Chapter 4
Gemma
The marble was cold under my palms.
I gripped the edge of the sink hard enough that my knuckles had gone white, hard enough that I could feel the veins standing out against my skin, and watched my reflection shake apart in the mirror.
The Peninsula's bathroom was all polished surfaces and soft lighting—the kind of luxury designed to make you feel pampered, cared for, safe. Gold fixtures. Thick towels monogrammed with the hotel's crest. A rainfall showerhead and a soaking tub big enough for two.
I was shaking so hard my teeth were chattering.
The funeral had ended three hours ago.
It had been torture.
Three hours of holding myself together, of smiling at the right people, of saying the right things in the right tone with the right expression. Three hours of being the perfect Moretti daughter, the valuable asset, the bloodline wrapped in an acceptable package.
And three hours of feeling Enzo Valenti's eyes on me like hands.
I'd known he would be there. Of course I'd known. The Valentis were one of the five families; they would never miss a don's funeral, not when there was power to be assessed and weakness to be exploited.
I'd prepared myself. Practiced my composure in the hotel mirror that morning, rehearsed the blank expression I would wear if he approached, the polite nothings I would say.
None of it had mattered.
The moment he'd walked through that door, my body had remembered before my mind could catch up. The prickling awareness at the back of my neck. The animal instinct to freeze, to hide, to make myself small and still and invisible.
And then he'd looked at me.
That slow, proprietary gaze. Like I was something he owned.
Like the years between us—ten years of therapy, of rebuilding, of learning to be a person again after he'd hollowed me out—meant nothing.
Like I was still that stupid, desperate sixteen-year-old who believed a powerful man when he said she was special.
I turned on the cold water. Pressed a wet cloth to my face. Forced myself to breathe.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
The memory wouldn't fade.
His eyes moving down my body. Slowly. Deliberately. Like he was taking inventory of something that belonged to him.
I pressed the cloth harder against my eyes until colors burst behind my lids.
I'd built myself back from nothing. I'd learned to set boundaries, to recognize manipulation, to trust my own perceptions again.
And one look from him across a crowded room had reduced me to rubble.
The fury came then, hot and clean, burning through the fear like a brush fire through dead wood. I welcomed it. Fury was better than fear. Fury was fuel.
I set down the cloth and stared at my reflection. Pale face. Red-rimmed eyes. Smudged mascara I hadn't bothered to fix.
This woman had survived him once. She would survive him again.
But beneath the fury, beneath the fear, there was something else. Something that confused me more than Enzo's presence had terrified me.
Dante Caruso.
I'd prepared myself for him too. Different preparations—not the armor against a predator, but the resignation of a woman meeting her jailer.
I'd expected polite disinterest. The assessing gaze of a man evaluating his purchase, checking to make sure the goods matched the description.
Cool. Transactional. The look my father gave me when he was calculating my usefulness.
Instead, he'd looked at me like I'd struck him.
I replayed the moment in my mind, trying to make sense of it. The way his dark eyes had gone wide when our gazes met. The tightening of his jaw. The rough edge to his voice when he'd finally spoken, like the words were being dragged out of him against his will.
"Thank you. I appreciate you coming."
That was it. No warmth, no welcome, no hint that he saw me as anything other than an obligation he was enduring. The response you'd give a stranger you couldn't be bothered with. A dismissal disguised as courtesy.
I should be relieved.
A disinterested husband would be easier to hide from.
Easier to manage. If he didn't care about me, he wouldn't look too closely, wouldn't push past the walls I'd spent a decade building.
I could be the perfect wife on the surface—gracious, compliant, invisible—and keep the real Gemma locked away where no one could touch her.
This was what I wanted. What I'd been planning for.
So why did I feel something dangerously close to disappointment?
I turned off the water and gripped the sink again, steadying myself against the marble's cold weight.
I'd noticed things. That was the problem.
I'd noticed his hands—large, capable, the kind of hands that looked like they could build something or break it with equal ease.
I'd noticed his shoulders, broad under the perfectly tailored suit, the way they carried authority without demanding attention.
I'd noticed the way he commanded the room simply by existing in it, how people oriented toward him like flowers toward the sun without him ever raising his voice.
I'd felt a pull toward him. Physical. Instinctive. The kind of awareness that had nothing to do with logic and everything to do with something older, deeper, more dangerous.
It terrified me almost as much as Enzo's presence had.
But I knew what it meant to be drawn to a powerful man and I would not make that mistake again.
Dante Caruso was not my savior. He was not my escape. He was another cage, gilded and comfortable perhaps, but a cage nonetheless. Whatever I'd seen in his face—the widened eyes, the clenched jaw, the roughness in his voice—it didn't mean anything. It couldn't mean anything.
I dried my face with one of the thick monogrammed towels and began the slow process of putting myself back together. Foundation to cover the evidence of crying. Mascara carefully reapplied. Hair smoothed back into place.
A knock at the suite door made me flinch before I could catch myself.
The sound was polite. Professional.
I tightened the belt of my robe—I'd changed out of the funeral dress the moment I was alone, unable to bear the weight of it against my skin—and crossed to the door on legs that felt less steady than they should.
The peephole showed a young woman in Peninsula livery, her face professionally neutral, her arms wrapped around an enormous flower arrangement. White lilies. Dozens of them, cascading from a crystal vase that probably cost more than my first car.
Funeral flowers.
The association hit me before I opened the door. White lilies were for death. For mourning. For the caskets of men like Vito Caruso, lowered into the ground while three hundred people watched and pretended to grieve.
I unlatched the door anyway.
"Delivery for Ms. Moretti." The woman smiled—a practiced customer-service smile that revealed nothing. "Where would you like them?"
"The entry table is fine."
She set them down with the careful precision of someone who handled fragile things professionally. The scent of the lilies filled the suite immediately, cloying and sweet, the kind of sweetness that coated your throat and made it hard to breathe.
"Is there anything else I can—"
"That's all. Thank you."
I pressed a tip into her hand, ushered her out, and stood alone in the foyer with the flowers looming between me and the rest of the room.
There was a card. Of course there was a card. Tucked into the arrangement like a blade hidden in silk.
White envelope, heavy cardstock. The kind of stationery that announced money and taste and the expectation of being taken seriously.
My fingers trembled as I reached for it.
I almost didn't open it. Almost left it sealed, unread, a mystery I could pretend didn't exist. But that was the coward's way out, and I had spent too many years being a coward. Pretending I didn't see the things I saw. Pretending the truth would go away if I just ignored it hard enough.
I slid my finger under the flap and pulled out the card.
The handwriting was elegant. Familiar. I had love letters in that same precise script, hidden in a box at the bottom of my closet because I'd never been able to bring myself to destroy them.
Proof that I'd been wanted once, even if the wanting had been a lie.
Evidence that someone had seen me, chosen me, claimed me.
Now those same careful letters spelled out a different message:
The flowers are for the death of your freedom. Welcome back, sweetheart. I've missed you. —E
The world narrowed to a single point.
I was aware, distantly, that my body was doing things without my permission. My heartbeat accelerating. My breath catching in my chest. My vision tunneling until all I could see was that card in my hand.
E.
Enzo.
He was here. In my space. In my life.
The death of my freedom. What a bastard.
I've missed you.
The lie of it made me want to laugh. Enzo didn't miss people.
Enzo collected people—gathered them like precious objects to display and discard as the mood struck him.
He'd told me I was special because special was what I'd needed to hear.
He'd made me feel chosen because feeling chosen made me easier to control.
He hadn't missed me. He'd missed the power he had over me. He'd missed watching me twist myself into knots trying to please him, trying to be worthy, trying to earn the warmth that he doled out like a miser counting coins.
Something shifted inside me.
It wasn't courage—I wasn't brave enough to call it that. It was colder than courage. Harder. A fury that burned through the fear like acid through metal, leaving nothing but clean, sharp edges.
He wanted me afraid.
He wanted me remembering.
He wanted me to lie awake tonight, thinking about him, wondering what he wanted, waiting for the next message, the next reminder, the next proof that I would never truly be free.
I tore the card in half.