2. Two #2
On slow nights, he’d sit with me in the loft and drink tea—never alcohol, Zephyr was picky about clarity—while we watched the city crumple and glitter through stained glass.
Sometimes, I drifted into him, cheek against the cold tattooed band of his arm, and I’d let myself be almost held. Nothing ever happened between us, not that way. He was the only person who hadn’t tried to fuck me, even though he’d had his hands all over me.
Maybe that’s why I trusted him.
My father pretended not to notice my nocturnal habit.
I suspect his coterie of capos knew and kept it from him, or perhaps they reported it, and he just didn’t care as long as it didn’t threaten his business.
He brought home more corporate guests, who wore expensively cut boredom and got off on making me pour their whiskey at dinner.
They liked the shape of my mouth, the way I said nothing.
I let them stare—let them guess what hole my hunger might leave in a man.
Twelve years had passed since Luca’s murder.
I grew sharper, colder, and angrier. Every night, it seemed, there was another scream silenced by a closed door, another body tipped into the East River, another dinner with forced politeness and the glint of silver knives making promises across white linen.
I had memorized my father’s schedule, learned which capos he trusted and which ones would sell him out for the right price.
I played the good girl, poised and patient, biding my time.
The summer I turned twenty-eight, my father stopped pretending, and called me to his office.
Frank stood at the door, and gave me a nod as I passed him.
The Virelli office was filled with dark wood and amber light, thick with the scent of old books and costlier scotch.
My father sat behind his desk, gray suit so crisp you could cut yourself on the crease.
He didn’t look up right away, just kept reading—a contract, an obituary, or the news. To him, they were interchangeable.
When he finally lifted his eyes, they were the eyes of a man who had outlived the things that made him human.
“Sit,” he said.
I did.
He leaned back, cradling his glass. “Do you know why families like ours survive?”
I didn’t answer; I waited. It was his favorite game.
“It’s not bullets,” he murmured, swirling the scotch. “It’s not money, women, or territory. It’s marriage, figlia.* All empires are built on marriages.”
My stomach dropped, but I let my face be stone.
He laughed. “Don’t pretend you’re surprised. You, of all people.”
Taking a slow sip, he savored my discomfort before gesturing to the folder on the desk.
“Open it.”
Inside was a single page, centered with thick black ink, my name spelled out in bloodless serif:
HARLOWE EVANGELINA VIRELLI
And below, the intended, as if it were a grant of execution:
ARROW DANTE ROMANOV
Romanov.
The silence curdled.
“No.”
Giovanni Virelli smiled, the way parents smile when their child is clever enough to try a rebellion. “You know how this works.”
“He killed Luca! He killed my brother! You remember your son, right? They tortured and mutilated him and then left him on our doorstep!”
My father shrugged. “His uncle killed your brother. Arrow is a different generation. He was seventeen when it happened—barely a boy.”
“He’s a monster, and you know it. You’re signing my fucking death warrant.”
He frowned, a boredom that stung more than disgust, as if I was failing an exam he believed was beneath me.
“Arrow is the closest thing to a civilized animal that family has ever produced. He won’t hurt you unless you provoke him.”
I wanted to say, What the fuck do you think I’m going to do? Smile and spread my legs? I wanted to take the heavy glass paperweight from his desk and hurl it through the bay window, watching the evening light shatter and bleed down the study.
But all I did was look at my father, setting my hands in my lap, and felt my pulse ticking wildly against the inside of my wrists.
“Why him?” I asked. I didn’t mean for my voice to come out so small.
He didn’t blink.
“Because you are the only thing left that matters. And Arrow is the only son who matters to them. You will put down the war. You will be the bridge that cannot be burned.” He gave me a sidelong look, half approval and half warning.
“That is your job, Harlowe—as it was always mine, and as it was always your brother’s, for all the good it did him. ”
“I won’t do it,” I said. “Tell me what it’s worth, and I’ll burn it instead.”
My father didn’t exactly smile at this, but the muscles at the corner of his mouth went slack. I thought he might slap me or throw his drink, but he only went still, like a snake that knows it’s been seen and prefers to wait for the right moment.
“You will do it,” he said evenly. “Because you live here, and eat from my table. You will because our name is worth more than whatever fantasy of freedom you’ve been busy chasing.”
His eyes flicked to Frank, standing silently in the corner, arms crossed and impassive.
“For fuck’s sake, you’re not even going to let me choose my own noose?” I whispered, but he was already reading his contract, already lining up the next pawn.
“You’ll marry him, and I won’t hear another word about it.”
“Fuck you and fuck what’s left of this family,” I hissed.
My father stood up, his beefy palm coming across my face so hard I tasted blood.
“Enough! You will remember who you are speaking to, figlia.”
I fought the heat behind my eyes because I would not let him see an inch of weakness. “You’re asking me to lie down with a viper. Don’t pretend like it’s for peace, it’s for power. It’s always been for power. You may as well have killed Luca yourself.”
He held my gaze, and I braced myself for his hand across my face again, but he didn’t.
“Arrow Romanov is this family’s best shot at a future,” he said as he stacked the papers with a finality that meant his patience was as spent as my options. “You know what I expect.”
Dismissing me with a flick of his eyes, he was already onto the next transaction in his mind.
Frank held the door, giving me a look of pity, then put on an indifferent mask, before my father caught him. I left, half-blind, blood pooling in the crease of my lip, and all I could think as I stalked through the house was how it wasn’t even about Arrow.
Not really.
Romanovs and Virellis had been eating their children for generations. My father just wanted to feed me to the same machine that chewed up my brother and mother.
Frank followed, silent as my shadow. I spun and faced him at the bottom of the stairs. “Tell me what you really think,” I said.
He looked at me for a long time. Maybe he was remembering me at sixteen, curled up the night the world ended, or maybe he was calculating just how much longer he could keep pretending I was breakable.
“It won’t be so bad, Principessa,”* he said quietly. “Arrow’s got a different reputation than the rest of his family.”
“His uncle still strung up Luca.”
Frank nodded, just once. “Arrow’s nothing like him. He’s got his own rules.”
My tongue found the blood at the corner of my mouth. “Everyone does, until they’re tested.”
He smiled with a sad sort of pride. “Then test him.”
I wanted to become something my father couldn’t pawn. If I were traded, I’d at least show my owner the scars.
But legacy is a noose made of silk rope, and when you’re born into a family like mine, you don’t get to cut it, even if you choke.
* Daughter
* Princess