THE RIVAL

CHAPTER 4: 

The woman downstairs did not sound like a fiancée.

She sounded like a woman who owned the mansion and had just found out a thief was sleeping in her bed.

"WHERE IS HE! DAMIEN! YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!"

Her voice echoed from the entrance hall all the way up to our bedroom on the second floor. Even through the thick wooden doors, I could hear her high heels clicking angrily on the black marble, her Italian accent sharp and furious.

I was still standing by the window in my black silk nightgown, holding the silver photo frame of Isabella Vitale, my heart beating so fast I thought Damien would hear it from downstairs.

Sofia De Luca.

Luca had said her name like a curse. "The De Lucas are here! Sofia De Luca is downstairs!"

I looked down at my reflection in the window. My long wavy dark brown hair was still wet, my face pale, no makeup, wearing a black silk nightgown that showed too much skin, with Damien Vitale's jacket discarded on the floor. I looked like exactly what I was - a poor waitress who had been bought and brought to a palace that wasn't hers.

And downstairs was a woman in a red Ferrari, in a tight red dress, who thought she was going to be Mrs. Vitale.

I shouldn't have cared. I hated Damien. I had signed a contract for one year, for my father's debt. I didn't want to be Mrs. Vitale.

So why did my chest hurt when I heard her scream "fiancée"?

The bedroom door burst open.

I jumped and dropped the photo frame. It clattered on the wooden floor but didn't break.

Damien was back, his black shirt now buttoned up, his face cold again, the Don mask back on. But his eyes - his eyes were angry.

"I told you to stay here," he said.

"Who is she?" I asked, before I could stop myself. My voice was small.

He walked to me and picked up the photo frame, placing it back on the nightstand carefully, like it was precious.

"Sofia De Luca. Daughter of Carlo De Luca, Don of De Luca Famiglia in Naples. Our rival for thirty years. My father and her father arranged a marriage before my father died. I never agreed. I never touched her. But she - " He stopped, like he was trying to find the right word. "She is obsessed. She thinks because our fathers shook hands, I belong to her."

"Does she - does she know about me?" I hugged my arms, suddenly very aware that I was wearing only thin black silk in front of him.

"She will know now," he said. "Luca couldn't stop her. She is downstairs. She will come up here if I don't go down. Stay here. Lock the door. Don't come out no matter what you hear."

He turned to leave, but I grabbed his arm without thinking. His skin was warm.

"Damien - "

He looked down at my hand on his arm, then at my face. His grey eyes softened for a second.

"What?"

"If she is your fiancée - if she is supposed to be your wife - then what am I? I can't - I can't fight with a woman like her. She is rich, beautiful, Mafia. I am - I am just a waitress from Rome - "

"You are my wife," he said firmly, cutting me off. He cupped my face with one big hand, his thumb brushing my cheek. "On paper, in front of God, in front of the law. You signed it. You are Mrs. Vitale. Not her. You."

My heart skipped. Why did he have to say it like that?

"But for one year only - " I whispered.

"For one year," he repeated, but his hand stayed on my face a second too long. Then he let go and walked out, closing the door behind him.

I heard the lock click from outside. He locked me in.

I ran to the door and tried to open it. Locked. He really locked me in.

I pressed my ear against the door, trying to hear downstairs.

The mansion was so big, but voices carry on marble.

"Damien! My love! Where have you been! I called you ten times!" Sofia's voice, sweet now, fake sweet, with a pout.

"Sofia, what are you doing here? It's midnight," Damien's cold voice.

"I missed you! Papa said you were in Rome for business, but Luca said you came back early and - " She stopped. I could imagine her looking around the entrance hall, seeing a black suit jacket that wasn't there before, or maybe smelling perfume. "You have a woman here?"

Silence.

Then Luca's voice, trying to be diplomatic: "Miss Sofia, Don Vitale is tired, maybe you should come back tomorrow - "

"No! I want to see! Who is she! Is she a whore! Is she one of your girls from the casino!"

"Sofia," Damien's voice turned dangerous, low. "Watch your mouth."

"Don't tell me to watch my mouth! I am your future wife! My father and your father - "

"My father is dead," Damien interrupted coldly. "And I never agreed to marry you. I told you last year, and I will tell you again now - I will never marry you."

A gasp. Then crying. Fake crying, I could tell even from upstairs.

"You - you are cruel, Damien! After everything my family did for you! After my father helped you when your mother died!"

"Your father helped?" Damien laughed, a cold laugh that made me shiver even from upstairs. "Your father tried to take my territory when my mother died. Don't rewrite history, Sofia."

More high heels clicking. She was pacing.

"Then who is she? I saw a Rolls-Royce with Rome plates outside. Who did you bring from Rome? A waitress? A slut?"

I flinched.

"Enough," Damien said. "Go home, Sofia."

"No! I will not go home until I see her! I am the Donna of this house! I will be the Donna! Bring her down! BRING HER DOWN NOW!"

I heard a loud slap. Or maybe something broke. I couldn't tell.

Then Luca again: "Miss Sofia, please - "

"Don't touch me! Damien! If you have another woman here, I swear I will tell my father! My father will be angry! He will start a war!"

That word - war - made the whole house go silent.

Even I, who knew nothing about Mafia, knew what war meant. Guns, blood, dead bodies.

Damien's voice was quiet now, but more terrifying than when he shouted.

"Are you threatening me, Sofia? In my own house?"

"I - I - " Sofia's voice was suddenly small. "No, my love, I just - I love you - I have loved you since we were children - "

"I don't love you," Damien said, each word like ice. "I never did. And I never will. Now get out of my house."

"Damien - "

"LUCA! Take her out!"

I heard Sofia scream, "YOU WILL REGRET THIS! YOU WILL REGRET BRINGING A WHORE INTO THIS HOUSE! I WILL FIND OUT WHO SHE IS AND I WILL KILL HER!"

Then the big double doors of the mansion opened and closed with a loud bang. The red Ferrari engine roared and sped away, tires screeching on the driveway.

Silence returned.

I slid down to the floor, my back against the locked door, still in my black silk nightgown, breathing hard.

She would kill me. She said she would kill me. And she was a Mafia princess. She had the money and the men to do it.

The door unlocked.

Damien came back in, running a hand through his black hair, looking exhausted. He saw me on the floor and frowned.

"What are you doing on the floor?"

"She - she said she will kill me," I whispered.

He crouched down in front of me, his black shirt stretching over his muscular back. He was so close I could see the stubble on his jaw.

"No one will kill you," he said quietly. "Not while you are mine."

"She said you are hers - "

"I am not hers," he said, more firmly. "I never was. My father promised me to her when I was 20, before I became Don. He wanted peace with De Luca family. But my father died two years ago. The promise died with him. Sofia doesn't understand that."

He touched my bare knee. His hand was warm.

"Are you scared?" he asked.

I nodded, tears falling.

He sighed and stood up, then picked me up from the floor like I weighed nothing - one arm under my knees, one arm behind my back. I gasped and grabbed his shoulders.

"What are you doing!"

"You are cold," he said simply, carrying me to the huge bed and placing me down gently on the right side. He pulled the black silk sheets over me.

He went to the other side and lay down, but this time he didn't put the pillow wall between us. He left it on the floor.

"Sleep," he said, turning off the lamp. "Sofia will not come back tonight. I have guards outside your - our door."

Our door.

I lay there in the dark, in the huge bed, next to a Mafia Don who had just defended me from another woman, who had locked me to protect me, who had said "you are my wife" like it was a shield.

And I thought about Sofia De Luca in her red Ferrari and tight red dress, who thought she owned him, who would kill me to get him.

For the first time since I signed the contract six hours ago in my poor apartment in Rome, I didn't feel like a payment.

I felt like a wife.

A wife whose husband's ex-fiancée wanted her dead.

And somewhere in the dark mansion, I could still smell Sofia's expensive perfume lingering in the entrance hall - a warning that my one year as Mrs. Vitale was not going to be quiet.

It was going to be a war.

And I, Elena Rossi, 22, waitress from Rome, was in the middle of it, wearing black silk and a Mafia Don's name.