Page 116 of Claimed

My nerves flared.

Chapter twenty-one

The Devil’s Castle

The drive to his castle was filled with a silence that had nothing to do with comfort.

Gianni had slipped into what looked like deep thought. The lines of his face were drawn tight, and those usual menacing green eyes were clouded over with a storm of reflections I couldn't decipher.

I found my fingers fidgeting, running over the lustrous fur of the sable coat wrapped around me as I glanced at him sideways, trying to figure out what was going on in his mind.

Unease bloomed within my core, making my stomach knot up.

I knew I should ask, should break the silence and force the issue, but a part of me hesitated. There was something daunting about approaching him in moments like this, when the air between us was thick with unspoken tension.

What if he thinks I will stop dancing because I’m his wife? No. He couldn’t be that crazy.

But then I remembered my brother’s severed hand and him chaining himself to the wall.

Shit. He could be that crazy.

The thought sent a cold chill down my spine, more biting than the wind that had cut through the streets of Obsidian Bay.

I tried to dismiss it—Gianni couldn’t be that unreasonable.

Could he?

That severed hand flashed back into my mind again.

It was a brutal reminder of just how possessive and dangerous men like Gianni could be.

Especially men who were Dons.

Italian mafia men were notorious for their possessiveness, for the way they claimed what they saw as theirs with an iron grip.

And already I could see that Gianni was the personification of that. He was a man who ruled with absolute authority, who controlled everything in his world down to the smallest detail.

Will he expect the same level of control over me?

I swallowed hard and gazed down at the ring on my finger—his dead mother’s ring.

Fuck.

My heart pounded as the car continued its smooth ride up the cliffs.

The thought of giving up ballet—of letting go of the one thing that had always been mine, that had always been my escape, my passion—was unbearable.

It was unthinkable.

Ballet had been my solace, the one constant in a life that had often felt chaotic.

Cruel and uncertain.

The idea that I might have to fight for it now, in this new life with Gianni, made my chest tighten with fear.

No. I can’t let that happen.

I wouldn’t let anyone, not even Gianni, take ballet away from me. I knew what it meant to be strong, to fight for what I loved. I had spent years perfecting my craft, pushing my body to its limits, enduring pain and sacrifice because I thought ballet was worth it.