Chapter 8 - Obedient. Quiet. Pretty.

Rino

─𖤝─

She fucking ran.

She stormed off like I’d slapped her across the face with my cock instead of my mouth.

I watched her figure disappear across the sand, hair tangled from the sea air and whatever happened between us.

She was crying.

I could tell. Her shoulders were shaking. That quick, hiccupping kind of run girls do when they’re trying to hold in a breakdown.

Cute.

But also, fuck.

And for a second, I started after her. Two steps, no more, like I was some lovesick prick in a bad indie film.

But I stopped.

Because my jaw was clenched so fucking tight I could hear my own pulse behind my teeth.

Because every part of me that wanted to grab her and make it right was crushed under the weight of one thing...

My fucking ego.

She’d humiliated me again. With those big, bratty eyes, with that mouth she doesn’t know how to shut, with every smug little word that spilled out like she thought she was untouchable. And then the fucking tears. She looked at me like I was the villain in her sad little Greek tragedy.

I watched her again from a distance, back near the cliff path where the cars were parked. Her shoulders were shaking. She was pacing like a panicked animal, hands pressed to her face.

I could’ve gone to her. I should’ve but I didn’t, because I’m Rino fucking Lombardi, and we don’t chase women.

We don’t ask for forgiveness.

We make the world kneel first.

And if some girl—my fiancée, no less—wants to cry because I kissed her, that’s on her.

I turned back toward the firepit, my jaw ticking like a bomb. I strode back into the circle. My guards were stationed in the dark corners, stood straighter the second they saw my face.

Gerardo chuckled, barely under his breath, "Guess Miss America’s not into tongue."

I don't know what got over me when I grabbed the empty beer bottle from the floor and slammed it against his face. Glass shattered across his cheek before he finished blinking.

Gasps filled the space, someone screamed. Valeria shrieked and jumped back, nearly tripping over her own heels.

“Fucking watch your mouth,” I snarled, stepping over him.

He stumbled back, blood smearing down his chin, “Rino, what the fuck—”

“You think this is a joke?” I shouted, “You think I throw her in the sand and you get to fucking clap?”

Fabio stood up, “Rino—”

I grabbed him by the shirt, “You think this is a fucking game? You think I give a shit if she said no? You think her no means a fucking thing in front of me?”

He struggled, caught off guard.

"You wanna end up like him?" I growled, jerking my chin toward Gerardo who was groaning in the sand, cheek slick with red.

Fabio opened his mouth, but I didn’t give him the chance.

I pulled my gun.

The click of the safety going off snapped the air in half and everyone froze.

I pointed the barrel at the sky and fired.

BANG.

Then again.

BANG.

The echo tore across the beach. A flock of seagulls exploded upward from the cliffs.

The crowd scattered like insects, screaming, stumbling, tripping over their expensive shoes. One guy dropped his drink. Another ran toward the carport. Girls were already crying.

I didn’t give a shit.

I stood there, gun in one hand, blood on the other and let them all remember who I was.

Rino Lombardi.

The reason this entire coast slept with one eye open.

“Clean this shit up,” I muttered to one of the guards.

He nodded like his life depended on it. I shoved the Glock back in my shorts, wiped Gerardo's blood off my knuckles, and turned back toward the cars.

Past the broken bottle.

Past the firepit.

Past the pieces of what was supposed to be just another party.

Toward the cliff path.

Toward the last place I saw her.

She was gone.

And all I could think about was the look in her eyes when I kissed her.

⊱⊶⊷⊶⊷⊰

The heavy wooden door to my father’s study was already cracked open, letting the smell of smoke, scotch, and old leather leak into the corridor.

He knew I was coming.

He always did.

The guards at the end of the hallway went still as I passed.The moment I stepped inside, my father shifted.

Don Arturo Lombardi sat in the high-backed leather chair near the hearth, robe loose over his chest, cigar burning slow between his fingers. His face was cast in amber from the firelight, and he didn’t bother to look at me.

He took a drag of his cigar, then exhaled slowly.

“I hear,” he said, “that you fired a gun tonight at a party.”

My jaw twitched, “Yes.”

“I also heard,” he said again, “that the Capone girl ran off crying after you kissed her in front of everyone.”

“She humiliated me,” my fists clenched at my sides, “She mocked me in front of my men. In front of my friends. In front of—”

He finally looked up, “So you kissed her?”

“She wouldn’t come when I ordered her to,” I snapped, “She acted like I was some fucking joke, talked back, lied to the whole circle that I was some inbred clown and said I wasn’t enough for her.”

“And?”

“So I kissed her,” I told him, “She didn’t want it. That was the point. I wanted her to know what she was good enough for. And I wanted her to choke on the fact that no matter how high she holds her chin, she still belongs to me.”

My father stared at me for a long time. Then stood up, walked to the liquor cabinet and poured himself two fingers of Lagavulin.

“Finally,” he muttered, “You’re starting to act like a man.”

I said nothing.

He turned, drink in hand, “A Capone girl, Rino. You think she’s some innocent dove? You think she hasn’t been trained since birth to manipulate men like you? Don’t fall for the tears. That’s how women work. They cry, you kneel and the next thing you know, you’re begging in your own house.”

I stayed still, hands flexing at my sides.

“You did what needed to be done,” he said, “You reminded her who the fuck you are. Who we are.”

He walked closer, eyes drilling into mine.

“Let me make one thing very clear, figlio mio. That girl? She’s not your partner. She’s not your conscience. She’s your property. She’s the reward. The blood-won prize you take, not someone you chase and definitely not someone you explain yourself to.”

I clenched my jaw until it ached.

My father's eyes darkened, “You don’t need her to like you,” he said. “You need her obedient. Quiet. Pretty at parties. Open at night. That’s it. She doesn’t have to love you just bear the Lombardi name and your sons. That’s all a woman is.”

For a second, something twisted in my gut hearing him talk about her like that. I didn’t like it but then I shook it off, buried it.

“If she runs, you collar her. If she bites, you tame her. If she embarrasses you again—” he stepped in close enough that I could smell the smoke and whiskey on his breath, “—you make sure she learns her place.”

My throat was dry but I just stood there, staring back.

Because if I said anything, if I disagreed, he’d see the softness. He’d smell it like blood in the water.

“Do you hear me?”

I nodded once, like a good fucking soldier.

“Good,” he muttered, walking back to his chair. He sat with a sigh like the matter was closed, “So if she resists you again, you push harder. You take what’s yours. You remind her whose house she’ll be living in, whose name she’ll be bearing, and whose cock she’ll be kneeling for. And if she ever cries again, make fucking sure she does it into a pillow... after.”

I didn’t answer this time. I couldn’t stop picturing her face. The way her lips had trembled. That look in her eyes, not fear, not just hate, something worse.

Disbelief... like she didn't expect me to hurt her like this.

As if somewhere deep down, she thought I was better than this and I had proved her wrong.

I turned toward the door.

“Where are you going?” my father asked.

“To bed.”

“Alone?”

I ignored him and walked out, my chest tight, my hands twitching for violence I didn’t want to commit.

Because if I didn’t leave that room right then, he’d tell me to go claim her, to finish what I started, to put my name in her body before she went back to the States.

And for the first time in my life, I wasn’t sure what I wanted more.

To win her or to be someone she cried about in the dark.

The thought of her curled up somewhere, fists balled in her sheets, gasping my name through gritted teeth, it did something to me.

If I was meant to spend a lifetime with that girl, it shouldn’t feel like this. She made me feel like a fucking monster.

And that’s the problem with girls like Alessia Capone.

They make you want to rip your own ribcage open just to check if your heart’s still beating or if they already stole it while you weren’t looking.