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“No,” the other man said, and I wished vehemently I knew who it was. Dario’s Mafia network was extensive, and though I had met a few of the movers and shakers, he didn’t involve me in operations enough for me to know them all. It could have been Lando, but why would his own father want him to abstain from sex with his wife? “You won’t. We both know you don’t have a heart inside that cold chest of yours. It would be cruel to the girl to let her believe she could actually . . . fall in love with you.”

He followed up his words with emotionless laughter, and I felt it puncture my hope-inflated heart like a balloon.

“Yes,” Dario agreed, and he sounded resolute and tired. “As I said, it won’t happen again. This marriage is a farce, and that’s all it will ever be.”

I pushed my closed fist against my mouth to curb the whimper in my throat, breathing deeply through the knife Dario had lodged through my chest. It hurt, each inhalation, but I forced myself to absorb it, to let the hurt radiate throughout every inch of my body.

So I would never make the mistake of trying to like my husband ever again.

For as long as we both should live.

Chapter Ten

Fiammetta

Three years later

Life as a mafioso’s wife wasn’t what they made it seem in the movies.

Sure, it was glamorous sometimes. Going to galas and society events because Dario Ferretti was a Chicagoan business tycoon and icon; dressing in furs and Louboutin shoes, diamonds, and precious metals I bought myself with his money as my husband hadn’t given me a present in the time we had been married. We had a fleet of expensive cars I was rarely allowed to drive because I was assigned a bodyguard who also doubled as a chauffeur, and we could afford extravagant holidays, which he never took because Dario worked every day of the week without exception.

But the truth was, I didn’t have much to do with the criminal underworld that Dario ruled and reigned over day to day. I had my protection detail, I rubbed elbows with the wives of his trusted capos and foot soldiers, but I was not involved in the decision-making or the dangerous side of his job. I just appeared on his arm to look pretty and smile vacantly before I was once more put on the shelf like the doll I had refused to let Dario make of me the first day we met.

The life of a doll was, of course, not very interesting.

But while I had spent the last four years of my life as Dario’s bambolina, I had painstakingly crafted a double life as Fia Ferretti.

After trying to subscribe to the ideals of a good Sicilian housewife by bothering Chef to teach me to cook—I literally burnt water and nearly set the house ablaze with my attempt at roasted lamb—and pestering Bonnie to teach me to knit—to disastrous results—and then asking Gertie to teach me to play the gorgeous grand piano in the formal living room—my fingers were better suited to handling weapons, it seemed, than white and black keys—I moved on to fields of interest that actually piqued both my mind and my talents. Fields of interest that gave me an arsenal of power and knowledge and a means to discover the truth about what happened to my family the day of my tragic wedding.

I was enrolled at the University of Chicago with a few months left until I graduated with a degree in social psychology and a minor in linguistics. I went to Booker’s gun club every Tuesday and Akira’s dojo every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I had lunch with Alessia, Renata, and an assortment of various Mafia wives every Friday afternoon. On Sunday evenings, I volunteered at the Greater Chicago Food Depository, which handed out food to those in need. I was a society wife, yes, but one who refused to idle away her days doing nothing.

Especially if it meant spending time alone in Edgemont House.

In general, though, as the wife of the boss, I was kept safe from all harm and insulated from the unsavory underbelly of the criminal world my husband ruled over.

Even after four years of marriage, I did not understand him.

After taking my virginity, ruthlessly and publicly in our foyer, he had avoided me for two weeks. Then, suddenly, one late Sunday night, he had appeared in the dark of the hall as I climbed the stairs to my room for bed, and the energy emanating off him had been palpable.

Predatory and aroused.

I had no idea what prompted the almost furious desire infecting the space between us, but I had always been too curious for my own good, and a part of me wanted to know if the passion between us the night of our anniversary had been a one-off.

Now that my romantic notions were buried six feet deep, I was curious about discovering more about this new side of me. The side that wanted brutality and heat and the kind of body worship that edged my desperation with a touch of humiliation.

So, when he stalked toward me and pressed me to the wall like a flower, as if he wanted to preserve the feel of me against him forever, I’d driven my fingers into his wild waves and fastened my mouth to his.

What followed was, arguably, even better than the first time we’d fucked.

It didn’t hurt as much to take the thick length of him inside me, but he made it hurt—pleasantly—in other ways. Teeth against my neck, punishing fingertips against my breasts, and the sting of a palm against my ass when he chased me into my bedroom and pushed me down face first over the end of the bed.

When he left me after—the sheets stained with our cum, the silk cooling from the heavy press of his body—I laid there for long hours wondering how much I should feel ashamed for letting him use my body when it seemed he wanted nothing to do with my mind.

I resolved, once more, not to touch my husband.

And then a month later, after polite business dinners and society outings where we could have been distant acquaintances, there he was, waiting for me one night in the velvet-upholstered chair in the corner of my room.

He didn’t say a word as I froze in the doorway, staring at me for so long I thought I was dreaming him.