Page 33 of Ruined Vows (Borrelli Mafia #5)
VUKAN
THIRTY THOUSAND FEET AND FALLING
S he doesn’t like being waited on. That much is obvious.
The stewardess leans in, bowing slightly, asking in a soft voice if she would like another refill of champagne. Bianca gives her a salty look. Instinctively, I know she’d rather walk to the mini fridge and get it herself. Bianca doesn’t want to be beholden to anyone for even the slightest nicety.
When the woman hands her another Prosecco, her fingers tighten around the glass stem. She seems to find the niceness hurtful, as if it’s a burden to have someone do something nice for her. She mutters “thank you” like it costs her something.
The stewardess nods and retreats with barely a whisper across the plush carpet.
Bianca sips and stares out the window, her jaw set, a pensive look on her face. I wonder what she’s thinking.
She looks like she belongs here—draped in that silk blouse, gold at her wrists, and her lashes are thick enough to shame God. But she sits in that seat like she’s waiting for someone to tell her she doesn’t belong.
My heart breaks for her.
She should be accustomed to being treated well— pampered. Empathy wells in my chest. Damn her father. I hate that he hurt her and left lasting wounds.
Because this woman-this firestorm in heels—is the same one who walked into a warehouse full of armed men without flinching—the same woman battling me at every turn with poise and venom. And yet, she can’t let herself accept kindness without turning rigid.
Her father should’ve been shot. No, now that I contemplate it, that’s too easy a death for the bastard. I’d make him suffer.
I thank the fucking stars he’s already rotting, or I’d make it my mission to handle him myself. No one gets to lay a hand on her. No one gets to strip her down with words or shame and walk away breathing.
She deserves to be revered.
“You okay?” I ask, keeping my voice low.
She blinks and looks over like I woke her from a thought she didn’t want to be caught having.
“I’m fine.”
It’s a lie.
She shifts in her seat and lifts her chin.
“You don’t like being served,” I say.
“I’m used to doing things myself.”
“I have staff for everything.You shouldn’t feel beholden to someone doing their job. ”
She shrugs. “A little late for that, don’t you think?”
I watch her for a second, then say, “You didn’t have an easy childhood.”
It’s not a question. She deflects like she always does and looks out the window again.
“No,” she says after a pause. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
I nod. “I know a lot of things I wish I didn’t.”
Another beat of silence, she counters, “You?”
I stretch my legs slightly under the table and lean back .
“My father wasn’t around much. When he was, it was to make sure we were ‘earning our name.’”
She glances at me. “What does that even mean?”
“It means we had goals.”
“Like sports? Academics?”
“Like learning how to make a gun disappear in under thirty seconds. How to tail someone through two city blocks without getting noticed. Or, my favorite, how to pick a lock in the dark.”
She’s quiet.
“It was like Boy Scouts,” I add dryly. “If the Boy Scouts handed out merit badges for dismemberment and learning Russian by ten.”
She laughs softly, but it doesn’t touch her eyes. “And your mother?”
“Gone.”
She nods, as if that explains everything. Maybe it does.
“I used to lie about bruises,” she says quietly. “Told my aunts I fell. I told Matteo even less. One time, I blamed a dog that we didn’t even have.”
The air between us stills. My hands curl into fists against the armrest.
“That won’t happen again,” I say, like it’s a promise.
“Because I’m not a child anymore,” she says, apologetically, almost like it was her fault.
“No,” I reply, my jaw terse. “Because you’re mine now.”
She doesn’t flinch or argue. I catch the flicker in her eyes before she looks away. Was it fear or regret that she didn’t stop it herself? Her trust issues manifested in childhood, and I know from personal experience that they are the most difficult issues to overcome.
Maybe I saw recognition in her eyes that she belongs to me.
Like maybe… she wants to believe me, and that I’m the one who can protect her.
And perhaps that’s why the war she has been waging with herself is becoming harder to justify.
Be cause I’m not an evil man. I do bad things to bad people—there’s a difference.
I’m a monster when I need to be, and I’ll be one to protect her.
But the next time someone looks at her like she’s less than a queen? I will be the man they fear. And I don’t forgive easily.
She doesn’t say anything after that. She sits there, one hand tracing the rim of her champagne flute like she’s trying to distract herself from the weight of everything she just said, and the years of abuse.
And maybe she’s realizing that I do what I say and that she trusts me not to hurt her. I won’t hurt her feelings or her heart. I hope I have her trust, for without it, we have no foundation to build upon.
I don’t break the silence. And it’s not because I don’t have anything to say, but because I know what silence means to someone like Bianca.
To people like us.
It’s space. It’s armor. It’s the only thing that doesn’t ask anything of you, so I let her have it. She looks at me, and if she doesn’t know I’ve bared my soul to her, I don’t know what will.
Then, she turns toward the window again, and I study her reflection in the glass—her profile lit by the soft cabin light, and her dark red lips just parted, eyes distant.
I wish I knew what she was thinking. If she’s upset, I’ll comfort her. But she’s not giving me clues. I’ve seen her icy before, and I’ve seen her spit venom wrapped in Prada.
But this is her being her, without the armor. Being older, I know two things: one, it’s rare, and two, it won’t last.
Sure enough, after a long minute, she’s back to being defensive. She squares her shoulders and tips her chin defiantly. And the mask returns, like it had never left. She deflects attention away from herself, again.
“There better be sushi when we land,” she says, so casually, it’s as if our conversation never happened. She’s back to being Bianca, the warrior.
I let out a soft breath of a laugh. “There’s a full spread waiting.”
“Champagne too?”
“Of course.”
She nods, as if this is a business negotiation, like we didn’t just trade scars at thirty thousand feet.
But mostly, it’s as if she didn’t let me see her.
But I did. And that’s the difference now. She can retreat. Re-arm. Re-group. Pretend. But I’ve seen what’s under her defenses and the designers she wears.
And she’ll never be able to hide it from me again.
Twenty minutes later, she hasn’t said a word.
That alone should terrify me.
Bianca’s quiet is never casual. It’s loaded, weaponized, and knowing her the way I do, usually laced with a dagger and a trapdoor. But now?
Now it’s just stillness, and it concerns me.
She’s curled in the leather chair across from me, her head tipped slightly toward the window. One knee is pulled up. Her arms crossed like a fortress. I love how her hair falls over one cheek, and her face is soft, but with a glow I can’t explain.
My cock swells. She’s sexy as fuck. And that’s when I realize it’s late. She’s trying to stay upright and out of my reach.
She’s tired, and her body is giving up faster than her pride will allow. She won’t move to the bedroom on her own volition. No, my warrior will never willingly give up her guard, because that’s viewed as a weakness in her eyes.
She doesn’t look at me. Just glances out the cabin like I’m noise. Bianca commands the leather chair across from me and acts like the air between us is a battlefield.
“You might want to get comfortable,” I suggest. “You know it’s a long flight,” I tell her casually, swirling the ice in my glass.
She laughs, then scoffs before she finally says, “Nice try. I sleep in places that don’t scream temptation and tactical loss.”
She can be so dramatic. The response is so her . I love it.
“It is,” I agree. “But only if you let it.”
That earns me a glare. It’s sharp and beautiful. She shifts subtly—but I catch it. She’s exhausted, but she’s too proud to admit it.
This will be interesting.