Mag-log in“You are an interesting woman,” he says finally, as though he has been collecting sentiments about me like curiosities. “I am not for your amusement,” I say. “Amusement is a generous way of putting it.” He turns his face to me and finally, which is nothing like mercy, he kisses me. It is a small t
“You will come with me tonight,” he says suddenly, and when I look at him the certainty in his eyes is a rope. “Where are we going?” I ask. I do not like the sound of my own voice in the dark halls. “To the club,” he says, as if the clubs he owns are nothing more than rooms he has arranged for his
The dinner goes on without ceremony. I wear a dress that fits like a promise and is less comfortable than anything else I own. The woman who dresses me fusses at the strap and at the hem with an intimacy that is practiced, like a ritual done daily for decades. The room where dinner is served is a pl
“You should not have broken a tray,” he says in that voice that is silk wrapped around steel. It makes everyone quiet because it is a voice that is treated like currency in this house. The words are simple but the way he says them says a thousand more complicated things. He is not angry the way I am
I come back from the memory to find sunlight in my eyes and orange juice dried on the carpet like the outline of a wound. My hands are trembling now for reasons I cannot name. The house clock in the hall ticks the way a heart does when it is being measured. There are noises behind the walls, small h
Oh God, I hate him. He is the center of everything I cannot control in this place. He is the reason doors close and keys rattle and the nights feel like traps. He is the reason my throat tastes like metal at dusk. He is also the reason, absurdly and against my every better judgment, that sometimes
◆◆ RAFAELE ◆◆ “Rafaele? You came for me.” Petra’s squeal could have carried to the far ends of Italy as I walked into the studio apartment Matteo had confined her in. “I’ve missed you,” she purred, leaping into my chest. Knowing she wouldn’t let go anytime soon, I lowered myself onto the couch
─❈─ AURELIA ─❈─ All my life, I’d been used to harsh confinement, locked up and controlled. But Rafaele had never put me in a cage like this. This… this was worse than anything I’d ever endured. The air was thick with mildew and iron, every breath scraping my throat. The mattress reeked of sweat
◆◆ RAFAELE ◆◆ “You can’t hold us accountable for Estela… or whatever she did to you, Rafaele. And there’s no witch among us.” Those were the words that got the meeting dismissed—against my own team. And where the hell was Gaetano? Moving around somewhere, doing whatever it was he does, certainly
☾ ROMANO ☽ I’d been running, my father’s voice echoing in my skull like a drum. Not the steady kind, but the kind that split my head open with every beat. This was his plan. He wanted to show me how powerful he was. And he had. I came here tonight because I had no other choice. I didn’t want to







