Chapter 9 Lucia #2
Then I snag on one in particular near the top, stare until my vision burns.
Salvatore Bellandi, then directly beneath it…Isabella Bellandi.
My breath leaves me in a rush.
“You’ve invited the man who wants to kill me to your house?” I whisper. Not to mention the woman you were supposed to marry. The woman I googled the first chance I got then wished I hadn’t because she was exactly as I imagined her. A fucking bombshell.
He corrects me smoothly. “To our house, baby. And sì. I have.”
My head spins. “That’s not strategy. That’s insanity.”
“No,” Giovanni says evenly. “That’s how things are done. It’s unavoidable, and the sooner we get it out of the way, the better.”
“And you didn’t think to run this by me first?”
He lifts an imperious eyebrow and I catch the sardonic mockery in there that sets my teeth on edge. “I just did, sweetheart.”
The tablet wobbles a little in my hand as a part of me wonders if he’d just attempted to soften me with a spine-melting orgasm. Then I shake my head. “You’re petting a venomous snake and expecting it not to bite,” I snap. “That’s just asking for a world of pain. Pain you deserve.”
He smiles slowly. “Only if you forget to keep the antidote close.”
He snaps his fingers again. And like trained performers, the stylists trudge back in, returning to their tasks as if nothing at all was amiss.
Giovanni takes the tablet from my hands, turns back to his phone as he saunters out of the dressing room.
And I stand there, heart pounding, realising with sick clarity that I am no longer circling danger.
I’m living on its edge.
The house undergoes a spectacular transformation as evening approaches.
Not in any way that can be pinned down to a single moment or gesture, but gradually, like a tide creeping higher up the shore until you realise the water is already around your ankles and retreat is no longer an option.
Men arrive, in waves of power and influence. But their arrival is doused in stealth and hushed whispers that take me a moment to realise they’re not part of the guest list.
That a different kind of pre-event is happening right now.
They filter into Dragoni Estate with the quiet confidence of people who know they belong there, men in tailored suits and coats that conceal more than they reveal, men whose eyes flick constantly, cataloguing exits, distances, threats, and opportunities with unnerving efficiency.
And when my husband leads me into this study, it falls into place.
They’re Giovanni’s lieutenants.
I recognise the type instantly, even if I don’t know the faces yet, the ones who don’t need to announce their authority because it radiates from them regardless.
Giovanni introduces them without ceremony, one hand firm at the small of my back as though I might drift away if he loosens his grip even slightly.
“Marco DeLuca,” he says, gesturing to a broad-shouldered man with steel-grey hair and eyes that miss nothing. “He ran Naples before I took New York.”
Marco inclines his head to me, respectful but unyielding. “Signora.”
“Raffaele Conti,” Giovanni continues, indicating a younger man with an almost academic air, wire-rim glasses and the posture of someone who looks more like a lawyer than an enforcer. “Logistics. Counterintelligence.”
Raffaele smiles faintly. “It’s an honour, Mrs. Dragoni.”
“And Luca Ferraro,” Giovanni finishes, nodding at a man who looks deceptively relaxed, hands loose at his sides, dark eyes sharp with predatory focus. “He’ll be close.”
Close.
The word settles unpleasantly in my chest.
“These men,” Giovanni says calmly, “now form your personal security. Non-negotiable.”
I turn to him slowly, heat rising instantly. “Absolutely negotiable.”
His hand tightens at my back. “No, baby. It’s not.”
It’s calm and I could almost fool myself into thinking there’s a sliver of regret in there, but when I look into his eyes, I see how wrong I am.
He’s not going to budge on this.
Well, neither am I. “I am not going to be followed around like—”
He cuts me off by sliding his hand over my nape, tightening it for a moment before his thumb nudges my face up to his. And then he’s kissing me.
Or more like stamping his authority and ownership on me.
In full, blatant view of his men.
The kiss is slow and deliberate, his mouth claiming mine with the kind of certainty that leaves no room for debate, no space for dignity, no doubt about where I belong.
The room goes dead silent.
When he finally pulls back, my breath is wrecked, my pulse pounding, my fury tangled in something dangerously close to exhilaration.
I lean in, lowering my voice so only he can hear. “You can’t use kisses to shut me up whenever you don’t like what I’m saying,” I hiss.
He smiles faintly. “So far, it’s been the most effective method.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I mutter darkly. “I could stab you.”
His grin widens, sharp and delighted. “I knew you were bloodthirsty. Very good, dragunidda. But perhaps not before I’ve had the pleasure of being inside you, I would hate to miss that particular milestone.”
Heat slams into my face.
I open my mouth, then close it again, momentarily stunned by my own violent outburst and his infuriating ability to turn it into foreplay.
Giovanni glances at his men. “That will be all.”
They leave without a word, already understanding that this argument is not for them.
Upstairs, the dressing room glows with warm light and quiet expectation.
The gown awaiting me is obscene in its perfection, midnight black silk that clings where it should, drapes where it must, and makes absolutely no concession to modesty or mercy.
Giovanni watches me dress from the doorway, his gaze unfiltered now, dark with possession and something else that coils low and dangerous.
“You look,” he says slowly, “like a woman who has just remembered exactly who she is.”
I swallow. “And who is that?”
“My wife,” he replies simply. “The one everyone is about to be reminded of.”
Twenty minutes later, when we descend the stairs together, the effect is immediate.
Conversation falters. Eyes turn. Attention locks, and another pin drops.
This is not just any overdue dinner party gathering the rich and influential to introduce his new wife to.
This is a power statement.
Giovanni Dragoni reminding everyone in the room who still commands the chessboard they’re playing on, who he protects without apology, and how little patience he has left for men who mistake nostalgia for authority.
I feel it in the way the room subtly rearranges itself around him, in how men straighten and women assess. In the way he introduces me with the unspoken warning that I’m not a guest here, I’m part of the architecture of his power.
I’m too busy reading the room, it doesn’t click that not all the guests are here. Not until the tension rises a very visible notch.
As heads turn towards the entrance to the ballroom designated for tonight’s entertainment.
Salvatore Bellandi enters first, pausing momentarily in the doorway but not meeting anyone’s eyes.
To the casual observer, he’s merely waiting for his companion to arrive next to him, but I know it’s yet another power move by men who apparently believe every waking moment is a challenge to be won.
He deliberately arrived late so he could revel in this moment.
I take in the silver-haired and sharp-eyed man, his smile too polished to be trusted, his presence calculated to unsettle rather than dominate.
And beside him…
His daughter, Isabella.
She is exactly as I imagined she would be, even before my clandestine internet search. And dammit, even the pixels lied.
Because she’s even more beautiful in the flesh. Composed. Effortlessly elegant in the way only women raised to win can be.
I tell myself I’m not at all glad for Giovanni’s warm hand in the small of my back as we approach the latecomers.
As Salvatore examines then immediately dismisses me.
As his daughter’s gaze flicks over me with practised precision, cataloguing, assessing, then also dismissing me as an unworthy opponent.
Right before she smiles. At my husband.
“Gio, so lovely to have us in your home. I look forward to seeing what wonders my designer created for you.”
I’m absorbing that unpalatable piece of news when she turns to me.
“Well,” Isabella Bellandi says lightly, her eyes glittering with open disdain, “I suppose even Giovanni has his lapses in judgment.”
Tension screams.
And just like that, the war becomes personal.