Chapter 27
Alina
“Are you sure you don’t want some wine?” Piper whispers, pouring herself some more.
“A little bit, please,” I reply before refocusing on Raven.
“… and that’s how Pipes and I became best friends a million years ago.” Raven finishes the story of how she and Piper became friends and how long they’ve known each other.
“Wow.” I take a small sip of the red wine Piper just poured. “That’s some story.”
Rolling her eyes, Piper huffs out a laugh. “It wasn’t quite that dramatic. But apart from the flourish, yeah, it all adds up.”
I can’t think of anything to add, so I let the silence settle while I take another sip of wine. Across from me, Raven watches me over the rim of her glass like she’s waiting for something interesting to happen.
I thought breathing would be easier with Raffaele gone, but right now I’m finding myself missing his orders.
“So,” Raven says, leaning forward with a gleam in her eye. “March twenty-sixth, huh? Talk about a whirlwind romance.”
My hand automatically goes to the choker at my throat, fingers tracing the cool diamonds. “It’s… complicated,” I manage.
“It always is with them,” Piper replies with a knowing smile. “He took you in place of the debt your mom owed, right?”
“Collected me,” I correct, and then I can’t help laughing. God, he really has corrupted me.
Instead of shock, Raven and Piper exchange a glance loaded with meaning.
“It’s what they do,” Raven grins. “They collect everything. Even women.”
“Were you two collected as well?” I ask, curious as to how they found themselves with Lorenzo and Matteo.
Piper leans forward, her elegant posture a striking contrast to the mischievous smile playing on her lips.
“Well, Lorenzo spotted me once in a coffee shop and became obsessed,” she says, twirling her wineglass slowly.
“I was a student at Georgetown, finishing my degree, and he engineered job rejections and interviews until I had no choice but to interview with him.”
My mouth falls open. “That’s… that’s stalking,” I stammer.
“Oh, absolutely,” she agrees with a serene smile that doesn’t match her words. “He manipulated my entire career path and kept tabs on me for a while before we even met officially.”
“And you’re… okay with that?” I ask, stunned.
“Now I am,” she admits. “Back then, I was terrified. And furious. But somehow, along the way…” She trails off, her eyes softening. “He saw parts of me no one else ever had. The ambition, the ruthlessness I kept hidden. He didn’t want to change me—he wanted to unleash me.”
There’s something in her expression that makes my stomach flip—a possessiveness that mirrors what I’ve seen in Lorenzo’s eyes when he looks at her. She doesn’t just tolerate his obsession; she revels in it.
“My story’s not that dramatic,” Raven interjects, patting her rounded belly. “Just a one-night stand that went sideways when I stole his lighter.”
I nearly choke. “You stole Matteo’s lighter? Matteo Russo?”
She grins, utterly unrepentant. “It was my trophy. Or the price for giving him the best sex he’ll ever have. It’s all about perspective.”
“What did he do?” I can’t even imagine Matteo’s reaction to being stolen from. The thought alone makes my skin crawl with fear.
“Oh, he tracked me down, obviously,” she says casually, as if discussing the weather. “First, he showed up at my job, and when I ran out on him, he decided to almost kick my door down in the middle of the night.”
“Really?” I prompt, unable to look away from her animated face.
“Yep,” she grins, popping the p.
She leans back in her chair like the memory amuses her.
“He said I owed him a favor,” she explains. “He’s the Favor Collector, after all. And my favor was to be his fake girlfriend to help find out who wanted to kill him. Huh, guess it was a smidge dramatic.”
“Everything with you is dramatic, Lee,” Piper laughs.
Raven nods eagerly as if it was a compliment. “Dang straight.” She shoots her friend a finger gun. Then her smile turns private, secretive. “It didn’t stay fake for long.”
“And now you’re having his babies,” I observe, nodding toward her stomach.
“Beautiful twins,” she confirms, her expression softening as she rubs her belly. “Due in two months. Anyway, my point is Matteo might be an unpredictable firestarter. But he’s everything I never knew I needed.”
I look between them, these two beautiful, confident women who seem so at ease with the darkness in their men. Women who didn’t grow up in this world either. Yet somehow they look completely at home in it.
“They’re not good men,” Piper says, as if reading my thoughts. “Not by most standards. They’re possessive, controlling, dangerous. But with us…” She looks at Raven, who nods in understanding.
“With us, they’re something else entirely,” Raven finishes for her. “Something both better and worse.”
I think of Raffaele’s hands on me—sometimes gentle, sometimes rough, but always making me feel more seen than I’ve ever been. The way he insists on my beauty when all my life I’ve been told the opposite. The chess games where he’s given me choices but also forced me to think, to assert myself.
“They’re obsessed with us,” Piper says, her voice dropping to almost a whisper. “But the secret no one talks about? We’re just as obsessed with them.”
The admission sends a shiver down my spine because I recognize the truth in it. Despite everything—how we met, the circumstances of our engagement—I can feel myself falling deeper into whatever this is between Raffaele and me.
“So,” Piper says, breaking the momentary silence with a grin. “Now that we’ve shared our sordid beginnings—tell us more about you and Rafe. Does he do that thing where he watches you while you sleep? Enzo does that. It’s creepy but also kind of hot.”
I laugh despite myself, the knot of tension in my chest loosening for the first time since we arrived. These women understand something I’m only beginning to grasp—that there’s a strange freedom in belonging to someone who wants you beyond reason, beyond sanity.
“I don’t know,” I admit, my fingers still playing with the diamonds at my throat. “But he always has to sleep with his arm around my waist, like he’s afraid I’ll disappear in the night.”
Sitting here and sharing these details feels surreal. Amazing, but surreal all the same. But when I look at Piper and Raven, I just know they understand. None of them grew up in the life the Russo men did. We’re all outsiders who somehow caught their attention.
“Hey!” Raven exclaims. “You never told us your story. I just realized you weaseled your way out of it. Spill the tea, Alina.”
“I need more wine for that.” When Piper’s quick to refill my glass, I can’t help laughing. “Okay, here goes everything.”
There’s no denying I love their expressions and soft uuhs and oohs as I explain everything from finding out Sabrina had fled to finding Raffaele in the dark apartment.
Piper’s eyes narrow slightly. “Wait a second,” she hisses. “Your own sister abandoned you to the Russos?”
I nod, surprised by the flash of anger that crosses her elegant features. “She’s always hated me. I still don’t fully understand why.”
“Stop interrupting,” Raven whines, tossing a piece of bread at Piper. Turning to me, she explains, “Pipes gets riled up when it comes to family behaving badly. It’s her Achilles’ heel.”
Piper just nods, but gestures with her hand for me to go on. So I do. I tell them about my days of refusing to eat, the chess games, and later the clothing debacle.
While I’m reliving every detail, I feel like I’m watching them with a fresh perspective. Some things that I thought Raffaele said in a menacing way now come across as rough with desire in my mind’s eye.
And… God. The smoldering looks he’s given me that I barely noticed at the time, but in my memory they stand out like fog lights.
“So when did Rafe propose?” Piper asks, refilling her wineglass and offering me more. I accept with a nod.
“A while ago,” I murmur. “He learned about my biggest dreams from the questions he asked after winning a game. And he told me he’d help me achieve my dreams if I marry him.”
“Classic Russo proposal,” Raven laughs, patting her belly as she takes a sip of water. “Well, I’m glad he’s found someone. He’s been a moody fudger since his mom died. Even Matteo is losing his patience with him, which is saying a lot.”
Raffaele’s mom died? Of what? When? God, the things I don’t know about him could fill his library shelves.
Shaking my head, I let the thought go for now. “Sometimes I can’t believe this is my life now. A month ago, I was just a baker who’d never even been kissed.”
“Never?” Raven’s eyes widen. “Oh, honey, what a first kiss that must have been.”
The conversation flows more easily now, wine warming my veins. And somewhere between this bottle and the next, I’ve confessed I’m a virgin, and that Raffaele is my first everything.
At first, I worried they’d think something was wrong with me, but if they do, they never express it. And somehow I don’t think they’d hold back if that’s how they really felt.
“I’m curious to find out what his kink is,” Raven cackles.
“Kink?” I ask, scrunching up my nose.
“Stop it, Lee,” Piper chides. “Don’t put her on the spot.”
Raven just waves her friend off. “Tell her what Lorenzo does to you.”
Piper’s smile grows as she tells me how her husband puts his cum into her shampoo. For a second, I’m not even sure I heard her correctly.
I choke on my wine, coughing violently as Raven reaches over to pat my back. “He what?” I finally manage to gasp out.
“Mixes it into my shampoo,” Piper says calmly. “He thinks I don’t know, but I saw him doing it before we even got married years ago.”
“That’s…” I search for a word that isn’t crude. “Unexpected.”
“I like it,” she says with a casual shrug. “My hair’s never been shinier.”
Raven nods seriously. “Matteo paints my toenails,” she reveals. “Always pink. And then he, well, he’s really into my feet. Especially my toes.”
I blink rapidly, trying to process the image of the intimidating, one-eyed Matteo carefully painting Raven’s toenails. “Isn’t that… sweet?”
“Oh, there’s nothing sweet about it,” Raven smirks. “He gets rock hard doing it. It’s his thing. What about Rafe? What’s his secret obsession?”
I hesitate, not sure if it’s my place to share. But these women have been so open, so forthcoming. “He… he’s obsessed with my body,” I admit finally, my voice dropping. “But not in the way you might think. He’s constantly telling me how beautiful I am, especially the parts I’ve always hated.”
“Like what?” Piper prompts gently.
“My stomach,” I say, the confession difficult despite their openness. “My thighs. My… everything, really. He gets angry when I try to hide from him. He made me look in the mirror while he…” I can’t finish, but I don’t need to. They understand.
“They see something in us,” Raven says softly. “Something we couldn’t see in ourselves.”
Piper nods, then fixes me with a direct gaze. “Alina, if you could walk away right now, completely free, would you?”
The question catches me off guard, but my answer doesn’t. “No,” I say, immediately shaking my head. Then, more firmly: “No, I wouldn’t.”
The admission surprises me as much as it does them, but I know it’s true. Despite how we began—despite the debt and the collection and the arrangement—I don’t want to leave. Whatever this is between Raffaele and me, I’m not ready to let it go.
“Well, you’re one of us now.” Raven clinks her water glass against mine with wine.
“Absolutely.” Piper joins us in a toast. “Through thick, thin, and apparently, Russo men. The Russo Women’s Auxiliary.”
I laugh, surprised by how natural it feels. “Is that what this is?”
“Absolutely,” Piper confirms. “We meet whenever we can. Drink copious amounts of alcohol and compare notes on their bizarre behaviors.”
“And I guess we also plan weddings,” Raven adds, nodding at me. “Speaking of which, do you have a dress yet?”
I shake my head. “Not yet. I don’t even know where I’d go to get one in my… umm… size.”
“Say no more,” Piper interjects, already pulling out her phone. “We’re going shopping tomorrow. I know exactly the boutique.” Her phone chimes with a text message, and her expression softens immediately. “Lorenzo,” she says, showing us the screen. “Yeah, they want us to take you shopping.”
As they begin discussing colors, cuts, and accessories, I feel something shift inside me. A tightness I hadn’t realized I was carrying starts to loosen.
These women understand. They’ve walked this path before me, navigating relationships that defy conventional definitions of love and choice.
The idea of shopping for a wedding dress tomorrow fills me with a strange mixture of excitement and nervousness.
One week until I become Alina Brewer-Russo.
One week until I tie myself permanently to a man who collected me like a debt but treats me like a treasure.