Chapter 8
The sound of three thousand silver utensils striking fine porcelain is, surprisingly, like the chattering teeth of a skeletal army. Clink, clink, clink.
I sat at the center of the Head Table, elevated on a platform about a foot above the rest of the ballroom.
The view was panoramic: round tables draped in white linen, orchid arrangements that cost more than a compact car, and faces...
hundreds of faces I'd known since childhood, but that now seemed distorted under the crystal chandeliers.
I looked to my left. The high-backed leather chair was empty. The linen napkin lay immaculately folded beside an untouched plate.
Cassian Varro, my husband of exactly three hours, wasn't at my side. He was doing what he did best: managing the herd.
I spotted him in the far corner of the ballroom, near the mahogany bar.
He was surrounded by a wall of black suits—Moretti, Rossi, and a few senior advisors.
He held a glass of sparkling water (he never drank on duty, and apparently, his own wedding counted as duty), posture rigid, head tilted slightly to catch the whispered words of an old man with liver spots on his hands.
He looked like a king receiving tribute. I looked like the forgotten queen consort, left to rot on the throne while the men decided the fate of the borders.
“Signora Varro?” A waiter materialized at my side, holding a bottle of red wine wrapped in a white cloth. “A little more?”
I looked at my glass. Empty. When had I drained it? I couldn't remember. The taste in my mouth was purple, tannic, vaguely anesthetic. “Fill it,” I ordered, holding out my glass. My hand wavered. The ruby liquid rose dangerously close to the rim.
I took a long sip. The wine went down hot, burning away the knot of anxiety that had lived in my throat since morning. The world softened at the edges. The chandelier lights blurred into diffuse halos, like dying stars.
I looked back at Cassian. He wasn't even glancing my way. He'd kissed me in the church like he wanted to devour me, like I was the air he breathed. But the moment the cathedral doors closed and we got in the car, the switch flipped. He went back to being the Ice.
“You wave, you smile, you eat.” Those were his instructions before depositing me here like a porcelain doll.
A wave of hot anger, fueled by the wine, rose through my chest. I wasn't a doll.
I was Solaia D'Angelo. This ballroom, this food, these people...
all of it had been paid for with my father's blood.
And they were ignoring me. They looked at Cassian like he was the new God, and at me with that disgusting mix of pity and lust.
I saw the looks. The younger cousins at table 4 whispered and glanced at my modest neckline, imagining what lay beneath the silk.
The Capos' wives at table 2 analyzed me with contempt, calculating how long I'd last before having a nervous breakdown or being shipped off to a sanatorium in Switzerland.
“Pathetic,” I murmured to my plate of cold risotto.
“Talking to yourself, cousin? That's the first sign, you know.”
The voice came from my right, just below the platform.
I turned my head, feeling the world spin faster than it should.
It was Marco. A second cousin. Twenty-five, with blindingly white teeth and a reputation as a mediocre gambler who owed money to half the world.
He held a champagne glass and smiled with an intimacy he hadn't earned.
“What do you want, Marco?” I asked, the syllables coming out slurred.
He rested his elbows on the tablecloth, invading my space.
“Just came to pay my respects to the most beautiful and loneliest bride in Chicago.” He glanced at Cassian's empty chair and let out a laugh.
“Has the 'Ice' already frozen you out? Can't say I'm surprised.
The man's a calculating machine, Solaia.
He doesn't know what to do with a real woman.”
I gripped the stem of my glass. “Careful, Marco. The calculating machine might subtract your tongue if you talk too loud.”
Marco laughed, but his eyes gleamed with malice.
The alcohol was doing his talking too. “Ah, cousin... everyone knows this is a farce. Uncle Vittorio was senile. Handing you over to him?” He made an obscene gesture.
“It's a waste. You needed someone of your own blood.
Someone who knows how to warm up a D'Angelo.”
The insinuation hung in the air, oily and repugnant.
He was flirting with me. At my wedding. With my father's corpse barely cold in the ground.
His audacity was a measure of my fall. If my father were alive, Marco wouldn't dare look at me.
If Cassian were at my side, Marco would be pissing himself. But I was alone. And he saw easy prey.
“Get out of here,” I hissed.
“Come on, Sol.” He reached out and touched my arm, his sweaty fingers pressing into the silk of my dress. “One dance. Just to show him what he's missing while he talks about trafficking routes.”
His touch was the trigger. Not fear. Disgust. The fury of being treated like public meat.
I yanked my arm back. The movement was abrupt, clumsy from the wine. My elbow caught the full glass. The crystal toppled.
It was like watching an accident in slow motion. The red wine gushed over the immaculate white tablecloth, spreading like a pool of arterial blood. It spilled over the edge and onto Marco's light-colored suit.
“Shit!” Marco shouted, jumping back.
The sound of the glass hitting the floor and shattering into a thousand pieces cut through the party noise like a gunshot. The entire hall fell silent. The band stopped playing. Three hundred heads turned toward the Head Table.
I should have been mortified. I should have been apologizing. But the adrenaline and alcohol had mixed into an explosive cocktail in my brain. I looked at the red stain on the tablecloth. It looked like art. It looked like the state of my life.
I started laughing. It came out bubbling, too loud, too hysterical. “Look at that, Marco!” I pointed at his suit, my voice echoing in the deathly silence of the hall. “Now you match the decor!”
I tried to stand up. My legs felt like jelly. I stumbled over the long dress, grabbing the edge of the table to keep from falling face-first into the risotto. “More wine!” I shouted into the silent hall. “Let’s toast! To happily ever after! To the contract!”
Marco’s face was red with rage. “You’re drunk, you crazy bitch...”
Before he could finish the sentence, a shadow materialized behind him. There was no sound of footsteps. Just a sudden change in air pressure. The temperature dropped ten degrees.
Cassian.
He didn’t look at Marco. He looked at me. His eyes were no longer gray. They were black. Black holes that sucked all the light and joy from the room. His jaw was clenched so tight I could see the muscle pulsing beneath his skin.
Marco noticed the presence behind him and turned, instantly paling. “Cassian... Mr. Varro... she spilled... it was an accident...”
Cassian placed a hand on Marco’s shoulder. It wasn’t a friendly pat. It was a claw. I watched Marco wince under the pressure, a grimace twisting his face as Cassian’s fingers dug into his collarbone. “Leave,” Cassian whispered. “Before I decide you don’t need that arm anymore.”
Marco ran off, stumbling over his own legs, disappearing into the crowd.
Cassian climbed onto the platform. He stopped in front of me. I was still clinging to the table, swaying, with a crooked, stupid smile on my face. “Hi, husband,” I taunted, slurring my words. “Come to join the party? Or are you just checking the inventory?”
He didn’t respond. His hand wrapped around my arm, just above the elbow. This time, there was no gentleness. None of the sensual possessiveness from the church. Only raw, contained force. His fingers squeezed hard enough to leave marks tomorrow. It hurt.
“Ow!” I complained, trying to pull my arm away. “You’re hurting me.”
“Shut up,” he hissed through his teeth, low enough that the audience couldn’t hear, but loud enough to vibrate in my bones.
He turned to the hall, which watched us with bated breath.
His social mask descended immediately, covering the murderous fury with a layer of diplomatic politeness.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” his voice was calm, authoritative, projecting effortlessly, “my wife is exhausted. The emotion of the day, the recent grief... she needs to retire. Enjoy the evening. It’s on us. ”
There was a murmur of forced agreement. “Of course, of course,” “Poor girl,” “What an attentive husband.”
They bought the lie. Or pretended to, because no one had the courage to question Cassian Varro when he had that gleam in his eyes.
He didn’t wait for applause. He pulled me. “Walk,” he ordered, dragging me off the platform.
“I don’t want to go!” I protested, my heels slipping on the polished floor. “The music was just getting good!”
He didn’t stop. He used me as a shield at his side, walking with long, quick strides toward the service exit.
I had to nearly run to keep up with him, my legs tangling with each other.
We passed the tables. I saw the blurred faces.
I saw the mocking smiles of the wives. There she goes. The drunk. The weak one.
“Let go of me, Cassian!” I shouted when we reached the carpeted hallway beyond the hall.
He kicked open the emergency door and pushed me into the private elevator lobby. As soon as the double doors closed behind us, muffling the music and the buzz, he released me.
The momentum made me stumble. My back hit the cold marble wall. I tried to straighten up, adjusting my dress, grasping for some fragment of dignity. “You’re a brute,” I muttered, rubbing my sore arm. “Dragging me around like a garbage bag in front of everyone...”
Cassian jabbed the elevator button. The panel lit up. He turned to me.
The air left my lungs. He wasn’t just angry. He was livid. There was a volcanic coldness in him, a rage so dense it felt physical. He advanced on me. I shrank against the marble, the alcohol instantly evaporating from my system under the wave of pure fear.
He slammed his hands against the wall, one on each side of my head, trapping me. His body didn’t touch mine, but his aura suffocated me. “Do you have any idea what you just did?” His voice was a ragged whisper.
“I knocked over a glass...” I tried to minimize it, staring at his tie knot because I couldn’t meet his eyes.
“You exposed yourself!” he snarled, and the violence in his voice made me flinch. “You showed them you’re unstable. That you’re weak. That you have no control! Marco? That worm? You let him touch you. You laughed like a cheap whore while he mocked your father’s memory!”
“I didn’t... I was alone!” I shouted back, tears of frustration burning my eyes. “You abandoned me! You were off playing Godfather and left me there to be eaten by sharks! What did you expect? That I’d sit there knitting?”
“I expected you to have an ounce of class!” He moved closer, his nose almost touching mine.
I could smell coffee and mint on his breath, mixed with fury.
“I was securing the alliances that keep you alive, you ungrateful child. While I was negotiating your safety, you were getting drunk and handing ammunition to our enemies.”
“I hate this! I hate them! I hate you!” I pounded my fists against his chest. It was like hitting a concrete wall. He didn’t even flinch.
Cassian caught my wrists mid-swing. With one hand, he pinned both my hands above my head against the wall. I was immobilized. Exposed. The silk dress stretched taut over my body, and his breath was hot against my face.
“Hatred is irrelevant,” he said, looking deep into my eyes. “Respect is mandatory.”
The elevator doors opened with a soft ding. He didn’t release me right away. He looked at my mouth, then at my tear-filled eyes. There was something else there, mixed with the anger. Contempt? Desire? Impossible to tell.
He released me abruptly and pointed to the open elevator. “Get in. We’re going home.”
I stepped into the mirrored cabin, trembling, arms wrapped around myself. Cassian followed and pressed the button for the penthouse. The metal doors slid shut, sealing us together in a silence louder than any scream.
I caught my reflection in the elevator’s gilded mirror. Messy hair. Smudged lipstick. Red eyes. I looked exactly like what he’d called me: a broken child.
“You will never embarrass me in public again, Solaia,” he said, eyes fixed on the climbing floor numbers. “Next time you drink, it will be in the solitude of your locked room. Consider that a promise.”
I leaned my head against the elevator wall and closed my eyes, feeling it rise too fast, leaving my stomach—and the rest of my life—behind on the ground floor.