Page 59 of Bound in Debt

“You’re coming to a party with me. Tonight,” he orders through clenched teeth. “And I’m not gonna tell you again. Stop fighting me and accept this. It’s happening. You think you’re too good for me, but it’s the other way around. And you’re damn lucky that for some reason I want to marry you, bitch that you are.”

“Gee, I wonder why.”

“What?”

“Liam.”

Goosebumps prickle over my skin as Dante’s voice cuts through the tension, distracting me from his nephew’s rage. Liam’s never given me cause to fear him before, but whatever is going on in his screwed-up head has me feeling uneasy.

He’s obviously gone off the deep end, pushed there by the pressure from the mob. Still, the way he’s just popped off and lost his shit on me doesn’t sit right.

Suddenly Dante is standing only two feet away, appearing like a vengeful angel in the nick of time. He looks ready to pummel his nephew six feet deep into the ground.

There’s a difference between Liam’s glower and Dante’s…and I’d rather be on Liam’s bad side than his uncle’s.

Especially since my violin professor has admitted to killing people before. To having some shady codename. Mors.

“Hello, Uncle Dante,” Liam acknowledges, still gripping my face far too tight for comfort. “How’s it going?—”

“Why is your hand still on Miss Waldorf?” Dante’s jaw tics and his nostrils flare. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him breathe fire at this point. He’s glaring daggers at Liam, but his death glare doesn’t seem to have much of an impact on its intended target.

But it does on me.

I know what his crisp white button-up is hiding. The ink staining his muscles the same color as his soul.

He’s taken lives.

A soul doesn’t survive something like that intact. It’s tarnished, blackened by his past.

And this man wants me to let him save me from the mob by accepting him as my husband and expects me to be okay with it.

I’m not.

Liam finally drops his hold on me before turning toward his uncle. “Victoria and I were discussing our plans for the party this evening.”

“She has violin lessons she needs to catch up on,” Dante lies smoothly. “She’s been distracted in class and owes me time unless she wants to risk her placement in my class. If she’s not careful she’ll lose more than just first chair.”

Oh God, is he serious about my spot?

“Vee has all weekend to practice,” Liam argues. “I need my fiancée with me tonight. My boys are throwing us a little engagement party and it can’t just be me.”

Hell no.

I bite back my instinctive protest. These two Moretti dickheads are locked in a staring contest, like the world’s most tense game of chicken, and I’d rather keep myself out of it.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Dante finally breaks the silence. “For now, you should be aware that you’re causing a scene in the library.”

Liam shrugs. “My bad. I was just about to kiss her goodbye?—”

Dante takes a step forward and jerks his head. “Bye.”

Shit.

I expect Liam to put up more of a fight but he just stares at his uncle for another moment before striding away and leaving me the hell alone.

Finally, I’m able to loosen the muscles that have been tensed for the last several minutes, sinking back into my chair on a soft sigh. Too bad Dante has decided it’s his turn to lay into me.

“I thought I made myself perfectly clear the other night, princess,” he remarks, resting a hand on the chair Liam had been using. I’m sure that to any outsider it looks like we’re having a normal teacher-student conversation as I study.