Part 7:

On the fourth morning, your daughter stops being a conte. Even through the speaker, Veto’s voice broke for the first time, asking what that was supposed to mean. Aeros ended the call. He turned to Anita, and his gaze went down to the gold ring on her finger, the Ki crest, catching the lamplight. Where are your papers? Anita didn’t step back, but the color had left her face.

What do you want with them? He closed the distance and brought his face down to hers. Veto took my blood from me. His attention flicked just once to the ring. I’m going to take his name. He turned for the door. Find her papers, Tony, and keep her door locked. Tony’s brows drew together, but he knew better than to ask.

Aos answered the unspoken question anyway. I’m marrying Isabella Conti. He closed her hand around Isabella’s arm. the one he still believed was the maid and pulled her toward the door with him. Then he stopped and looked back at Anita at the woman he thought he was marrying. And she becomes mine. On the stairs, Isabella pulled against the hand wrapped around her arm.

I’m sick of being dragged everywhere by the arm. OS let go. Behave, and I’ll keep my hands off you, but you’re stubborn and you don’t take orders. His attention slid sideways to her. and I need to be sure you won’t pull another vanishing act.” They stopped outside the library. He opened the door and stood there waiting while she held her place on the threshold and refused to walk in on her own.

“Inside, you’re going to show me your magic.” She drew in a slow breath and met his eyes. “There’s no magic.” I went out the window. The corner of his mouth lifted, the kind of smile that called her a liar without a single word. “Oh, is that so?” His hand settled at the small of her back and steered her through the doorway. “Show me.

20 rooms in this house, and the woman who runs it knows every secret in the walls. I’m certain of that.” Her own smile came out thin and angry. He pressed her forward with an open palm until she stood in the middle of the room, then crossed to the wall across from her, set his shoulders against it, and folded his arms.

“Show me.” She let her eyes drift to the window instead. Outside, the light was going, the sky bruising toward dark over the water. When she turned back to him, she didn’t answer the order. She asked her own question. You said Veto took someone from you. Who was he? Os raised a brow, and a short laugh moved through him. So now we changed the subject. No.

She held her ground. I’d like to know who I’m working for, that’s all. He pushed off the wall and started a slow circuit of the room, talking as he went. Clauddio was my cousin. We grew up together. He ran a hand along the window latches, checking each one without seeming to think about it. When Veto hit the docks and took my shipment, he killed him for it.

He drifted toward the shelves, his eyes moving over the spines. It was a job we were supposed to run together, the three of us, out of New York. Then he stole from his own partner. His fingers trailed across the row of books. Isabella pressed her tongue hard to the roof of her mouth and held still while her pulse climbed and counted off every spine his fingers passed. “Not the blue book.

Anything but the blue book.” That shelf was the only way out she had left. “If you do business with a man like that,” she got out, then you’re no better than he is. His shoe came down flat and he stopped listening to the sound of it against the floor. I was born into this work. We don’t always live inside the law. He lifted his head and looked at her.

But I don’t steal, Anita. And I don’t lie to people. The words landed somewhere they shouldn’t have. She was standing in front of him, built entirely out of a lie, and he had no idea. He was coming toward her now, slow, heavy, taking his time about it, and she made herself hold her ground while every step closed the air between them.

He stopped close enough that she had to tip her head back to keep his eyes. One finger lifted a loose strand of hair off her face, slow, like he had all the time in the world to do it, and the backs of his fingers grazed her cheek on the way. this close. The dark navy of his eyes wasn’t cold the way she’d told herself it was.

It reached somewhere under her skin and stayed there, and she couldn’t make herself look away from it. You have an honest face. His voice had dropped, gone almost soft. Defiant, proud, and hiding something, she swallowed. He caught her hand and turned it over, studying it. And these are well-kept. He lifted it higher, folded it into his own palm, and moved his thumb in a slow circle over the center, light, in no hurry at all.

She felt it everywhere. It had no business reaching, and hated that her body answered before she could stop it. Then he pulled her fast across the room and set her in front of the shelves. He stepped behind her and laid both hands on her shoulders. Show me the trick. He leaned down until his mouth was at her ear. You interest me, Anita.

The words brushed warm against her skin. Don’t ruin that by lying to me. Isabella stood in front of the blue book, breathing slow, her hand not quite lifting to it yet. He was going to find it. Not now, maybe. Not this second, but he would. The man behind her was sharper than she’d given him credit for, and a locked room he couldn’t explain would gnarore at him until he tore every shelf apart.

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