Chapter 16
EMBERLINE
My fingers dug into the arms of the chair as I went back over every conversation since my father’s murder, wondering if my uncle had wanted me to kill Marcello tonight in a fit of anger.
And since that ploy failed, now he was forced to marry me off.
Yes, that explanation tracked, especially for my uncle.
I’ve never felt so helpless as right now, trapped in this fucking office between males who hold my future in their greedy hands. I’ve worked my ass off not to end up in this shitty position, yet here I am.
I want to kill them all. I paused, seriously considering it for a moment. I do have a knife.
Chances are, I could take at least two of them with me.
“You’re suggesting,” Gabriel’s tone turned dangerous, “my father buys your family’s silence with my freedom. Sorry, that’s not up for sale.”
Giovanni chuckled softly. “Such a crude way to put it, ragazzo. I am suggesting that love and loyalty can accomplish what bloodshed cannot.”
“Love,” I repeated, the word tasting like ash. “You’re offering me up like a cheap Carnival prize, Uncle. Don’t you dare speak of love.”
His gaze flicked to me, and for the first time, the mask slipped just enough for me to see the cold ambition beneath. “I am giving you a throne, child. Consider being grateful.”
“I don’t want a throne,” I snarled. “I want my fucking father back.”
“Enough.” Marcello’s rebuke cracked across the room like a whip. Silence fell as he turned his head, studying me, then Gabriel, weighing us both like pieces on a board. Oh gods, he was actually considering this.
“A marriage between our Houses,” he mused, “would indeed end any whispers of strife between our families. It would bind the DiRavellos closer to the Dynasty. It would ensure Emberline’s obedience.”
“Fat fucking chance of that,” I muttered beneath my breath, and swore Gabriel chuckled.
How the fuck had I gotten here? Trapped in a room with males making decisions for me? Soon to be trapped in an arranged marriage, as if we were still living in the sixteen hundreds? This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t happen.
“Don,” Gabriel said tightly, the single word a warning.
Marcello’s gaze cut to him. “You object, figlio?”
“You know I will do what is best for the Dynasty,” Gabriel settled on diplomacy.
“But the girl made an accusation; she invoked the Right. You overestimate the chance a wedding will quiet the public allegations made today. Better we continue with the Right of Arbitration and allow me to prove your innocence for all to see.”
He kept his eyes on his father as he added, “A marriage in the stead of justice… if this is your will, I will obey, but only under protest.”
His words shouldn’t have stung. If anything, I should have found solace in them—misery loves company and all that—but they hurt, anyway.
“Spoken like my true heir,” Marcello chuckled dryly. “What is best for the Dynasty is best for us all. If this is the way to avoid tearing us apart over one corpse, I must consider it.”
“One corpse,” I muttered bitterly. “That corpse was my father.”
“The Dynasty cannot bend around any one man,” he waved a hand, like Enzo’s life hadn’t mattered at all.
“Not your father. Not me. Not my son, and not even you, bella. We are pieces on a larger board than you can imagine, one you stepped onto when you invoked the Right. Now you must live with the consequences.”
He turned back to Giovanni.
“I accept your proposal,” he said evenly, as if those words didn’t take away my free will and sell me off like chattel. “Now I must oversee the banquet. In three days, when the duties of the Compact are fulfilled, we will proceed with the ceremony.”
Three days.
My body shook with anger as I tried wrapping my head around the fact I was about to become Gabriel Dominico’s wife, and the bright future I’d once looked forward to would be gone.
Well, he could go fuck himself. They all could.
No male was the boss of me. I’d worked too godsdamned hard to carve out a future for myself to end up as some… fucking mafia bride in a bad Shakespearean play. I balled my hands into fists and only managed to open up the gash on my palm.
I’m no victim. They aren’t going to make me into one. I focused through my anger, breaths coming fast, the room swimming in front of me, as I hissed, “You cannot be serious…”
“That is all I ask,” Giovanni interrupted, satisfaction glimmering in his eyes as he straightened.
“You are wise, Don. Wiser than those who would drag us back into the dark ages of clan wars and vendettas.” He shot me a stern look, and it was all I could do not to lunge over the table and stab him in the throat.
Instead, my hands curled into fists in my lap, nails biting into bandaged flesh. I forced them to relax, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing me bleed again.
I had come here today with a plan carved into my bones—kill Marcello Dominico. Sink my blade into his heart before anyone could stop me. End the Dynasty by removing its rotten head.
Instead, I’d invoked the law my father believed in and gambled everything on justice.
And now, sitting in a room full of predators, listening to men who’d never loved Enzo turn his death into a bargaining chip, I realized the truth.
I hadn’t come as the executioner.
I had come as the offering.
I would not bleed Marcello out on the altar of the Right of Arbitration.
They would bleed me out on the altar of marriage. My future was gone. My body lay across the crack between our families as a living bridge, a pretty sacrifice in a white dress.