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Our voices grow louder, our anger rising with every word that escapes our lips, and when it all gets too much, we have no choicebutto continue.
Finally, Chiara looks at all of us with her hands on her head, her expression now a mixture of confusion and exhaustion.
“Can we all just…stop for a minute?”
Her voice trembles as she speaks.
Nobody listens.
My smile grows wider.
The argument reaches an all time high, and just when I think guns are about to be pulled out, and bodies will soon begin to drop, Alessandro’s voice booms through the chaos.
“Enough!”
Everybody freezes, turning to look at him in the corner of the room where he’s been standing silently all along.
He stands tall, his broad shoulders squared, his features sharp. His dark eyes burn with authority as he stares each and every one of us down.
Alessandro stalks forward with deliberate steps, each one echoing in the heavy silence.
The air thickens as he approaches us, his gaze moving from Chiara to Nikolai, then finally to me.
Though his expression is unreadable, there’s a controlled fury in the way that he carries himself. As the Don, he’s a man who’s used to being obeyed, and I would be lying if I didn’t say that the room practically shifts to accommodate him.
Glancing back at Chiara, I see her father’s arms still around her, and her brother pressed closely to her side.
She looks between us men with nervous, wide eyes.
When I see that she’s okay—breathing, watching—the tension in my chest eases.
I turn back around to look at Alessandro.
His voice slices through the silence once more.
“What the hell is wrong with all of you?”
Nobody speaks.
Not Nikolai, nor myself.
Not Otets, or Francesco.
And surprisingly, not Dario, the idiot who’s had so much to say up until this very moment.
As Alessandro’s dark eyes rake over every man that’s present in this room, the silence only seems to grow thicker. His jaw is tight, clenched so hard it looks as though it might crack under the pressure. He takes his time to stare at each of us—one by one—as if he’s daring somebody to challenge him.
Nobody does.
“Just three days ago,” he begins as he points a finger in Francesco’s direction. “You were ready to kiss and make up with the Russians. What the fuck has happened now, Francesco? Why have you changed your mind? Don’t you care about your daughter?” He turns slightly to look at my father, pointing a finger in his direction. “And what about you, Isaak? You’ve accepted that she’ll be my wife, and now you’ve stopped giving a fuck?”
Rage.
It flashes across both fathers’ faces, but Alessandro doesn’t stop there.
He continues taunting them, each word slicing deeper than the previous one.
“No, maybe you don’t. Maybe that's why you both don’t care about what people will say.” He smiles, but it’s not appropriate for this setting. It only makes his features sharper, dangerous even. “Do you have any idea what people will say? What will they think of the Don marrying abastard,a woman whose father’s identity remains hidden?” He turns to look atFrancesco now. “What do you think they’ll say when they hear an Italian princess has been held here? And not just by anybody, but by two Russian men—men who are in line to become Pakhans?”