Alice's POV
The rain started knocking on the bedroom windows soundly like a feeble warning. You would not resent anything until an hour later when you cannot help but eavesdrop on the relentless noise. That was basically me, staying inside by the bedside, a book lying open across my lap from which my fingers had not turned the page in ten minutes. My mind had been getting off in some place somewhere again because of the changes in my husband—the way he began to move, more hesitant, colder, yet then. Attentive. Paradoxically.
Jermin Hunt.
The name had always been just that inside my head, in my life: power and threat, but now something churned around in my chest, all indistinctly familiar-like. Not love. Not yet. But like something.
He strode in and in, as usual, without so much as knocking. Something shifted with the atmosphere just because he entered, filling the space with the overpowering first sniff of leather blended with cologne, fresh and oh-so masculine. I did not look up for an eternally long time, not until the pressure of his gaze settled over me.
"Alice."
That relaxed way he used to say my name with just the hint of commanding still straightened my back significantly.
I kept my eyes on his. "Yes?"
He was already unbuttoning the cuffs on his shirt and moving over towards the small bar in front of the window. He made himself a drink, bourbon, straight up. The yellow liquid glowed in the light of the lamp as he turned around.
"There is a dinner tonight."
Once. Blink. "And?"
"I want you to join me."
I closed the book on that.
And a slow quiet followed.
I cocked my head. "Want or need?"
He hesitated for a moment before crossing the room and putting the glass in my hand. His fingers brushed mine.
"Both."
Not drinking, I carefully placed the glass on the table beside me. "So what is this then? Dinner or a meet with knives under napkins?"
He smiled thinly. "A bit of both."
Standing now, my arms crossed, "You wish to take me to a room full of strangers who want me gone, humiliated, or worse?"
"I want you there because they must understand what you are." His voice turned hard. "They believe you're just a girl bought by an agreement. I want them to realize how much they misjudge you."
I stared at him.
This had nothing to do with trust. It had everything to do with power. Appearance.
Or maybe both.
"What if I refuse?"
He stepped closer, his eyes unreadable but not cold. "Then I'm alone. And they'd be whispering behind your back. About who you are. About what you mean to me. They'll be watching anyway, Alice. But if you're with me tonight, at least they'll see you're not afraid."
I was angry that I could hear every word he said.
More, I was angry that a part of me would rather go.
Not for them.
But for me.
"I don't think I really have anything to wear to a Mafia dinner," I ventured, a slight curve to my lips.
He didn't smile, but a flash of something flickered across his eyes. He shoved his hand into his coat pocket and produced a small black velvet box.
"This was just delivered," he opened it, revealing a gold chain with a single obsidian stone. Elegant. Dangerous.
Just as the life I'd moved into.
"You'll have a dress in your room," he told me. "Wear it."
He'd begun to turn away, but at the door, he halted.
"Alice?"
"Yes?"
Very low, very slow. "Don't touch anything that has been left out for you to drink. Don't trust anyone's smile. And don't get lost.".
He strode down the hall, and I stood in front of the box where the necklace glimmered under the dim light. In the windowpane behind me, my own face stared back at me—eyes sharper than ever I'd seen them, shoulders set.
Maybe this meal was not just a meal.
Maybe it was a test.
A test that I was fated to pass.
.
I stepped into the dining room of the Montellari estate. Ceilings that soared and dripped with chandeliers. Black polished marble floor made of obsidian glass. Power, old money, and blood smell infested the walls, in the form of perfume. Every laugh is intentional. At every glance, a knife.
There was, as well, the white-dressed girl—objectively out-of-bounds but firmly pursued under the silk gown.
Jermin remained by my side, the gentle pressure of his hand against the small of my back, guiding me as if I were his possession. As if I were not one step from ruin.
But tonight.
Something was different.
"Remember to smile," he whispered in my ear. "Drink only when I pour."
I nodded once, chin tilted up, eyes forward. The game was afoot.
We were seated nearer to the room's centre, across from Don Matteo Montellari himself. An older man with deplorable eyes and fingers savoured ever so slightly with empires. At his side was his youngest son, Luca, the wolf in an Armani suit. And at his right, his sister, the notorious widow Savina. Pointed cheekbones. Acid tongue.
Everyone gazed at us upon arrival. Not only because Jermin was heir to the Hunts.
But because, even then, I was. Me.
The Holloway girl.
The one whose father died in the dark. The one who wed his foes.
A perfect plaything. Or a perfect threat.
"I see you brought her," Savina said, stirring some wine, her tone dripping with honey.
Jermin smiled a chillingly charming smile. "Why wouldn't I?"
"Because she is not of us," Luca said, without trying to hide the contempt on his face. "She doesn't bleed like we do."
Jermin was unconcerned. "She bleeds sufficiently. Maybe more than all of you combined."
Luca relaxed himself, his eyes casting on me. "Does she speak, or does she get you to speak for her too?"
I maintained his gaze calmly and schooled my face. "I speak when I want to be heard. I listen when I want to learn."
The room became silent. Jermin's hand twitched weakly against my back; was it approval or warning? I had no idea.
Don Matteo smiled. "A prickly mouth. I see why she got under your skin."
"She didn't get under it," Jermin breathed. "She earned it."
There was something in the manner that he said it—not bellowed, not forcefully but with steel under the silk—that caused the room to lean. I half-turned to look at him.
His jaw was set, but not with anger.
With determination.
I don't know when I began breathing more slowly around him. But I could sense it now. I felt the change.
They passed around plates of veal, grilled figs, bitter wines I didn't touch. Conversation floated like smoke, twisting with names of men in prison, trades over sea, assassinations dressed as business losses. Mafia dinners were never about food. They were about watching—who toasted first, who hesitated, who looked away.
And tonight, they watched me.
I could feel it crawling over my skin.
Savina leaned forward suddenly, eyes glinting. "So tell me, Alice… do you trust the man you married?"
I blinked once, slowly. "Do you trust your blood relatives?"
Luca laughed. "Touché."
But Savina wasn't amused. "It's a simple question. The only kind that matters."
I paused, feeling Jermin shift beside me, tension rising in waves.
"I trust him," I said.
Don Matteo's brows arched. "That was fast."
I smiled, soft and deadly. "I learn fast."
"But what has he told you?" Savina pressed. "About your father's debts? About the agreement that brought you here? What does he hide behind those pretty blue eyes?"
I turned to Jermin. He looked at me, gaze unreadable.
And then… he spoke.
"Everything," he said, voice quiet but unshaken. "I told her everything."
Lies.
And yet the biggest truth I'd heard from him so far.
"She knows about the contract. About my mother's role. About the threats."
He turned fully to the table now.
"She knows because I didn't want to make her my wife and keep her in a cage. I wanted her beside me—with full eyes, full mind. She is not a pawn."
Silence.
Even Don Matteo tapped his fingers slowly, thoughtfully.
"And if I told you," Jermin added, "that harming her would be the same as striking me?"
Luca's jaw tensed.
Savina's lips curled.
Matteo leaned forward. "Then I'd believe you're either deeply foolish or dangerously loyal."
Jermin didn't blink. "I'll take dangerously loyal."
My heart was thudding.
Not with fear.
But with something darker.
Deeper.
He was lying for me.
Defending me in front of people who could cut him open with a single nod.
Why?
Was it strategy?
Or… something else?
After dinner, the guests scattered into corners of politics and deals, the air thick with cigars and whispers. I walked beside Jermin into one of the side halls. The lighting here was dimmer. Softer. Like secrets loved to linger in the corners.
"You didn't have to do that," I said finally.
He didn't look at me. "Do what?"
"Say all that in there. Put yourself in their crosshairs."
He turned to me now, expression unreadable. "I didn't do it for you."
I nodded slowly. "Of course not."
His gaze dropped to my lips. "But maybe I did it for the woman who walked into fire and didn't flinch."
I hated the way my breath caught.
"You're getting soft," I murmured.
"You're getting sharp," he replied.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Until footsteps echoed down the corridor—Savina's voice, like glass against stone.
Jermin reached for my hand. Held it tight.
Not like a husband.
Not like a protector.
Like an equal.
And just before we ret
urned to the room of wolves, he whispered against my temple, "Let them keep watching. As long as we know what we're doing."