CALAVERA: The Mafia’s Caged Bride のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 171 - チャプター 180

THE YELLOW DRESS~ANYA POV~The balcony looked out onto a pretty garden that someone had clearly taken good care of for a long time. Roses grew on trellises and lavender was planted in neat rows, making the air smell nice when the wind blew. I sat in a metal chair with my feet tucked under me, a book on my lap, but I hadn't actually read any of it for twenty minutes.The yellow dress was in the closet when I woke up. It had flowers on it, fit me well at the top, and the skirt ended just below my knees. It looked fancy, like the kind of style French women have. I wore it because my old clothes from Porto were packed away somewhere and wearing César's gifts felt like the path of least resistance.I hated that it fit perfectly.Hated that when I looked in the mirror I saw someone who looked healthy, who looked rested, who looked like a woman living a good life instead of a captive plotting her escape.My hair had grown out over the months of hiding, the cheap dye I'd been using to ke

THE DINNER~CÉSAR POV~Isabella's apartment in the 7th arrondissement was exactly what I had expected—elegant without being flashy, filled with art she had actually collected instead of bought for investment, floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the Seine, and that particular brand of understated wealth that old Italian money did better than anyone else.I had known Isa since we were eight years old, since my father had done business with her father and we had been thrown together at countless dinners and parties, and family gatherings.And she was one of the few people on earth who knew me before I became the Calavera, who remembered when I was just César, a boy who liked books and hated violence and wanted to be an architect instead of a criminal.She was also one of the only people who had never wanted anything from me except friendship, which made her almost impossibly rare in my world.Anya had been silent the entire car ride over, sitting in the back seat with Marcello betwe

~ANYA POV~(Two days later)César hadn't touched me since the Diaz incident.Not sexually, not intimately, not even the casual brushes of skin that used to make my body respond in ways I hated.He had been perfectly controlled, perfectly respectful, keeping a careful distance whenever we were in the same room, and I should have been relieved. I should have been grateful that he was finally giving me the physical space I had been demanding.But instead the tension was suffocating.It hung in the air between us like humidity before a storm, thick and oppressive and impossible to ignore, and I felt it every time we passed each other in the narrow hallway of the house.Every time our hands brushed reaching for the same dish, every time I caught him watching me with those ice-blue eyes that stripped me bare.I was in the kitchen making lunch when he came downstairs, just a simple pasta for Marcello who was at school, and I heard his footsteps on the stairs, heard him pause in the doorway

THE BREAKING POINT—2~ANYA POV~ My body was screaming for this even as my mind was screaming at me to stop, to think, to remember all the reasons this was a terrible idea.But three weeks of building stress had to break somewhere, and apparently it was breaking here, in the hallway of the house César had bought for us, while our son played with his dinosaur in the next room.César's hand slid up under my dress, his palm rough against the smooth skin of my inner thigh, and when his fingers brushed against my underwear.I was already wet, already soaked through the cotton, and the groan he made was pure masculine satisfaction."You want this," he said, not a question."I hate that I want this," I corrected, but my hips were already rolling against his hand seeking more pressure."Close enough," César said, and then he was yanking my underwear down my legs, letting them fall to my ankles, his own hands working at his belt with desperate efficiency.This was happening.This was actually

THE QUESTION~CÉSAR POV~Marcello asked the question on a Thursday evening while I was helping him build a tower out of blocks that was already taller than he was, his small hands carefully placing each piece while his tongue stuck out slightly in concentration the way it always did when he was focused."Papa, why does Mama sleep alone?"The question was innocent, simple, the kind of thing any three-year-old would ask when he noticed his parents going to separate rooms at night, but it landed in the quiet living room like a grenade.I looked up at Anya who was curled in the armchair by the window with a book she had been staring at for the last twenty minutes without turning a page.I watched her freeze, watched the tension lock into her shoulders, watched her search for an answer that would satisfy our son without revealing the complicated truth."Because Mama likes her own space," she said carefully, not looking at me."But you love each other, right?" Marcello asked, and the innoce