41. The Invitation

Dove"Come closer," Don Vincenzo said. "Let me look at you."I made my feet move. Four steps into that gold room, and I stopped, and stood there in Elio's shirt with my bare legs and my bruises and my heart trying to climb out of my throat.The old man looked me over.He did it slowly. Thoroughly. The way you'd examine a horse, or a painting someone was trying to sell you, and there was nothing in his eyes at all. No lust, no interest, nothing so human as either. Just assessment. He took in the shirt, and where it must have come from, and my bare feet, and he let his gaze travel to the ugly purple bruising down my arm and the marks on my wrist, and something in his mouth moved that wasn't a smile."And who," he said, "are you?"I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I wrecked my brain thinking of what to say. What would Elio want me to say? I glanced at him for help, but he just kept a straight face. Lie, Dove. Say something inconspicuous. I tell myself.But what do I say? Every li

Dernière mise à jour : 2026-08-06

42. The Deal

ElioI watched her go.Bare feet on the marble, my shirt swallowing her, her chin held high the entire length of that room. She didn't look back once she'd passed the threshold. And I sat there in front of my father and my brother with my hands loose at my sides and my face made of stone, and something in my chest was tearing.I have watched men die without changing expression. I watched my father's hand come at my face last night and did not lift a finger. And it took everything I had — every scrap of the discipline I've spent my whole life sharpening — to stand in this room and not go after her.Because I'd done it again. I'd let her be humiliated in front of me and said nothing. I didn’t say a word when Gio called her a toy, because the moment I corrected him, in front of my father, she would have stopped being a body and started being a reason. Nobody in this world dies faster than a thing a Visconti has a reason to care about. Just ask my mother.So I let it stand. I let them bel

Dernière mise à jour : 2026-08-06

43. The Situation

DoveI spent the whole day sick with it.I couldn't eat. I couldn't work. I sat through my online class without hearing a word of it and then sat staring at the blank screen for an hour after it ended, chewing my thumbnail down to nothing. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Don Vincenzo's face — that flat, patient, assessing calm, the smile that never got anywhere near his eyes. “You can entertain some of them. That's what you're for, isn't it?”I didn't know what a party like that meant. That was the worst part. I didn't know what would be expected of me, and I didn't know what would happen if I did it wrong, and I didn't know what would happen if I did it right. And for the entire day I was anxious, Elio hadn't come, and the whole long day dragged past with nobody telling me anything at all.* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *By dark I'd made myself so anxious I was shaking. I got into bed just to have somewhere to put my body, and I lay there in the d

Dernière mise à jour : 2026-08-07

44. The Wanting

DoveI lay awake for a long time after Elio left.The issue of the party was still there, coiled in my stomach. The mask, the gold dress spilling out of its box on the chair, Don Vincenzo's cold flat eyes, all of it waiting for me tomorrow like a door I couldn't stop walking toward. Even with Elio's plan. Even with Maria and the second girl and the car. I was still afraid.But still, that wasn't the thing keeping me awake.“There’s something here that I don’t understand, and I need to understand it." His hand tightened ever so slightly around my face. "So when my father is gone, we'll talk. Properly. About what this is and what we do about it."I turned that over and over. We'll talk. Two words, and they'd rearranged my entire chest. Because it meant he'd noticed. It meant that whatever this was, this thing that had been building since I stepped foot into this house, wasn't only happening to me. He felt it too. He didn't understand it either. And he wanted to.I pressed my hands over

Dernière mise à jour : 2026-08-08

Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 41 - Chapitre 44

41. The Invitation

42. The Deal

43. The Situation

44. The Wanting