Chapter 4

The courtyard was silver with moonlight and empty except for one man. Vittorio Falcone stood near the stone fountain with his hands behind his back, watching the water like it was the only thing in the world worth his attention. He was taller up close than he looked from the platform, built like something carved from dark rock, and the moonlight fell across his jaw in a way that made the shadows under his eyes look hollow and ancient.

He knew I was there before I made a sound.

"Gianna," he greeted without turning around. His voice was low, unhurried, like a man who had never once needed to raise it to be heard. "You kept me waiting."

"You'll get used to it." I stopped ten feet away and folded my arms across my chest.."Because this meeting is going to be very short."

He turned then, slow and deliberate, and looked at me the way someone looks at a painting they are thinking about buying. His dark eyes moved over my face, my stance, the set of my shoulders, and something flicked behind them that I could not read.

"Is that so?"

"I'm not marrying you."

The words came out strong and steady. I was proud of that because underneath my skin, my heart was hammering so hard I was sure he could hear it.

Vittorio did not flinch. He took one step closer and the air between us thickened like the atmosphere right before a storm breaks.

"Your father gave his word," he reminded me. "You are bound by it."

"My father doesn't own me."

"In the eyes of pack law, he does. Until you are mated and marked, you belong to your Alpha. And your Alpha gave you to me." He tilted his head just slightly, studying me the way a predator studies something it finds interesting but not yet threatening. "That is not my law, Gianna. That is yours."

Something about the way he talked, so calm, so certain, so impossibly sure that the world would arrange itself according to his wishes, made my blood boil hotter than the shower water I had just been standing under.

"Let me make this simple for you, Vittorio. I am not a piece of territory. I am not a treaty to be signed. And I am not yours. Not today. Not in three days. Not ever. Find yourself another bride."

His lips twitched. Just barely. Like he found me genuinely amusing and was too polite to laugh outright.

"You have fire," he observed. "I expected as much after watching your performance tonight. The way you fought was impressive. Truly." He paused. "But fire without direction is just destruction, Gianna. And I am very good at containing destruction."

"Is that a threat?"

"It's an observation."

His gaze dropped. Just for a fraction of a second, just a flicker so fast most people would have missed it completely, but I caught it. He was looking at my pendant. At the silver charm sitting against my collarbone, still warm, still humming with that quiet second heartbeat.

Seraphina shrieked inside my chest. Not a growl. Not a warning. A full, terrified shriek that rattled through my bones and sent ice water flooding through my veins.

Run. We need to run. Right now. He knows something. He knows what is inside us. I held my ground even though every instinct in my body was screaming at me to bolt. "Stay away from me."

Vittorio's expression did not change. "I will see you in two days, Gianna. At the altar." He paused and something dark and unreadable moved behind his eyes. "Wear something pretty."

Then he turned and walked back toward the main house, his footsteps quiet on the stone, his hands still clasped behind his back like we had just been discussing the weather. The suffocating weight of his presence faded inch by inch until I could finally breathe again.

I went inside. My hands were shaking and my pulse was pounding in my ears but my mind was completely clear for the first time all night. Running was my only option. And I knew exactly where to run. I found Enzo still in my room, pacing the floor with his hands in his hair, looking like he was about to wear a hole through the carpet.

"You're alive," he exhaled the moment I walked in. "Thank God. What happened?"

"I told him I wouldn't marry him. He told me I didn't have a choice. Then he looked at my pendant, Enzo. He looked right at it like he knew exactly what it was."

Enzo's face went pale. "That's not good."

"No. It's not." I grabbed the chair and sat down hard. "We're doing this. Gravemont. The disguise. All of it. Tonight."

He groaned and pressed his palms over his eyes. "Gia, do you understand what that place is like? It's not a school. It's a pit. Those alpha boys are vicious and territorial and they will test you every single day. The training is designed to break people. And if anyone, anyone at all, finds out you're a woman..."

"They won't."

"How can you possibly be that sure?"

"Because Seraphina can shift my features enough to look like Matteo. Same build. Same jawline. Same family nose. And you will teach me everything else. How to walk. How to talk. How to sit and stand and move like a man."

He stared at me with that familiar war behind his eyes. Fear pulling one way, loyalty pulling the other. Logic screaming that this was insane while love, the stubborn, stupid, unbreakable kind of love that had kept us bound together since childhood, told him to shut up and help me.

"Please," I whispered. "This is the only way out. If I stay here, I belong to him. Forever. And I would rather die than let that happen."

He closed his eyes. Let out a long, slow breath through his nose. And when he opened them again, something had shifted behind them. The fear was still there but it had moved to the back, and in the front was the Enzo I knew best. The one who never backed down.

"Fine," he muttered. "Stand up."

I stood.

"Wider stance. Feet shoulder width apart. You walk like a dancer, Gia. It's a dead giveaway."

"I do not walk like a dancer.

"You absolutely walk like a dancer. Shoulders back but loose, not stiff. Don't hold your arms so close to your body. Let them swing. And your voice needs to drop at least a full register."

"Like this?" I forced my voice lower.

"Deeper."

"Like this?"

"Less pretty, more bored. Like you don't care about anything."

I almost laughed. He was already coaching me and the fear on his face was already being replaced by that stubborn focus I had always loved about him.

"Your hips," he added, circling me with critical eyes. "Lock them. Men don't sway when they walk."

"And how exactly do you know so much about how men walk?"

He gave me a flat, withering look. "I go to an all male academy, Gia. I have spent two years surrounded by nothing but men. Trust me on this."

With Seraphina working quietly inside me, subtly adjusting the angles of my cheekbones and the set of my jaw, and Enzo drilling me on posture and voice and body language until my throat ached and my legs were sore from walking back and forth across the room, we worked through the rest of the night.

By the time the first pale light of dawn touched the window, I did not look like Gianna Moretti anymore.