CHAPTER 3: THE BED OF THE DON

The bedroom of Lorenzo De Luca was not a bedroom.

It was a confession booth made of shadows.

Black walls. Black curtains, heavy, blocking out the sea. One lamp on, low, amber. A bed so big it could have been an altar — dark wood, high, covered in black sheets that looked like spilled ink. The air smelled like him, that cold cologne and clean male skin, and underneath it, something like gun oil and rosemary.

He was already in it.

Or on it. Leaning against the headboard, barefoot, wearing black sweatpants that sat low on his hips and nothing else. The rosary tattoo around his forearm was fully visible now, black beads winding up to his elbow, ending in a small cross near his wrist. His chest was lean, cut, a few dark hairs, a thin white scar that ran from his left pectoral down to his ribs. Like someone had tried to open him.

He was reading. A book. Not a phone. A real book with pages.

He didn't look up when Agata opened the door and pushed me inside.

"Goodnight, Signora," Agata whispered and shut the door behind me.

Locked it. I heard the soft click.

Of course.

I stood frozen by the door in the black silk slip dress, my bare feet cold against the dark hardwood floor. My hair was still damp. I had no toothbrush, no pajamas, no weapon. I had nothing.

He turned a page.

"You are standing there like I am going to eat you," he said without looking up, his voice quiet in the dark room. Italian accent heavier when he was tired. "I told you. Not tonight."

"I don't want to sleep here," I said. My voice was hoarse. "This is insane. We just met."

"We met three years ago," he said, still reading. "And we got married this morning. In the eyes of God, we have known each other long enough."

"God wasn't even there! That priest was terrified of you!"

That made him look up. Finally.

His amber eyes found mine in the low light. Slow. Unblinking.

"God is always there, Sofia. Especially when you are scared. That's when He listens best."

He closed the book — I saw the title, Il Gattopardo, The Leopard — and placed it on the nightstand. Then he patted the other side of the massive bed.

"Come."

"No."

"Topolina," he sighed, like I was being difficult on purpose. "We have two options. You sleep on the bed like a wife. Or you sleep on the floor like a child who is throwing a tantrum. I will not touch you either way. But my mother will be here for breakfast tomorrow, and if she sees you sleeping on my floor, she will think I am not satisfying you, and she will ask questions you do not want to answer."

My face burned. "Your mother—"

"My mother, my uncle, my cousin Rocco, and my father's consigliere will be here at nine. To meet the new Mrs. De Luca. They are... traditional. If they smell fear on you, they will never respect you."

He said it like advice. Like he was actually trying to help me.

"So you want me to pretend?" I asked.

"I want you to survive," he said simply. I swallowed. The silk dress felt too thin. I was hyper-aware of my body under it.

He watched me struggle. He didn't move to help. Lorenzo De Luca never helped. He waited until you had no other choice and then called it your decision.

I walked to the bed. Each step was loud in my head. The bed was high. I had to climb a little to get onto it. The black sheets were cold, smooth, like water. Expensive.

I stayed on top of the duvet, as far from him as physically possible, on the very edge, my back to him, clutching the side of the mattress like I would fall off.

Behind me, I felt the mattress shift as he moved.

"Under the covers, Sofia," he said, his voice right behind me now, close. "You will get cold."

"I am fine."

"You are shivering."

"I am not shivering because I'm cold."

A pause. Then I felt it — the duvet being lifted and gently placed over my shoulders from behind. He didn't touch my skin. Only the fabric. But his knuckles brushed my shoulder blade for a half-second and it felt like a brand.

"Goodnight, topolina," he whispered.

He turned off the lamp.

Darkness swallowed us whole. Absolute, thick, Sicilian countryside darkness. No streetlights. Only the faint sound of the sea far below and cicadas outside the closed windows.

I lay rigid, eyes wide open, listening to him breathe behind me.

Slow. Even. Like a man who could sleep anywhere, even next to a woman who wanted to kill him.

I didn't sleep. Not really. I drifted in and out of a thin, anxious half-sleep where I dreamed of white dresses too big and rings that wouldn't come off.

I woke up because something was different.

It was still dark. But the breathing behind me had changed.

He was awake.

And he was too close.

In my half-sleep, I had rolled. I was no longer on the edge. I was in the middle of the bed, and his arm — that tattooed, heavy, warm arm — was draped over my waist, his hand resting flat on my stomach over the silk.

His chest was against my back. His legs against mine. He was holding me like a husband holds a wife after years of marriage. Possessive, sleepy, unconscious.

I froze. Every nerve ending in my body screamed awake.

His hand was big. It covered almost my entire stomach. His thumb moved, once, in his sleep, stroking the silk. A soft, involuntary sound escaped my mouth. Not a word. A gasp.

He woke up instantly. Not slowly, like a normal person. Instantly, like an animal. His body tensed, his breathing stopped for one second, then his hand —

He didn't pull away. He tightened. He pulled me closer, his nose finding the back of my neck, inhaling. A deep, slow inhale that made my toes curl.

"Don't," I whispered, my voice shaking. "Lorenzo—"

"You moved," he murmured, his voice thick with sleep, his lips against my skin, not quite kissing, just there. "You came to me in your sleep, Sofia. Don't pretend now."

"I didn't— I was sleeping—"

"Shh." His hand slid up, just an inch, from my stomach to right under my ribs, still over the silk, but higher. His thumb was now right under the swell of my breast. "You were cold. I warmed you."

My heart was beating so fast I thought it would come out of my chest. I could feel everything — his bare chest hard against my back, the heat of him, the faint stubble of his jaw against my neck.

"You said you wouldn't touch me," I breathed.

"I said I wouldn't fuck you until you asked," he whispered back, correcting me, his mouth brushing the sensitive spot behind my ear. "This is not fucking, topolina. This is holding my wife."

His other hand — I hadn't even realized — had tangled in my hair, gently, holding my head back slightly so my neck was exposed.

I should have pushed him. I should have screamed. I should have kneed him. Instead, my body did something traitorous. It arched. Just a little. Into him. I felt him smile against my neck.

"There she is," he whispered, the same words he had said in my fantasy of the gala. "I knew you were in there."

That snapped me out of it. I shoved his arm off and scrambled away, falling off the bed in a tangle of black sheets and silk, landing hard on the cold floor on my ass.

Silence. Then the lamp clicked on.

Lorenzo was sitting up, hair messy from sleep, eyes dark, looking down at me on the floor. He didn't look angry. He looked... fascinated. Like he had never seen a girl fall off his bed before.

"Interesting reaction," he said calmly. "Most women would have stayed."

"I'm not most women," I spat, pulling the dress down, my cheeks on fire.

"No," he agreed. "You are not. Most women don't run towards the fire and then get angry that it's hot."

He stood. God. He stood, in those low sweatpants, all lean muscle and scars, completely unselfconscious. He walked around the bed and crouched in front of me, so we were eye level. He smelled like sleep and warmth and him.

He reached out. I flinched. He stopped, then very slowly, tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers were warm.

"You are safe here, Sofia," he said, quieter now, serious. "No matter what my family says tomorrow. No matter what they think of you. In this house, in this bed — you are safe. Because you are mine. Do you understand?"

Mine. The word should have made me angry. It made me feel... something else. Something dark and heavy and safe in a twisted way. Like being locked in a cage but knowing the monster outside the cage couldn't get me because the cage belonged to a bigger monster.

"I understand," I whispered.

He stared at my mouth for a long second. Then he stood, held out his hand to help me up.

I looked at his hand. The hand with the black rosary. The hand that had just held me in his sleep like I was precious.

I took it.

His grip was firm as he pulled me up. He didn't let go immediately. He led me back to the bed, pulled back the covers, and gestured.

This time, I got under the covers. He got in on his side. He stayed on his side this time. Giving me space. But before he turned the light off again, he looked at me, lying there stiff, clutching the sheets to my chest.

"Tomorrow, wear red," he said. "My mother loves red on new brides. It makes them think you are fertile and obedient."

"I am not obedient," I said.

"I know," he said, and smiled in the dark. "Wear red anyway. Make them scared."

He turned off the light. This time, I did sleep. Because exhaustion finally won. And because, in the darkest, most honest part of me that I didn't want to look at, I had slept better in the ten minutes in his arms than I had in months.

I woke up to sun and Agata knocking and Lorenzo already gone, the space where he slept cold, but indented. On the pillow next to me was a small black velvet box, different from the ring box. Inside it was a thin gold necklace with a tiny black diamond. And a note in sharp, slanted handwriting:

For my wife, who fell. And underneath, the red dress was laid out on the chair.

Red as blood. Red as a warning.