Page 84 of The Serpent's Bride
Usually Chiara burned. Even furious, she burned. Her emotions flashed across her face like lightning. Fear. Anger.Lust. Defiance. She felt everything too intensely to hide it properly.
But tonight? She looked hollowed out.
“You should smile more at your own wedding,” I heard from behind me.
Sergio appeared beside me soundlessly, dressed head to toe in black like death had decided to attend the reception personally. Black gloves. Black tie. Black eyes scanning exits and weapons and weak points while he sipped whiskey.
My oldest friend looked more prepared to execute somebody than celebrate me. Fair enough.
“So should you,” I replied.
“I’m not the idiot who married a Ventura girl in front of every hungry wolf in the city,” he reminded me.
A slow smirk tugged at my mouth. “You still disapprove?”
“I think half this ballroom is deciding whether killing your cousins tonight would be worth the mess,” he muttered.
My gaze swept lazily over the room. Angelo and Santino stood near the dance floor pretending to enjoy themselves while Lorenzo Ventura sweated through another glass of champagne beside them. Across the ballroom, my uncle Edoardo watched everything through hooded eyes, his thick fingers drumming slowly against the table beside untouched dessert.
Predators. Every single man in this room smelled blood in the water. And all of them had wanted something from me tonight.
I took another sip of bourbon, letting the smoky liquor settle on my tongue. “They already got paid.”
Sergio’s expression darkened. He hated the deal almost as much as I did. A quarter of the city. Ports. Clubs. Gambling routes. Political influence. Protection money.
I’d handed Angelo and Santino enough territory to turn them from spoiled playboys into legitimate threats overnight. Lorenzogot insulation under their protection and enough leverage to keep lesser families off his back for years.
And in return? They left Chiara alone.
No interference. No attempts to take her back. No challenges to my marriage. No trying to rip my wife out of my hands. The deal still tasted poisonous in my mouth.
“You gave away too much,” Sergio muttered quietly.
“I gave away exactly enough,” I hissed.
“For her?” His gaze flicked toward Chiara again. “That girl better be worth a fucking war.”
I looked at my wife. Really looked at her. At the exhausted shadows beneath those blue eyes. At the stiffness in her shoulders. At the soft pulse fluttering in her throat beneath all those diamonds. At the tiny tremble in her fingers every time somebody said my name near her. Something dark and obsessive tightened around my ribs.
“She is,” I said simply.
Sergio stared at me for a long moment before exhaling through his nose. “Still as whipped as ever.”
I laughed softly into my glass. Maybe I was.
I’d been fucked from the moment she pushed trembling fingers into my hair in that moonlit garden. From the second she looked up at me through pain and fear while my mouth was wrapped around her ankle. From the moment she tasted like innocence and temptation and danger all at once.
Now she wore my ring. Soon she’d wear my fingerprints too. The image hit hard enough that heat surged through my bloodstream. Fuck.
I adjusted my cuffs slowly, trying to control myself while my gaze dragged over her body again. The elegant line of her throat. The delicate arch of her spine beneath silk. The soft swell of her breasts trapped behind white lace. The tiny waist I could span with both hands.
I imagined carrying her upstairs. Spreading her across black silk sheets. Pulling every frightened little sound out of her mouth until she forgot how to hate me properly. My cock hardened behind my slacks.
Christ. The reception felt endless. Too many congratulations. Too many meaningless conversations. Too many old men talking business while my wife stood ten feet away looking untouched and unbearably beautiful in white. I was done faking my patience.
A sharp laugh cut through the ballroom.
Angelo.
