The lace itched.
Of all the brutalities my father’s world had taught me to expect, I hadn’t planned on being flayed alive by French Chantilly.
“Stop fidgeting,” my mother murmured as she fastened the last row of tiny pearl buttons down my spine. Her fingers were steady, sure, the way they’d been at every funeral, every negotiation, every time she’d placed a hand on my shoulder and told me to smile.
The silk bodice hugged my ribs so tightly that breathing felt like a decision. Around us, the private suite on the top floor of the Santori hotel gleamed with late-afternoon light—golden, expensive, indifferent. The double doors stood closed, muffling the sounds below: a string quartet, the low hum of a hundred dangerous people pretending at civility.
I caught my reflection in the mirror and didn’t recognize the woman staring back. Dark hair twisted into a chignon heavy with pins and heirloom diamonds. Veil pooled over one arm like captured fog. Eyes lined in perfect smoky kohl that almost hid the fact that I hadn’t slept.
“Smile,” my mother said, as if she’d read my mind.
I did. It felt like I was borrowing someone else’s mouth.
“Elena,” I said instead of thank you, because gratitude did not belong here, “if I run, how long do you think it would take them to find me?”
Her reflection went still. Just for a heartbeat. Then she smoothed an imaginary wrinkle from my shoulder.
“Less time than it takes to ruin that lipstick,” she answered. “You know this.”
I did. I’d known it every day since my father’s lawyer had slid the engagement contract across my mother’s dining table and Aurelio Santori’s name had stared back at me, black ink staking claim where my own will did not matter.
“He will keep you safe,” my mother added quietly, the words falling like small, careful stones. “In his way.”
His way. Cold, calculated, clean. No one survived in this city without growing accustomed to stains, but if you had to belong to a man like that, you hoped at least he would be efficient about it.
“He doesn’t love me,” I said.
“He respects you,” she countered. “Love rusts faster than respect.”
I almost laughed. “You sound like him.”
Her hand tightened, just barely, on my arm. “I sound like a woman who wants her daughter alive at forty.”
Footsteps approached beyond the doors, measured and deliberate. My spine recognized the cadence before my brain did.
“Ready?” a male voice called, muffled by oak and privacy.
My heart thudded once, hard. Aurelio.
My mother exhaled, lifting her chin. “He’s coming in,” she said, as if announcing a doctor, or a priest.
The doors opened and he stepped inside with two of his men flanking him, then raised one hand and they halted, staying outside. He shut the doors behind him with a soft click, sealing us in a bubble of expensive air and slower time.
Aurelio Santori wore black like it was invented for him. The tuxedo was cut with surgical precision, the white shirt gleaming against his olive skin, a single white rose at his lapel. His dark hair was pushed back from a face that would have been too pretty if not for the severity of his jaw, the line of his mouth. His eyes—dark, assessing, always a step ahead—found mine in the mirror and stayed there.
