3. Vivi
VIVI
Aroaring fills my ears. The air shakes.
Everything is on fire.
I jerk awake, coughing. My mouth tastes like ash. My dress is a black, sooty mess. I scramble back, trying to escape flames I can’t see.
The church was on fire.
I didn’t imagine it. It wasn’t a dream. But this place…
I look around, confused. This isn’t the church.
That’s when the world tilts. Literally. Gravity goes cockeyed, and the entire room shifts sideways. I grab at the flat surface beneath me. Catch layers of silken fabric in my fists. Are they…sheets?
I give myself a shake, forcing my brain to get online. I’m on a bed. In a bedroom. One I don’t recognize.
The walls curve upward and all the windows are small and identical, lined up in even rows on either side of the long, narrow room. The space is beautiful, sleek and clean with lots of whites and creams and expensive-looking wood, but the whole place is…rumbling?
I scramble off the bed and to the nearest window, battling my ruined dress the whole way. My hellish heels are gone, but even barefoot it’s hard to stay upright. Especially when I pull back the curtain and look outside.
The stars are in the wrong place. Below, not above. Millions of tiny lights twinkle on the ground, getting smaller by the second. I press my face to the glass. It’s cold. The night sky is noisy.
Just like when I flew back to Chicago.
What the…?! “Am I on a plane?” I sound breathless. Terrified. “Where the heck am I going?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
I jump as a woman walks into the room. She doesn’t smile or introduce herself. She holds out what looks like a pile of folded clothes. Her dark eyes get flatter and flatter the longer I stand there, staring at her.
“Take them.”
The nuns drilled obedience into me for years. A conditioning that runs my circuitry. Like an automaton, I do as I’m told and take the stack from her. “Who are you? Where am I?”
“Don’t worry about who I am, ragazzina. Worry about making yourself presentable before your husband comes to greet his bride.
” Her voice is even more lifeless than her eyes.
“You are filthy. Get cleaned up. Sbrigati!” She flicks her finger at a door off to our side, casting that dead gaze over me once more before leaving.
The lock snicks behind her with an ominous click.
Your husband.
His bride.
The woman’s words are a roller coaster in my brain, diving up and down and around until everything is muddled.
I drop the clothes on the bed, struggling to breathe. My dress is too tight, every layer of lace and satin a noose.
Panicked, I spin in a lopsided circle as I try to get a hold of the ribbon that cinches the dress together in the back. I contort myself every way I can but still can’t reach it.
There’s got to be something in here I can use to cut myself free.
Crap. Everything is screwed down. And anything that even remotely resembles glass is actually high-quality plastic, so nothing breaks and cuts a passenger during turbulence. Great planning, unless you’re being attacked by your clothes and need to fight your way free.
“Mi scusi. You need help.”
I whip around, blinking wide at the man filling the doorway. If he looked large in the church, he’s an absolute giant in this refined space.
This man.
The man I married before my family and the church. I don’t know anything about him. His name, where he came from, why he was at the church, standing in Tino’s place.
And his eyes…
I’ve only seen them once before, blurred by smoke and confusion, but standing in front of him now, I’m struck with absolute certainty I’d know those eyes anywhere.
Dark, dangerous, far too intelligent. So incredibly hard.
Head close to skimming the ceiling, he dissects me like an insect under a microscope. An insignificant creature he can obliterate with a flick of his finger.
The longer he looks, the more lightheaded I get. He steps closer and my jaw starts to rattle. The ring on my left hand feels tighter than the laces of my dress, my finger throbbing at the constriction.
Father walked me up the aisle and placed my life in this man’s hands. My sister’s, too.
The thought burns icy hot, agony beneath my ribcage as reality sinks in.
Tino isn’t my husband. I’m not his wife.
The dreams I’ve cultivated for years have been ripped out of the ground, roots and all. The future I planned decimated in hours.
This is the man I’m married to. This dark, intimidating stranger. And I have no clue why.
Even worse, my sister’s safety—her life—depends upon my marriage to this stranger. Forget being reunited with Elena. If I don’t do as Father ordered—if I don’t do as this man commands—my sister will end up dead.
My eyes burn with tears of fear, betrayal. Loss. I’m gathering the strength to ask where my sister is when he orders, “Turn.”
Obedience is a virtue. That’s what the nuns drilled into me, repeatedly. Sometimes cruelly. Often painfully. Either way, the lesson was always the same: My duty is to abide by my family’s will. My husband’s will.
One order from this man and I’m already moving, shifting so he can access my back.
But as I feel the stranger’s eyes travel from the base of my skull to the end of my spine, resistance tickles the back of my throat—and dies on a gasp when he grabs the ribbons cinching my dress.
He’s rough.
I wobble, arms shooting out to keep balanced as he wrenches the lacing apart. There’s a loud rip. My dress sags. I clasp the ruined thing against my chest, whirling around before he sees more than he should.
“There.” His hands are relaxed at his sides, as if he didn’t just use them to tear a dress in two. “You’re free.”
Hardly.
The reality of my situation is hitting me in waves, a tidal surge that just keeps coming. I’m trapped on this plane with a man I’ve never met, and I do the only thing that makes sense.
I grab the clothes the woman gave me, run into the tiny bathroom, and shut myself in.
Door closed, I start to shake. There’s no one watching me in here, measuring how agreeable I’m being.
I let the rage swell, overtake me. I slam a palm against the counter. The fancy bottles of lotion clatter in their custom-built shelves. Eyes screwed shut, I stretch my jaw wide, unleashing a silent scream.
I did everything I was supposed to, everything I was told, and nothing turned out as promised.
Tino will come for me.
The thought pierces through the pain. I cling to it like a lifeline. Say it over and over, willing it into reality. “Tino loves me and is coming for me. He will come for me.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it, mia sposa.”
I open my eyes. My husband is standing behind me. Our gazes meet in the mirror. I lose my grip on the dress. It falls, layer after layer of ruined satin collapsing to the ground.
For one horrific second I’m locked in place, watching in the reflection as the man methodically drags his eyes down my back, my butt, my legs, before doing it again in reverse.
And I can’t get my mother’s voice out of my head.
It’s not that you’re unattractive, Viviana.
It’s that you aren’t what men want. They like delicate creatures.
Women who make them feel strong, powerful.
And that will never be you. You’re too hefty.
Too chunky. It’s a good thing Tino wants to marry you.
He doesn’t care about your size. Other men will.
I haven’t seen much of my mother since I was sent away, but she visited the convent occasionally, and her casual commentary on my appearance was as frequent as it was hurtful. Accompanied by a look of pained disappointment.
I wait for that same disappointment to fill my new husband’s face.
It doesn’t.
Instead, I get…nothing. I’m wearing next to nothing, and he’s looking at me with utter indifference. And somehow that feels worse. “Please get out. You shouldn’t be in here.” I hate how meek I sound. “How did you even get in here?”
“You left the door unlocked.”
I want to slam my face against the glass. Of course it was. Jeez, how am I such a failure at living in the real world?!
“Not that it matters,” he continues, “All barriers are surmountable. Especially if it means getting what I want.”
“Like me?”
He’s silent, the skin around his eyes tightening. Those whip-smart eyes that catalogue everything about me. Every naked curve of skin. Every feeling I’m struggling so hard to hide.
“Where is Tino?”
That skin gets infinitesimally tighter. “Not your concern.”
“Is he still alive?” My back is still to the stranger. I press a hand against the counter until my knuckles hurt. “Did Tino survive the fire?”
The man remains silent. Watching.
I’m on the verge of fainting when he delivers the blow, shaking his head so calmly. No. “No one is coming to save you.”
Oh, God.
Blood rushes through my ears, nausea exploding in my gut. I gag, hunching over the sink as I struggle to keep the vomit down.
I’m not throwing up in front of this, this… monster.
Breathe, Vivi. In through the nose, out through the mouth. The air circulates slowly, my body terrifyingly close to shutting down.
Tino is dead.
Complete heartbreak is a hard thing to ignore, but I’m stuck in a tiny room with a dangerous stranger, and I can’t disintegrate now. Not yet.
“And my sister…?” My voice sounds a million miles away. “She’s okay?”
“Sì.”
Relief hits so hard it hurts. I stagger, and almost fall over when the entire plane jumps. The turbulence is intense, the aircraft bucking, all the fixtures rattling. The man catches my shoulders, stops me from hitting the ground.
His hands are enormous. Powerful. And gone the second we level back out.
Huh. So he doesn’t want to touch me any more than I want to touch him.
Good. It’s the smallest patch of common ground, but it gives me a burst of false bravery.
I turn, face him, my breasts heaving over the edge of the corset.
“What happened at the church? Why did Father change his mind? Why did he marry me to you, not Tino?”
He gives me nothing. No explanation or clarification.
“Please, tell me.” A pitiful request, tantamount to begging. “It doesn’t make sense.”
More silence.
The questions in my head get louder. Make it impossible to hold on to any sense of reality. “Are you the one who threatened my sister? My hand in marriage in exchange for her life? Tell me. I don’t understand.”
I’m so confused, and it’s like gravity is splitting me in two, divorcing my brain from my body, one too heavy to function while the other one floats away.
I’m on the verge of passing out when he moves, obliterating the space between us. Our chests brush. His shoes crush the dress forgotten on the ground.
”Non sono tenuto a risponderle. There are only three things you need to understand.”
He smooths down his coal-black tie. The contrast is extreme against his white shirt. “Uno. You are Mrs. Marchetti, now.”
I hear him say it, but I can’t bring myself to meet his eyes. I fixate on his hand as he coasts it down his broad chest. His nails are short, clipped. His fingers thick, knuckles scarred. Some scars are old. Some look very new.
“Due. You will remain Mrs. Marchetti for the rest of your life.”
My heart seizes. I watch, frozen, as he reaches out with that hand, slips a finger beneath my chin, and tips my head up, up, until I have no choice but to look him dead in the eyes. Feel his breath on my face.
“Tre, and the most important of them all. From this point on, you will always do as I say.”
There’s no hint of emotion beneath his calm exterior. No glimmer of humanity.
His eyes are dark, deep. Shutterless. He’s not hiding. There’s nothing there to conceal. He’s a void. Cold, inhuman.
And I don’t even know his name.
Suddenly I’m so tired I can’t see straight. I slump against the counter, whatever fog that pulled me under at the church threatening to do it again. “Who are you?” I whisper. “I don’t even know your name.”
His lips quirk. Not a smile. A warning. “I am Giovanni Marchetti and as of four hours ago, Viviana, you officially belong to me.”