Chapter 2 · The Gilded Cage

There was blood on my veil, and it wasn't mine.

I kept my chin up anyway. Four hundred people packed the cathedral aisle, watching Dante Ferrara drag me out like a trophy he'd already paid cash for. Nobody clapped. Somebody's grandmother crossed herself in the third row.

My father wouldn't look at me. Kept his eyes glued to the marble floor, treating me like a mess he'd already paid someone else to clean up.

Uncle Salvatore looked, though. The bastard actually smiled, lifting two fingers off his gold-headed cane. A little wave. Like I was heading off to summer camp instead of a slaughterhouse.

The steel stiletto strapped to my inner thigh burned against my skin like a brand.

"Smile," Dante murmured. His lips barely moved.

"Go to hell."

"Already there, sweetheart. You're my wife." His thumb dug into the inside of my wrist, pressing hard against my racing pulse. "Rabbit heart. Slow down, Lucia. Make them think you wanted this."

I wanted to tear his throat out with my teeth. I slowed my steps anyway.

The heavy bronze doors slammed back. Flashbulbs went off like a firing squad. His men had already shoved the paparazzi behind a wall of black Suburbans, guns tucked inside tailored suits. Dante guided me through the gap with a single palm pressed flat against the small of my back.

Not rough. That was the sickening part. He was careful with me. Like handling fragile glass he hadn't decided how to smash yet.

The limo door stood open. I slid into the leather interior, but the hem of my heavy silk gown caught on the doorframe. Dante didn't yank it. He dropped into a crouch, freed the lace with two fingers, and smoothed the fabric over my knees.

His knuckles dragged across my bare skin. Right over the top strap of the sheath.

My lungs seized.

He didn't pause. Didn't glance down. He just slammed the heavy door, walked around the hood, and left me trembling in the dark with one raw question hammering in my skull.

Did he feel the steel?

The driver's side door clicked, and then Dante slid into the seat right next to me. The privacy partition hummed up, sealing us off from the front. All four door locks clicked down at once.

Thunk.

"Where is he taking us?" I asked. My voice sounded sharper than I felt.

"Home."

"My home is on Astor Street."

"Your home is wherever I sleep." Dante yanked his silk tie loose with one hand. His knuckles were thick, split with old white scar tissue. A faint brown smudge of my uncle's champagne dried on his left cuff. "You can sulk or you can talk. I don't give a damn either way. I've got all night."

"I'm not saying a word to you."

"Good. I prefer you quiet."

We sat in the dark. The city smeared past the tinted glass in streaks of greasy orange streetlights. Michigan Avenue. Lake Shore Drive. Then the long, empty stretch of the outer highway, the lake sitting on our left—black and still as spilled oil.

He took up half the cabin. Not just his shoulders, either. It was the heat radiating off his body, the heavy scent of cedar, gun oil, and clean male sweat. I hated how fast my skin picked it up.

"You're shaking," he said without looking over.

"I'm cold."

"Liar."

He stripped off his suit jacket and dropped it across my lap. It smelled like him. It was heavy, still carrying the heat of his back. My fingers curled into the wool. I wanted to fling it right into his face.

Then his hand landed on my knee.

Not sliding up. Not grabbing. Just sitting there. Heavy, scorching through the silk, utterly certain of itself. My entire spine went rigid.

"Take your hand off me, Dante."

"Make me."

I could have. That was the sick joke. Two inches of satin, a six-inch blade, and the quickest draw in the Moretti family. My mother taught me how to carve a carotid before I was old enough to drive.

His thumb moved. A slow, heavy stroke back and forth across my kneecap, like he was calming a vicious stray. His eyes stayed glued to the black water outside.

"Not yet," he murmured. His voice dropped an octave, scraping low against the quiet car. "You're not ready. I'm not either. Wait until we're behind closed doors."

The spit dried up in my mouth.

He knows.

He had to. Nobody dropped a line like that unless they knew.

Yet he didn't reach for the blade. Didn't pin my wrists, didn't signal the guards trailing behind us. He just left his burning hand resting on my bare nerve endings, letting me stew in the realization of how much leash he was giving me.

"Why?" I whispered.

"Why what?"

"Why let me walk out of the church carrying it?"

Dante finally turned his head. His eyes were slate grey in the shadows, cold and unblinking. No grin. No smugness. Pure, dead authority. It turned my stomach far worse than cruelty ever could.

"Because I wanted to see what you'd do with it, Lucia," he said, voice dropping low. "You haven't pulled it yet. That makes you smart. Or terrified. We'll find out which one soon enough."

The tires rattled over an expansion joint, the road sound turning hollow. We hit the causeway. Water on both flanks, deep and freezing. A single ribbon of raised blacktop cut through the lake, illuminated by high floodlights every fifty yards. Every single spotlight was aimed outward, carving circles into the open water.

Not guarding the road. Watching the lake.

"Nobody's stupid enough to attack from the water," I muttered, hating how raw my throat felt.

"Nobody's getting in at all."

The peninsula loomed out of the fog. A jagged tooth of black granite rising from the lake, topped by a fortress of smoked glass and reinforced steel. It sat lit from within like a display case. Security cameras tracked our approach on swivel mounts. A sniper stood motionless on the roofline, rifle slung across his chest. Down on the manicured lawn, a handler fought to hold back a lunging Malinois.

It was gorgeous. The kind of gorgeous reserved strictly for cages built to keep predators from getting out.

A twelve-foot security fence of forged iron sealed the perimeter, tipped with vicious reverse-curved spikes. Two guards in full tactical gear flanked the gate, standing behind a woman with a clean surgical scar cut across her windpipe.

Her gaze locked onto mine through the privacy glass. For half a second, her chin dipped in a silent nod.

Then she stepped back into the shadows.

The hydraulic gates parted like iron jaws. The limo rolled across the gravel driveway, tires crunching slowly. I twisted in my seat, staring out the back window.

The gates slammed shut. Two massive slabs of steel slammed together with a shudder that vibrated right through the limo's floorboards. A deadbolt the size of my forearm slid home.

I spun back around.

Dante was staring right at me, his fingers tightening on my knee until bone bruised bone.

"Nobody leaves this rock alive without my thumbprint," he whispered.