"You're Castellano ." He steps closer, voice hardening. "That means responsibility. Duty. Sacrifice when necessary. Values you seem to have forgotten while playing house with a man whose own father couldn't even trust him with the family name."
Dante goes utterly still beside me.
My father turns to him, a cruel smile tugging at his lips. "Isn't that right, Ravelli? Vito knew what you were. A useful attack dog, but never fit to wear the crown. That's why he chose Luca. Everyone knows it."
The air in the box heats with danger. Dante's expression transforms, the controlled predator suddenly, violently unleashed.
"You think I don't know what I am?" Dante's voice drops to a tone that promises blood. "You think I haven't embraced it, perfected it, while pathetic men like you hide behind family names and ancient rules?"
My father dismisses him with a gesture. "Men like you are useful for certain tasks. But there's a natural order in our world, and those who forget their place eventually suffer for it."
The words hit Dante like a punch to the throat. I see it in the tightening of his jaw, the deadly stillness of his body. These aren't just insults… they're echoes of wounds inflicted by his own father. Scars I've only begun to understand.
"Dante," I say softly, reaching for his arm. "He's not worth it. Come on."
But Dante's focus remains locked on my father, something terrible and beautiful transforming his features.
"You should apologize to your daughter," he says with deadly quietness.
My father laughs loudly. "Apologize?! For wha—"
The movement happens so fast I barely register it. One moment my father stands tall; the next, blood sprays from his shattered nose as Dante's fist connects with his face.
Antonio Castellano stumbles backward, hands rising to his face in shock. Blood seeps between his fingers, staining his perfectly white shirt.
"You... fucking..." he sputters, rage replacing surprise.
Dante moves forward but I step between them, one hand on Dante's chest, feeling the thunderous rhythm of his heart beneath my palm.
"Enough," I say firmly.
"I'm not finished," Dante growls, eyes never leaving my father's bloodied face.
"Yes, you are," I counter, turning to face my father. "He's given you a warning. Next time, it will be your life."
For the first time, fear flickers across my father's features. Not of Dante's violence—he's weathered worse—but of the absolute conviction in my voice as I stand beside the man who once kidnapped me, but now owns and protects my heart with his own.
"You've made your choice then," he says, dabbing his nose with a handkerchief.
"I have."
My father's expression hardens to stone. "Then you are no longer Castellano."
The words should hurt. Should devastate me after a lifetime of being defined by that name and its weight.
Instead, I feel only a strange lightness, as if chains have fallen away.
"You're right, Father. I'm Ravelli now," I answer, taking Dante's hand in mine. "And you should remember that when next you speak of natural order and proper place."
The first notes of the orchestra tuning reach us, signaling the performance's imminent start. My father straightens, dignity reasserting itself despite the blood staining his tuxedo.
"This is not finished, Francesca," he warns, moving toward the door.
"It is," I counter. "But tell my brother I miss him. That I love him. And that if you ever try to sell him too, I'll personally ensure the Castellano name ends with you."
My father pauses at the threat. Then, when he sees that I'm speaking with deadly fucking clarity, he departs without another word.
Dante pulls me against him, one hand cupping my face with startling tenderness. "Are you alright?"
"Better than I have been in years," I admit, reaching to straighten his bow tie where it had shifted during the confrontation. "Thank you for breaking his nose."
Dante's laugh is dark, genuine. "My pleasure, princess. Though next time, I'd prefer to break considerably more than that."
"Next time," I agree, as the opera's opening chords fill the theater, "I might even let you."
He brushes his lips against mine, the taste of violence and protection and something dangerously close to devotion mingling between us.