LOGIN“You are an interesting woman,” he says finally, as though he has been collecting sentiments about me like curiosities. “I am not for your amusement,” I say. “Amusement is a generous way of putting it.” He turns his face to me and finally, which is nothing like mercy, he kisses me. It is a small t
“You will come with me tonight,” he says suddenly, and when I look at him the certainty in his eyes is a rope. “Where are we going?” I ask. I do not like the sound of my own voice in the dark halls. “To the club,” he says, as if the clubs he owns are nothing more than rooms he has arranged for his
The dinner goes on without ceremony. I wear a dress that fits like a promise and is less comfortable than anything else I own. The woman who dresses me fusses at the strap and at the hem with an intimacy that is practiced, like a ritual done daily for decades. The room where dinner is served is a pl
“You should not have broken a tray,” he says in that voice that is silk wrapped around steel. It makes everyone quiet because it is a voice that is treated like currency in this house. The words are simple but the way he says them says a thousand more complicated things. He is not angry the way I am
I come back from the memory to find sunlight in my eyes and orange juice dried on the carpet like the outline of a wound. My hands are trembling now for reasons I cannot name. The house clock in the hall ticks the way a heart does when it is being measured. There are noises behind the walls, small h
Oh God, I hate him. He is the center of everything I cannot control in this place. He is the reason doors close and keys rattle and the nights feel like traps. He is the reason my throat tastes like metal at dusk. He is also the reason, absurdly and against my every better judgment, that sometimes
─❈─ AURELIA ─❈─ I jolt awake, screaming, clutching my chest. My eyes dart wildly around the room. Sunlight streaming through the curtain i left open the night before. “It’s just a dream… it’s just a dream…” I murmur it again and again, sweat trickling down my spine, beading on my forehead. I
“No.” I don’t raise my voice. I don’t have to. “I didn’t buy her so she could run off and live happily ever after with my twin brother.” He eyes me suspiciously, and I hope my real expression isn’t seeping out. I’ve learned to shield myself from him a long time ago. I feel the coldness of th
◆◆ RAFAELE ◆◆ The last thing I needed was Gaetano’s mocking presence in my house. I had other things to deal with—like getting into Aurelia’s head and seeing exactly what she saw tonight… and the night before. I needed to know my grounds with Petra. “It was an attack, Papa. And I’m certain i
Beside me, Rafaele says nothing. Just exhales smoke, the scent of it curling into my lungs. He doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t ask if I’m hurt. Doesn’t touch me. That’s somehow worse than if he had. A streak of light tears through the darkness, highlighting his harshly handsome sharp side profile, ear







