40. Forty #2
Luna squeezed my arm gently. “He has a way with words, doesn’t he?”
“Quite the blessing,” I replied. “I especially liked the part about knives and pleasure.”
She laughed, resting her hand on her belly. “You’ll get used to it. This world . . . it creates its own kind of romance. Bloody, but genuine.”
Arrow’s lips brushed my ear. “Did you want a more traditional toast?” he murmured. “Something about eternal love and happiness?”
“God, no,” I replied, leaning back against him. “Atlas has the right idea. Better to acknowledge what this really is than pretend we’re some fairy tale.”
Luna’s eyes tracked between us, a small smile playing on her lips. “You two are perfect for each other, you know. Both equally damaged.”
“Is that a compliment?” I asked.
“The highest one I can give. Finding someone whose darkness complements your own is rare.”
Luna placed her hand protectively on her belly again, her eyes softening as she looked at Atlas across the room. Something inside me twisted—not quite envy, but a longing for whatever certainty she’d found in her own chaotic marriage.
“How did you know?” I asked, my voice dropping low enough that only she could hear. “That it wasn’t just survival with Atlas? That it was actually something more?”
Her eyes met mine. “I didn’t, not at first. But there was a moment—” She paused, choosing her words carefully.
“He’d killed someone,” Luna whispered, her eyes growing distant with the memory.
“Someone who helped people hurt me. It wasn’t the killing that told me—it was how he looked after.
Covered in blood, shaking, not with guilt but with fear that I’d look at him differently.
That I’d finally see the monster everyone warned me about. ”
I nodded, understanding completely. “And did you?”
“I saw a man who would destroy worlds to keep me safe.” Her hand absently traced circles on her belly.
“That’s when I knew this wasn’t just about survival anymore.
When someone shows you exactly who they are—the darkest, most violent parts—and you still choose them . . . that’s something else entirely.”
Arrow’s hand pressed more firmly against my stomach. Both claim and protection. I leaned into him without thinking, my body responding to his even when my mind was elsewhere. I wondered if he could hear our conversation, if he understood what Luna was really telling me.
“And the baby?” I asked softly. “Was that planned or . . .?”
Luna’s smile was radiant. “Nothing in my life has been planned. But this—” she placed both hands on her belly “—feels like the most deliberate choice I’ve ever made. Creating something instead of destroying.”
I tried to imagine Arrow and me creating something together rather than leaving devastation in our wake. The image was so foreign it almost made me laugh. Yet something about it lodged in my chest, a splinter I couldn’t quite dislodge.
“You’ll have your moment,” Luna murmured, watching us with knowing eyes. “Probably with guns involved, knowing you two.”
“Or knives,” Arrow added dryly.
Luna laughed, the sound genuine among so much forced politeness.
“Ladies,” Atlas appeared, sliding his arm around Luna’s waist. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”
“Just girl talk,” Luna replied, leaning into his touch. “Wedding jitters and all that.”
Atlas’s eyes found mine, assessing. “Jitters? I wouldn’t have pegged you as the nervous type, Harlowe.”
“Not nervous,” I corrected, feeling Arrow’s grip tighten slightly at my waist. “Just realistic about the odds of someone getting shot before I say ‘I do.’”
Atlas laughed, the sound genuine despite the truth in my words. “The security’s solid. No one’s dying at this wedding unless I allow it.”
“How reassuring,” I murmured, taking another champagne flute from a passing server.
The room had settled into a tense equilibrium—Virellis on one side, Romanovs on the other, with neutral parties scattered throughout like buffer zones in a demilitarized area.
I spotted Frank near the entrance, his eyes constantly scanning, one hand tucked inside his jacket where I knew he kept his Glock.
My father had moved to a corner table, surrounded by his capos, their heads bent together in conversation that looked far too serious for a rehearsal dinner.
“Your father seems agitated,” Atlas observed, following my gaze.
“He’s always agitated,” I replied. “Especially when he can’t control the narrative.”
Arrow’s thumb traced small circles against my hip. “Giovanni Virelli always has an agenda,” Arrow said, his voice low. “The question is whether it’s the one we think it is.”
I watched my father lean in closer to his men, their expressions grim. Whatever they were discussing, it wasn’t wedding arrangements. A chill ran down my spine despite Arrow’s warmth at my back.
“Should we be concerned?” I asked Atlas, keeping my voice casual.
Atlas’s eyes narrowed slightly as he assessed the situation. “Hard to say. Giovanni’s been unpredictable lately. Word is he’s losing grip on some of his territories in Queens.”
“My father doesn’t lose,” I said automatically, years of conditioning making me defend the man even as I hated him.
“Everyone loses eventually,” Arrow murmured against my ear. “Even Giovanni Virelli.”
I felt a strange twist in my chest—not quite sympathy for my father, but something adjacent to it.
For all his cruelty, all his callousness, he was still the man who taught me to shoot when I was twelve, who showed me how to spot a lie in a business deal, who made me memorize escape routes from every building we entered.
“He’s planning something,” I said, watching the way my father’s eyes kept flicking toward us. “I know that look.”
Luna placed a gentle hand on my arm. “Whatever it is, you’re protected. No one’s getting to you tonight.”
I wasn’t worried about myself. I was worried about the bloodbath that would ensue if my father decided to disrupt the carefully balanced ceasefire this wedding was supposed to create. The last thing I wanted was to be responsible for even more bloodshed in this city.
“I should talk to him,” I said suddenly, surprising even myself with the decision.
Arrow’s arm tightened around my waist. “That’s not a good idea.”
“I know my father. If he’s planning something, I might be able to figure out what it is.”
Atlas and Arrow exchanged a look that spoke volumes. I hated when they did that—communicating in that silent language of powerful men who’d seen too much violence together.
“Let me go with you,” Arrow said, his voice brooking no argument.
I shook my head. “He won’t talk freely with you there. You know that.”
Arrow’s jaw tightened, the muscle there jumping in that way that told me he was fighting for control. “Five minutes. Any longer, and I’m coming over.”
I nodded, extracting myself from his grip. As I moved across the room toward my father, I felt the weight of dozens of eyes tracking me—Romanovs watching with suspicion, Virellis with a mixture of pity and contempt. The daughter who’d betrayed them by accepting an enemy into her bed
My father looked up as I approached, his conversation dying immediately.
His men shifted, creating space for me at the table without being told.
Even now, the Virelli princess commanded a certain respect, regardless of whose name was around my neck.
It was a strange feeling—being both feared and pitied in the same moment.
“Gentlemen,” I said, nodding to my father’s capos. “I need a moment with my father.”
They hesitated, looking to Giovanni for permission. At his slight nod, they dispersed, melting into the crowd with practiced efficiency. My father gestured to the empty chair across from him.
“Sit,” he said, not a request but a command.
I remained standing. “I prefer to stand.”
His eyes narrowed slightly, the first tell of his annoyance. “Always defiant. Even now.”
“Especially now,” I replied, crossing my arms. “What are you planning?”
“Planning?” He raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. “I’m planning to watch my only daughter marry into the family that killed my son. What else would I be planning?”
“Don’t insult my intelligence,” I said, keeping my voice low. “I know you. I’ve watched you orchestrate vendettas since I was old enough to understand what vengeance meant. You didn’t agree to this marriage out of some sudden desire for peace.”
My father’s eyes—the same shade of amber as mine—assessed me with cold calculation. “You think you know me so well.”
“I’ve spent my entire life studying you,” I replied. “Learning how to survive you.”
Something flickered across his face—not hurt, Giovanni Virelli wasn’t capable of that emotion anymore —a man whose heart had fossilized years ago, replaced by something harder and colder than stone. But I saw a flicker of something there, a ghost of an emotion I couldn’t quite name.
“This marriage is happening,” I said quietly. “Whatever you’re planning, people will die.”
“People always die, Harlowe,” he replied, taking a sip of his scotch. “The only question is which people and who decides.”
“And you’ve decided it should be Romanovs?”
His smile was thin and sharp as a blade. “I’ve decided nothing yet.”
I leaned closer, placing my palms flat on the table. “Mom wouldn’t want this. Luca wouldn’t want this. More bloodshed won’t bring them back.”
My father’s hand shot out, gripping my wrist with enough force to bruise. “Don’t you dare speak of them,” he hissed, his voice dropping to that dangerous register I remembered from childhood. “You lost the right to invoke their names when you spread your legs for a Romanov.”
I didn’t flinch, though his grip tightened enough to make my pulse throb against his fingers. “I’m doing what you taught me—surviving by any means necessary.”
His laugh was bitter, a sound like broken glass. “Is that what you call it? Survival?” His eyes flicked to Arrow across the room, watching us with barely contained violence. “I see the way he looks at you. The way you look at him. This isn’t just survival for you anymore, is it?”