Gianna
"Gianna." Sal's voice was warm. The warm voice. The one he saved for me and only me. The one that made hardened men soften and suspicious aunts look away, because they knew – without knowing they knew – that hearing it meant you were standing in a space most people never got close to. "Come here."
The table went still.
Not the tense stillness of Greg's shutdown – this was different. This was the stillness of a room that had just realized the main event wasn't what they'd thought it was. Every eye tracked me as I stood. Every ear strained toward the head of the table. Even Rocco had stopped slurring, his glass frozen halfway to his mouth, eyes narrowed with something that might have been confusion or might have been the earliest flicker of alarm.
I walked.
Not because I wanted to. Because Sal had said come here the way he said everything – like it wasn't a request, like it had never been a request, like the concept of requesting things for Don Salvatore Moretti was a misunderstanding of physics.
The walk from my seat to his side was maybe fifteen feet. It felt like fifteen miles. With every step, I was aware of my body in a way I hadn't been before – I could feel every pair of eyes on me. Evaluating. Measuring. The cousins who'd spent years overlooking me were suddenly seeing me, and what they saw was a girl in a green dress being called to the head of the table like an offering.
I stopped beside Sal's chair. Close enough to smell his cologne – sandalwood and something darker underneath. Close enough to see the silver threading in his temples that the dim light usually hid.
He reached up. Took my hand.
His fingers were warm. Dry. Strong in the way old stone is strong – not forceful, just immovable. He squeezed once. The uncle squeeze. The you're safe with me squeeze.
I didn't feel safe.
"You know I love you," he said. Quiet enough that only I could hear. "You know everything I've built, I've built with you in mind. This wing you live in. The life you have. The freedom to bake your little cakes and read your books and live in your sweet, quiet world." His thumb traced a circle on the back of my hand. "None of that is accidental, Gianna. Every corner of your life was designed by me. To protect you. To keep you out of the dark."
I swallowed. My throat was tight.
"But the dark is getting closer," he continued. "The families are restless. The city is changing. And I need to know – when I'm no longer sitting in this chair – that the person protecting you has the nerve to do it properly."
He turned to the table. His voice shifted – still warm, but louder now, projected to every corner of the room.
"I've watched this family for thirty years. I've watched my sons. I've watched my nephews. I've watched every man in this room jockey for position and power and favor." His eyes moved to Leonardo. Held for a beat. "And I've made my decision."
Leonardo's smile didn't waver. But his wine glass trembled. Just once. A single, microscopic vibration that I only caught because I was standing close enough to see it.
"Dominic Russo has served this family with distinction for eighteen years," Sal said. "He's efficient. Loyal. Deadly when the situation requires." He paused, letting the words settle. "And he has demonstrated, recently, that his instincts when it comes to protecting what matters to this family are exactly what I need them to be."
What matters.
My stomach dropped.
"I see no reason," Sal said, his voice calm and conversational, like he was discussing the weather, "why we shouldn't discuss a marriage proposal. Right here. Right now. Between my niece and my most trusted man."
The silence that followed was so complete I could hear my own pulse in my ears. It wasn't the stunned silence of Greg's comment – that had been shock. This was something heavier. This was the silence of a room that understood exactly what was happening and couldn't believe it was happening anyway.
Marriage.
He said marriage.
The word hit me like a physical blow. Not the good kind – the kind that knocks the wind out of you and leaves you gasping. The bad kind. The kind that makes your knees go loose and your vision swim and your brain scream no no no no no on a loop you can't shut off.
"No."
The word came out before I could stop it. Loud. Too loud. Loud enough that it bounced off the crystal and the silverware and the oil paintings and came back to me like an echo of my own defiance.
Sal's thumb stopped moving on my hand.
The room held its breath.
"Uncle, no." I pulled my hand from his grip. My voice was shaking – I could hear it, thin and reedy, the voice of a girl who was about to cry and couldn't stop it. "I don't – you can't just – I don't even know him."
"Don't be nervous." Sal's voice was still warm. Still gentle. The same voice. The voice that had comforted me at ten years old when I woke up screaming about parents I couldn't remember clearly enough to mourn. "This isn't a punishment, Gigi."
"It feels like one."
The words slipped out before I could catch them. And for a single, terrible second, something flickered across Sal's face. Not anger – Sal never got angry at me – but something adjacent to it. Disappointment, maybe. The kind a parent feels when a child doesn't understand that this is for their own good.
He recovered fast. The mask came back.
"You need a man who can protect you," Sal said, his voice still warm but with an edge now, a blade wrapped in silk. "And Dominic–" He nodded toward the end of the table. "–is as good as they come. A soldier of the family. Loyal to the bone. What more could you want?"
"What more could I–" I stopped. Took a breath. The kind of breath that feels like swallowing glass. "How about someone I've actually met? Someone who's looked at me like I'm a person instead of a – a problem to be solved?"
I hadn't meant to look at Dominic when I said it. But I did.
He was watching me. Still. Flat. Those pale eyes on my face, my body, the green dress that suddenly felt like it had been painted on. I couldn't read his expression. I never could. He was a wall with eyes, and behind those eyes was nothing I could see.
What I could see – what everyone in the room could see – was the way he was looking at me. Not with warmth. Not with desire. With something more unsettling.
Assessment. Like he was measuring me. Not my body – though I felt that too, felt his gaze on my curves like a physical weight – but something deeper. Something that made me feel like a document he was deciding whether to file or shred.
"I didn't agree to anything."
His voice cut through the room like a blade. Low. Steady. The same flat, dangerous tone he'd used to shut down Greg.
My heart stopped.
He was looking at Sal now. Not at me.
"Not yet, anyway."
Not yet.
Three syllables. That's all they were. Not no. Not this is absurd. Not she clearly doesn't want this, and neither do I. Just a pause. A delay. Like the decision had already been made and we were just negotiating the timeline.
"But there are boundaries," he added, his eyes still on Sal, "that need setting first. Between us."
Between us.
He said it like there was already an us. Like the space between his chair and mine wasn't three seats and a centerpiece and a lifetime of difference, but something narrow and close and already defined. Like the boundaries he was talking about weren't about whether to marry me, but about the terms of something that had already begun.
Sal smiled. The chess player smile. The exactly as I planned smile.
"Boundaries are healthy," he said. "You two can work them out. I trust you, Dominic." He looked at me. "I trust you to listen."
I trust you to listen.
Not I trust you to decide. Not I trust you to choose. I trust you to listen. As in: he'd already decided. My job was to absorb the decision like a sponge absorbs water – passively, completely, without resistance.
The room exhaled. Conversations restarted – not loudly, not normally, but with the cautious hum of people who'd just witnessed something significant and were trying to pretend they hadn't. Forks lifted. Wine poured. The machinery of the family ground back to life.
I stood there. Next to Sal's chair. In my green dress. In my cardigan. With my bruised arm hidden under a sleeve and my face on fire and my heart slamming against my ribs so hard I could feel it in my teeth.
I looked at the table. At the faces. At the people I'd known my whole life.
Leonardo was smiling. Not at me – at his wine glass. The smile of a man who'd just watched a rival get positioned and was calculating how to use it.
Rocco was staring at Dominic with an expression I couldn't name – not anger, not respect, something uglier. Something that looked like it was fermenting.
Theresa was already whispering to the aunt next to her, her lips moving too fast to read.
Greg was a ghost. Pale, silent, staring at his plate like it was a life raft.
And across the table, three seats away, Dominic Russo sat perfectly still and watched me with the absolute certainty of a man who'd just been handed something he hadn't asked for and was deciding whether to keep it.
"Sit down, Gianna." Sal's voice was gentle again. The uncle voice. "Eat. We'll talk more later."
I sat down. Not in my old seat – I couldn't find it, couldn't remember where it was, couldn't remember anything except the weight of every eye in the room on my body, my face, my everything.
I sat in the nearest empty chair.
It was next to Dominic.
I didn't realize until I'd already sat down. And by then it was too late – standing up and moving would have been more conspicuous than staying. So I stayed. Pressed my hands flat against my thighs. Felt the linen tablecloth under my palms. Counted my breaths.
One. Two. Three.
He didn't speak. Didn't acknowledge me. Didn't so much as turn his head.
But under the table, in the dark space where no one could see, his hand moved.
Not toward me. Not touching me. Just... present. Resting on the arm of his chair, close enough that I could feel the heat of his skin through the fabric of my cardigan. Close enough that if I shifted an inch – just one inch – my arm would brush his.
I didn't shift.
But I didn't move away, either.
We sat like that for the rest of dinner. Not speaking. Not touching. Just existing in the same space, separated by a fraction of an inch and a million differences, while the room chattered and laughed and pretended that everything was normal.
Nothing was normal.
Nothing would ever be normal.
I made it through the door of the east wing before I broke.
Not dramatically. Not loudly. Just – broke. The way a glass breaks when you set it down too hard on a counter. A small crack that spreads until the whole thing falls apart.
I pressed my back against the closed door and slid down until I was sitting on the floor. My knees were up. My cardigan was bunched around my waist. My hands were shaking so hard I pressed them between my thighs to stop them.
I didn't cry.
I wanted to. The pressure was there – behind my eyes, in my throat, in my chest – but it wouldn't come. Like my body knew that crying would make it real, and as long as I didn't cry, I could still pretend this was a nightmare I'd wake up from.
Marriage.
To Dominic Russo.
The man who killed people for a living. The man with pale eyes and a voice like gravel wrapped in silk. The man who'd looked at me through a café window like he was memorizing me for a file. The man who'd sat next to me at dinner and put his hand close enough to touch without touching, like he was testing whether I'd flinch.
I hadn't flinched.
Why hadn't I flinched?
I pressed my forehead to my knees and tried to breathe. The east wing was quiet – no staff, no guards, just me and the soft glow of the lamp on the bedside table and the faint smell of lemon cleaner that Lara used every morning without being asked.
My phone buzzed.
Lena: How bad?
Sara: On a scale of 1 to "I'm starting a GoFundMe for your escape," where are we?
I stared at the screen. My thumbs hovered. What could I say? My uncle just auctioned me to his enforcer in front of fifty people and I sat next to him for dessert like it was fine?
I typed: He proposed marriage. At dinner. Publicly. To Dominic Russo. Dominic said "not yet."
Lena's response was instant: "Not yet" isn't no.
Sara: WHAT THE FUCK
Lena: It means they've already discussed it. Sal wouldn't have done that publicly unless he'd already gotten agreement in private. "Not yet" is theater. It's Sal making it look like Dominic has a choice when he already made it.
I read her message twice. Three times. The words blurred.
My phone buzzed again.
Lena: I'm coming over.
Me: No. It's late. The guards won't–
Lena: I don't care about the guards. I care about you. I'll be there in twenty minutes. Don't open the door for anyone except me.
Sara: I'm in an Uber. Lena texted me the address. We're bringing wine and a plan.
I set the phone down. Pressed my palms against my eyes until I saw stars.
They were coming. Lena with her knife and her fury and her inability to let anyone she loved suffer alone. Sara with her podcast brain and her inability to process anything without analyzing it. They'd sit on my floor and drink wine and Lena would say something terrifying and Sara would say something brilliant and I'd feel better for exactly twelve minutes before the reality came crashing back.
But right now, in this moment, alone on the floor of my east wing with my knees to my chest and my heart in pieces – I needed them.
I pulled myself up. Walked to the bathroom. Splashed cold water on my face. Looked in the mirror.
The girl looking back at me was flushed. Wide-eyed. Lips slightly parted. The green dress was wrinkled where I'd been pressing it. My hair had come loose from its pin on one side, a strand falling across my cheek.
I looked exactly like what I was: a girl who'd just been told her life wasn't hers anymore.
I turned away from the mirror. Walked to the window. The one that faced the east gate, away from the main house. My window. The only one in the manor that felt like it was looking out instead of in.
The grounds were quiet. The iron gate at the far end of the drive was lit by a single lamp that cast everything in amber. Beyond it, the street stretched out – dark, empty, still.
Except it wasn't empty.
A matte-black car. Parked just past the gate, tucked against the curb where the streetlight didn't reach. No headlights. No engine sound. Just sitting there in the dark like a patient animal waiting for something to move.
I couldn't see inside. The windows were tinted black. But I could feel it – that same heaviness from the café. That same pressure in the air, like the oxygen had gotten thicker.
He was out there.
Dominic Russo was sitting beyond the gates of the manor in the middle of the night, and my uncle had just given me to him like a gift, and I was supposed to pretend that was normal.
My hand moved to the curtain. I gripped the fabric.
I should close it. I should close it and lock it and put something heavy in front of the window and never look out again. That's what a smart person would do. That's what a survivor would do.
I didn't close it.
I stood there, looking at the car I couldn't see into, my reflection staring back at me – green dress, flushed cheeks, wide eyes, soft curves, bruised arm – and I felt something I had no business feeling.
Not fear. Not anger. Not the bone-deep outrage of a woman who'd just been auctioned without consent.
Curiosity.
Dark, twisted, traitorous curiosity.
What are you doing out there?
Are you watching my window?
Did you follow me home from dinner?
How long have you been here?
My reflection stared back at me, lips parted, eyes too bright, and I realized with a sick lurch that I looked like a girl who wanted to be seen.
Not by the room. Not by the family. Not by Greg or Rocco or the cousins who'd spent thirteen years overlooking me.
By him.
By the monster in the matte-black car who'd threatened to break Greg's jaw because he'd called me fat.
My phone buzzed.
Lena: Five minutes out. Sara's arguing with the Uber driver about the definition of "speed limit." Stay inside.
I didn't respond.
I couldn't.
Because somewhere in the dark, in a car I couldn't see into, a man with pale, dead eyes was probably doing the same thing he'd done at the café, the same thing he'd done at dinner, the same thing he'd been doing for six weeks without me knowing.
Watching.
Waiting.
Deciding.
And the most terrifying part – the part that made my hands shake and my breath come short –
I didn't want him to stop.