Alessia POV
The wedding wasn’t a celebration; it was a sentencing hearing.
We were married in the chapel on the Vitti estate, a fortress of cold stone and iron patrolled by a perimeter of armed guards.
There were no flowers to soften the gray. There was no music to fill the silence. My white dress didn’t feel like a bridal gown; it felt like a shroud.
My father, Dante, walked me down the aisle. He refused to look at me.
He was too busy beaming at the Capos in the front row, desperate for a scrap of their approval. He had sold his only daughter to the Underboss to prove his loyalty after the "leak."
He had crushed my hand to teach me a lesson, and now, he was handing over the rest of me to seal the deal.
Ethan was there, standing guard by the heavy oak doors. He wouldn't meet my gaze.
But Clara was looking.
Clara Vitti, Luca's stepsister. She sat in the front row, wrapped in a cashmere shawl, looking frail and tragically beautiful.
She had always been sick, always teetering on the verge of death, using her illness as a weapon to manipulate the men around her.
But today, she looked flush. She looked more vibrant than I had ever seen her.
She caught my eye and smiled. It was a small, tight curvature of her lips that promised nothing but misery.
She touched her chest, right over her lungs, and took a deep, easy breath—inhaling my despair like it was oxygen.
I looked away.
Luca took my hand at the altar. His palm was dry, his grip firm.
He said the vows with the same detached, commanding tone he used to order a hit. He promised to protect me. He promised to keep me.
"I do," I whispered.
I didn't have a choice. Outside these walls, I was a rat. Inside, I was property. But property is kept safe.
That night, in the master bedroom, Luca stripped off his jacket and tossed it onto the velvet chair. The room was cold.
"You are beautiful, Alessia," he said.
He didn't touch me gently. He didn't ask. He claimed.
He pressed me onto the bed and took what he believed he had rightfully purchased.
There was no passion, only possession. He wanted to imprint himself onto my skin, to erase whatever was left of the girl who used to paint, the girl who used to laugh.
When he was finished, he rolled over and lit a cigarette.
"You're safe now," he said, exhaling a plume of smoke toward the ceiling. "You're a Vitti."
I lay in the dark, staring at the canopy of the bed. I felt hollowed out.
I felt like a house that had been gutted by fire, leaving only the charred, unstable frame standing.
I thought about my mother. I thought about the painting hand my father had crushed. I thought about Ethan turning his back.
I realized then that safety was just another word for a cage.
