Chapter 2
The light emphasized the hard lines of his face and created shadows beneath his cheekbones.
“You look—”
He stopped.
His eyes moved across her reflection.
Then he frowned.
Naya usually wore red.
She usually selected clothing that made her appear soft and inviting.
“Different,” he finished.
“Is it inappropriate?”
She turned and smoothed the silk across her hips.
“No.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“It is fine. The car is ready.”
The drive to the hotel passed in silence.
Leather moved softly as the Maybach traveled through wet streets.
Neon colors stretched across the windows and passed over Dante’s rigid profile.
He reached toward her once.
His hand crossed the console toward Naya’s knee.
She shifted and turned toward the window to examine a passing storefront.
His hand stopped against the leather beside her thigh.
After a moment, Dante pulled it back.
Naya did not apologize.
The ballroom was suffocating.
Roasted meat, perfume, and cigars gathered in the air.
A string quartet performed classical music in 1 corner, but forced laughter and quiet threats overwhelmed it.
Dante kept his hand firmly at the base of Naya’s back as they moved through the crowd.
It was not affection.
It was a brand.
Mine.
Stay away.
Naya fulfilled her role.
She smiled with her mouth rather than her eyes and accepted compliments with a restrained movement of her head.
She did not lean into Dante.
Her spine remained straight, with a fraction of air maintained between his palm and her bare skin.
Two hours into the evening, several older West Side bosses surrounded Dante.
Naya claimed a headache and moved toward the ballroom’s bar.
She ordered club soda with lime and rested against the marble counter.
A long breath escaped her.
The surrounding noise was producing a genuine headache.
“Lonely over here, Mrs. Russell?”
Naya turned.
A man leaned against the bar beside her.
He was approximately 30, with slicked-back blond hair and a suit too loud for the event.
She recognized him imperfectly.
Billy Vance.
No.
Billy Donahue, a mid-level enforcer working for an organization Dante despised.
He smelled strongly of gin and inexpensive cologne.
“I was enjoying the quiet.”
Naya turned away.
Donahue laughed.
The sound was wet and unpleasant.
He moved closer and forced her against the edge of the bar.
“Dan leaves his beautiful new bird alone.”
His grin widened.
“That is careless. If my wife looked like you, I would use a shorter leash.”
Naya’s mouth tightened with disgust.
“My husband does not require a leash, and you are standing too close.”
Donahue looked at the open back of her dress.
His damp fingers moved toward her exposed spine.
“People say he only married you to settle an account.”
His hand hovered inches from her.
“It must be difficult knowing you are an expensive receipt.”
The insult struck with the force of something physical because it echoed what Naya already knew.
Coming from the grinning, perspiring enforcer, it also brought immediate rage.
She did not have time to answer.
A large hand closed around Donahue’s shoulder.
The force bent the man’s knees and pulled him backward.
Dante stepped between them.
He did not shout or create a spectacle.
Violence radiated from his rigid body and seemed to lower the air temperature.
“Donahue.”
His voice was a soft rasp cutting through the ballroom’s noise.
“If you look at my wife again, I will remove your eyes and feed them to the stray dogs on 5th Avenue.”
Dante’s grip tightened.
“Do you understand?”
Donahue became pale.
Perspiration appeared across his forehead.
“Dan, I meant no disrespect. I was only—”
“Leave.”
Donahue fled and nearly collided with a waiter.
Dante turned toward Naya.
His chest moved heavily, and possessive fury burned inside his eyes.
He seized her arm and pulled her against him.
“Are you all right? Did he touch you?”
Naya looked at the fingers around her bicep.
His knuckles were white.
Bergamot had been overwhelmed by the acidic smell of anger.
One month earlier, she would have mistaken it for love.
She would have seen a protector defending his bride.
That night, Naya understood.
He was defending property.
He was protecting the woman expected to produce his heir.
Donahue had not insulted Naya.
He had touched something belonging to Dante Russell.
That was the offense.
Naya looked into his burning eyes and felt nothing except exhaustion.
She calmly removed his fingers from her arm 1 at a time.
“I’m fine, Dante.”
Her voice was ice.
“There is no reason to create a disturbance over a receipt.”
The words registered immediately.
Dante stopped moving.
Fury disappeared and was replaced by shock.
His hand fell.
He stared at the complete absence of emotion in her face.
“I would like to go home.”
Naya turned and walked toward the coat counter.
She did not wait.
Dante would follow.
She was his most valuable investment.
The return journey was empty and silent.
Dante remained rigid on his side of the leather seat, his jaw moving as though he were chewing glass.
Naya watched rain create irregular paths along the window.
The heater released dry air across her ankles, but her shoulders continued trembling faintly.
It was not fear.
It was the physical collapse after a lifetime of silence.
When the Maybach reached the estate, Dante opened the door before the driver could assist.
He entered the drizzle and did not offer Naya his hand.
He waited at the house’s double doors with his hands inside his pockets while she climbed the stone steps.
The foyer was silent and illuminated by amber wall lights.
Marion and the remaining employees were asleep.
“What did you mean?”
Dante’s voice was quiet but sharp against the marble.
Naya opened her evening bag and removed a cosmetic wipe.
The foil wrapper tore loudly.
“Mean by what?”
“You know what.”
“The receipt?”
He approached.
His wet shoes moved against the stone.
“Donahue is a drunken loudmouth. He says things to provoke people. If you allow someone like him to enter your head—”
“He did not enter my head.”
Naya wiped the red lipstick from her mouth and smeared it across the cloth.
She dropped the used wipe onto a silver tray.
It landed wetly.
“He repeated something I already knew.”
She looked at Dante.
“Do not punish him for sharing your opinion. That would be hypocritical.”
Dante stopped.
A muscle moved rapidly near his cheekbone.
“What are you talking about?”
Naya examined him.
He was broad and dangerous, surrounded by the cologne that once accelerated her pulse.
That night, he was simply a man standing inside a corridor.
“I’m tired.”
She climbed the sweeping staircase.
At the upper landing, she did not turn right toward the primary suite.
She went left.
Dante followed as far as the landing.
He watched Naya open the 3rd guest bedroom, a room normally reserved for visiting capos.
It smelled of furniture polish, dust, and disuse.
“Naya.”
His voice struck like a whip.
“What are you doing?”
“Going to sleep.”
She did not turn.
“Your bedroom is down the corridor.”
“Your bedroom is down the corridor,” she corrected. “I’m sure you can locate it.”
Naya stepped inside.
“I’ll ask Marion to move my remaining clothing tomorrow while you’re at the docks.”
She closed the door.
The latch clicked.
Inside the cavernous estate, it sounded like a vault closing.
Dante remained outside for 3 minutes.
Naya could see the shadow beneath the door.
She heard his knuckles touch the wood.
For a moment, it seemed he intended to open it, order her back to his bed, and enforce the contract her father had signed.
He did not.
The shadow moved.
The floorboards sounded beneath his retreating steps.
Naya rested against the door and slid onto the cold floor.
She pulled her knees to her chest.
Her hands shook violently.
Naya closed her eyes and held her knuckles against her mouth to contain the broken breath trying to escape.
She had drawn the boundary.
Now she had to survive on her side of it.
By the 3rd week of the guest-room arrangement, the atmosphere inside the estate had become toxic.
Dante was rarely home.
When he returned, he drank heavily.
He stopped reading financial reports during breakfast and stared at the wall instead, a dark and brooding presence radiating aggression.
Naya avoided him professionally.
She spent each day inside the neglected garden behind the estate.
She did not hire landscapers.
Naya purchased canvas gloves and rusted pruning shears and put her hands into the earth.
She pulled dead rosebushes from the ground.
Thorns penetrated the gloves and left red scratches across her forearms.
The pain provided relief.
Wet soil and decomposing leaves kept her attached to the physical world.
It was approaching 2:00 a.m. on a Tuesday when the silence ended.
Naya stood inside the enormous kitchen wearing her faded gray T-shirt and poured tap water into a glass.
Outside, the storm sent violent lightning across the stainless-steel appliances.
The rear door slammed.
Naya reacted.
The glass slipped from her hand and shattered inside the sink, scattering wet fragments across the porcelain.
Dante stumbled into the kitchen.
His suit jacket was gone.
The collar of his white shirt had been torn, and the left sleeve was saturated with dark blood.
He leaned against the doorframe and breathed in shallow, broken movements.
Copper, perspiration, and cheap whiskey entered the room.
“Don’t move.”
He saw the broken glass.
Dante attempted another step and swayed.
Two months earlier, Naya would have rushed forward in tears and pressed both hands against his chest.
That night, she stepped away from the sink, removed the water from her fingers, and walked toward the pantry.
“Sit before you damage the tile.”
May you like
Her voice remained flat.
Dante looked at her with dark, unfocused eyes.
