Chapter 45

Vivian's POV

I felt the difference straight away when I awoke that morning. Even more guards by my door. More restrictions on my movements. When I attempted to go downstairs for breakfast, I was politely but firmly foreshooed back to my room with the offer that meals would be delivered.

"Why?" When Sofia arrived with a tray of food I had no inclination to eat, I asked. "What's changed?"

"Security concerns, signora." Her face was carefully blank, betraying no hint.

"What kind of security concerns?"

Sofia paused, clearly considering how much to share with me. "The Don's enemy. Cassius Cassano. He’s making real trouble from police custody. The Don thinks we can watch out for you if you stay in your room while things get resolved."

"So I'm a prisoner again."

"You're protected," Sofia corrected gently. "There's a difference."

Once she’d gone, I walked to and fro in my room like some beast in a cage. The walls, he said, seemed to be closing in; the luxury suddenly suffocating rather than reassuring. And I was stuck here, alone and cut off from what was really going on outside these walls.

But something about it felt different this time. Unlike when Dominic first because they locked me away in anger, and control. This time I understood why. This time I understood the risk was genuine, the threats legitimate. This time I actually gave a damn about what happened to him, and it was that moment alone I knew without a flicker’s worth of doubt that things had everything had changed.

When had that shift occurred? When did I stop regarding Dominic as nothing more than my jailer and began to regard him as something…else? I remembered the night before, when I’d washed his blood from his skin in the shower. That vulnerability in his voice when he’d confessed that all he could think of during the violence was getting back to me. About the way he cuddled me afterward, as if I were something valuable instead of just property.

I was in too deep. Catch Feelings For a guy who kills with out thinking twice. Who ruled by terror and violence. Who might break my neck if I put him out and likely not lose sleep over it.

And yet unbelievably I trusted him to take care of me. I wanted him to come home safe from whatever war it was that he was fighting. I missed him when I didn’t have him near me. What it meant was terrifying.

There was a rap on my door, visitors to interrupt my heading-down-into-the-spell head. I was waiting for Sofia and lunch or more limitations. Instead, it was Celeste who came in, and I immediately noticed how concerned she seemed. Celeste never looked worried. She was always put together, in control.

“We’ve got to talk,” she said without a greeting. "About what's happening with Cassius. And what it means for you personally.”

Celeste was seated in the high-back chair facing the window, her typically perfect posture for some reason reflecting tension. "Cassius has evidence against Dominic. Real, solid evidence that you could take to court.”

"What kind of evidence?" My mouth had gone dry.

“The kind of thing that would send him away for life. Financial records. Recorded conversations. Photographs documenting criminal activity." Her dark eyes were serious. “This is not a bluff or an intimidation,” he added. This is legitimate legal danger."

It was like I had fallen off a building, my stomach down in my calves. "What happens if he's convicted?"

“Next thing you know the government is seizing all his assets. His organization gets dismantled. His supporters are forced to scatter or arrested themselves. His opponents grow increasingly emboldened, and seize whatever ground they can.” Celeste's voice was clinical, factual. “It would be the destruction of everything he’s created.”

"And me?" Barely above a whisper, the question surfaced. "What happens to me?"

“You’re a widow in everything but the legal term. With a huge target on your back and no one to defend you. It was somewhat refreshing to see the brutal honesty after so many careful half-truths. Certainly adversaries would see you as an easy vehicle to cause him harm even in prison. Or as a means to lever against him.”

"So what do I do? How do I prepare for that?"

Celeste took a folder out of her designer handbag and put it on the table in front of me. "Bank account information. Swiss account, completely untraceable. In your name only. Five million dollars."

I looked at the folder as if it might explode. "What? I don't understand—"

"It's from me. My personal accounts. If things go catastrophically wrong, if Dominic winds up in prison or worse, you take this money and vanish.” New identity, new life, place where they’ll never find you.”

"I can't take your money—"

"You can and you will. Cause you’re family now, whether this marriage was a lie to start with or not. And family protects family." Celeste's expression softened slightly. I've seen my brother around you. I’ve seen something in him I haven’t seen for years. Maybe ever."

I couldn't and almost didn't know how to think about what she was extending. "Why are you doing this? Really?"

“Why should my brother believe in you. And if he’s gone, if he can’t protect you, I need to know you’ll live.” She stood, preparing to leave. “I want to know that something good came from this disaster.”

"Does he know?" I asked suddenly. "About the account? About this backup plan?"

"No. And he won't. This is between us, it’s between sisters.” Celeste moved toward the door. "But Vivian? If you are forced to run, if somehow it all collapses and you must use this, don’t look back. Don't try to help him. There’s no need to do anything noble or brave. Just disappear completely. Because if they manage to bring Dominic down, they will come after everyone he cares about next. And you’re at the top of that very short list.”

She abandoned me to the folder and my racing thoughts.

Late that night, when I should have been long asleep, Dominic showed up at my door. He was completely worn out, tense in a way I’d never seen him. Days after a disappointing loss to Republican candidate Donald Trump, his famously coiffed hair was mussed; his shirttail hung out, his tie was gone entirely. He seemed almost human in his exposure.

"Are you okay?" I inquired, the response implied.

“No.” That was all he said, but the word was full to brimming with everything else he wasn’t saying.

The honesty surprised me. Dominic was always so disciplined, so meticulously put together. To see him like this was intimate in a way that had nothing to do with proximity.

"Tell me what's happening. Please."

"Why? So you could anguish pointlessly over things completely outside of your control?”

"Yes. Exactly that."

He glanced at my face in the half-light, seeking for something. "Cassius has real evidence. Recordings, documents, financial records. Enough to put me out of business."

"What are you going to do?"

"Whatever I have to." His voice was flat, emotionless. “Anything it takes to get through this.”

Sinking down on my bedside, he collapses, his head in his hands. The gesture was so uncharacteristically tender that it ached in my chest.

“I am not going to jail, Vivian. I won't survive it. Too many enemies, too infamous. There’d be someone killing me within a month, probably a week.”

"I know."

“If you have to do awful things. Things that would make you hate me, things that were beyond the line I’d promised myself I wouldn’t cross.” He looked up at me. "Would you hate me then?"

I sat down next to him—I was close enough that our shoulders touched. I don't know if I could hate you. Not anymore."

"You should. I'm a monster. You know what I do, who I am.

"Maybe you are a monster." I chose my words carefully. "But you're my monster. That’s got to count for something.”

He stared into me with some kind of raw, unpolished despair in those steel grey eyes. "When things go to hell, when everything comes crashing down and I order you to leave, will you? Will you take the way of escape I provide for you, and never look back?”

"I—"

"Promise me, Vivian. Promise if I tell you to run, you will actually run. That you will not attempt to be brave or loyal or stupid.”

I wanted to promise. Knew I should promise. But watching him in this state, vulnerable and scared, hurting himself so much internally while trying to act like he was above it all, I didn’t know if I could leave him even if I wanted to. Even if to stay was to go down with him.

"I promise," I lied.

He knew it was a lie. I could see it in his eyes. But he didn’t bust me on it, didn’t press for a more truthful response. Instead, he drew me into his lap and wrapped his arms around me with a fierce hold.

"Then let me have tonight. Tomorrow we fight in earnest. Fight back with all I have, start tomorrow. “But right now, tonight — you’re mine and nothing else matters.”