The Mafia King’s Forced Bride
That surprised her more than anything.
The corridor felt different this morning, longer somehow, every closed door she passed suddenly heavy with the possibility of secrets she hadn't known to look for a week ago. She'd spent the last nine days thinking of herself as collateral, a debt with a face, something simple enough to understand even if it wasn't fair. The idea that there might be something older underneath all of it, something reaching back into her own childhood, made the whole house feel unsteady under her feet.
His study door was open when she reached it, and he was already on the phone, pacing the length of the room with the kind of tightly wound energy she'd only seen from him o