Chapter 15 · The Mark Before Midnight

Chapter 15: The Mark Before Midnight

"Don't," Luca says, and his palm slams flat against the paneled wall right beside my ear. "Not another breath until I decide what this room hears."

The heavy mahogany door of the river suite is locked behind us. No cell bars on my screen. No outside world, just the thick, dead silence of bullet-resistant glass and a deadened signal that cuts off the ballroom below. Out there, my father is still parading his donors around the campaign buffet. Out there, the spliced tape is already leaking to every beat reporter in Maryland.

"You told me to yield," I say, my spine rigid against the wall. "Yield to what? You already bought the marriage license. You already forced the ink onto the first three pages. What else is there to bleed out of me?"

"Everything that makes you think you can walk out when he calls your name." Luca doesn't raise his voice. He doesn't need to. His physical frame blocks the antique floor lamp completely, casting a wide, suffocating shadow that swallows me whole. His scent invasion is absolute—sharp gun oil, cedar shavings, and the bitter trace of black espresso.