Page 12 of Until You Break

EMILIO

"Up."

A guard stood over my bed, silent and patient, waiting for me to move. The faint squeak of his polished shoes and the chemical bite of oil from his holster filled the quiet like threats that had learned how to breathe. Sunlight sliced the room in a hard line; dust spun in it like tiny witnesses.

I scrunched my eyes against the light, blinking slow as I woke. "Who are you? What do you want?"

He smirked, the corner of his mouth tugging with a private satisfaction. His thumb rubbed the seam of his glove once, slow and deliberate. "To get you ready. Come on, now." His voice was warm with the lazy confidence of a man who has seen this before.

"Salvatore... my brother. Is he alright?"

The guard's smirk spread into something closer to amusement. "He is. But his car isn't." He tapped the butt of his holster with a gloved fingertip, the sound crisp in the air.

"Did they hurt him? Those motherfuckers...I will—"

"Get up now." He set a small tray on the bedside table: a steaming cup of coffee, dark and sharp, and a croissant, flaky and warm. The pastry smelled obscene in the cold room. My hand hovered over it for a breath, pride sharper than hunger, before my fingers curled toward the croissant.

My throat scraped when I swallowed. Phantom heat, a taste I couldn't spit out. The ache low in my body hadn't left either. It waited, mean and patient, like a debt daylight intended to collect.

On the chair nearby, clothes waited, black and precise, laid out like a verdict.

The shirt was silk.. It slid over my shoulders like water that had learned how to hold a shape. It wasn’t mine. Nothing about it was. Even the weight on my skin felt borrowed, temporary, waiting to be taken back. The collar nipped my throat when he buttoned it.

“It’s tight,” I muttered.

“It’s correct.” His hands smoothed it flat with the precision of someone who’d buried men in better clothes. “Chin.”

I lifted it. He knotted the tie, tugged once, fastened cuff links, white gold, Bellandi crest sharp enough to open a vein. The jacket followed, heavier than it looked, fitted so I stood straighter whether I wanted to or not.

The mirror gave back a stranger in Bellandi black. The cuff links winked like fangs. Even my spine looked conscripted, held upright by a will that wasn’t mine.

“You’ll thank me later,” he said.

“For what?”

“For not letting you embarrass yourself. Shoes.”

They were polished leather. They were so reflective I could see my mouth in them. A stranger’s mouth.

“Where are we going?”

“A meeting,” he said.

“With who?”

“You’ll see.” The smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Buttons,” he added, tapping the jacket. “Don’t fidget.”

Two guards in suits waited in the hall. Earpieces, holsters visible. Subtlety wasn’t the point. They fell in behind us as we walked. The house smelled like coffee, lemon peel, rosemary from outside. Under it all, metal.

The cars waited, black paint, dark glass, engines idling.

I told myself this could be it, that “meeting” meant Papà.

That maybe he’d managed to negotiate, to give Marcella what she wanted, to bargain my way out.

She had already announced her intention, but I clung to the idea that deals could be made, that there was still a way to step back from the edge.

Hope is a dumb animal, it walks long after you’ve shot it.

A guard slid in beside me. Perfect posture, hands folded.

We drove in silence. The city blocks slid by, laundry like flags, mopeds, a woman dragging a stubborn dog. The driver turned off the main road into streets where stone pinched the light. The engine’s hum climbed the way a throat does before it swallows.

The building rose from pale air, stone and glass, new pretending to be old. Courthouse. Chapel. Any place where men tell other men the world is different now and will be forever.

Dark-suited men smoked on the steps. Conversation died when our car stopped.

The first smell when the door opened was incense. The second was gun oil.

We climbed. Warm stone under my soles. Inside, the air was cooler, too clean. Flowers tried to hide the polish-and-metal edge. Failed.

It wasn’t a church. But someone had dressed it like one.

Chairs in straight white rows. A small altar.

A priest with sweat at his hairline. Bellandi to the right.

My captors, knives dressed in black. My family to the left, powerless Valentis bracketed by Bellandi guards with open holsters.

Jackets gaped on purpose. Safeties clicked once when I slowed. Final.

Enzo pushed to his feet, voice raw. "What are you doing to him?" he began. A guard closed on him, seizing an arm and forcing him back into the seat. Another palm fell across his mouth, blunt and final. He sank down, eyes bright with protest but muzzled by force.

Safeties whispered again. Leather creaked.

“Proceed,” the priest said, voice thin.

My throat closed. Heat gathered at my hairline. Incense curled thick. My hands wanted to shake. I made them stop. My knees wanted to buckle. I made them lock.

“Do you, Emilio Valenti…”

The priest’s voice cracked. Incense thickened in my throat. For a second I pictured it, saying no. The echo of safeties clicking louder, bodies folding before they hit the ground. My knees nearly bent with the thought.

“No, I—” The word stuck. “I can’t…this isn’t mine—please—” The words tangled, breaking apart as safeties clicked louder around me.

Damiano moved. Hand to my jaw, turning me up into him. Thumb under my chin, fulcrum. Smoke and cedar on his skin, iron from the cuff links.

“Say it,” he said, weight sharp as a blade. “Or I’ll make you beg instead, and you’ll do it in front of your father.”

Heat ran through me, sharp as shame. My body knew what to do when he spoke. I hated that.

“Yes,” I said. It carried.

Papà’s hand hit wood. Enzo swore. Bellandi laughter rippled. Papà’s knuckles whitened against the pew, veins sharp as rope, the sound of his teeth grinding louder in my head than the priest’s words.

“And do you—” to Damiano.

“I do.”

“Amen—”

“Try Latin,” Alessandro murmured, not looking up. “It sounds more expensive.”

Damiano gave him a dry glance. “If it makes you feel richer, brother, then let him choke on Latin.”

“Benedicat vos—” the priest began.

“Not you,” Luca said cheerfully. “Him.” He pointed his glass at Damiano like he was introducing a headline act. “Our brother, our problem, your future headache.”

Damiano’s mouth curved. “Better my headache than yours. At least this one looks good in black.”

I stared past them, throat hot with incense. Papà’s gaze pinned me.

“Blink,” Damiano told him without turning. “Your eyes are getting bloodshot.”

Papà’s jaw worked, muscle ticking like a clock that wanted to break. “I will unmake you for this.”

“You already tried,” Marcella said softly. “You failed. Note the theme.”

The air tasted like iron and lilies. My palms itched. I made them flat.

Noise rose. Reflex applause. The Valenti side was still.

Damiano stepped in. Hand on my jaw, the other at my neck. I twisted. “Don’t.”

He kissed me.

His mouth came down like a velvet weight, heavy and consuming.

He pressed me into the space between his chest and the altar, breath warm and close, a constant, smothering pressure that blurred the edges of the room.

His lips were wet and insistent, tongue searching my hesitation and erasing it with slow, expert drafts.

The cuff of his sleeve scraped my jaw; metal warmed against my skin.

Heat pooled behind my eyes. Phones flashed, lenses blinked, a chorus of tiny lights and clicks stabbed at the dark.

Glass chimed against glass as if the sound could pretend this was joy.

In the flare, my father’s face stamped itself behind my eyes and stayed.

“Look at him,” someone whispered.

“I am,” Damiano said against my lip, the words for my father, the intimacy for me. His thumb found my pulse and pressed until my knees had to remember the floor.

I kept my hands down. He smiled when I did, a small razor pressed edge-first into patience. When he let go, it wasn’t mercy. It was staging.

“To Riccardo,” he added, calm as a metronome. “I’ll teach him to kiss properly too.”

Laughter, too sharp, scattered like coins.

He smiled against my mouth when I kept my hands at my sides. I felt it, approval sharpened to cruelty. He let me go when he wanted and stopped my step back with a re-claiming thumb at my throat.

He didn’t look away when he spoke to my father. “I’ll make sure he learns to dance, Riccardo. Among other things.”

Laughter again, sharper.

Luca clapped once, a showman calling his stage.

“Ladies, gentlemen, criminals of taste, welcome to the union of Bellandi Logistics and Valenti Bad Decisions.” He flicked open a card he absolutely hadn’t written and read.

“Program: vows, kiss, exchange of threats, light refreshments, then dancing. Safety briefing, no confetti, no grenades, keep hands inside your own suit unless invited.”

A ripple of ugly amusement. He bowed to my side of the room. “Relax, cousins. We checked, kidnapping is only tacky if the tailoring fails.”

He lifted his glass higher, grin feral. “To the happy couple,” he said, absurdity dressed in velvet.

“To our dear brother, who kidnaps prettier than most men court. To his husband, who just made history by saying yes under more safeties than a papal conclave.” He lifted the glass higher.

“If anyone objects, speak now or forever hold your tongue… or I’ll cut it out for you. ”

A beat.

His eyes slid to me, wicked. “Smile, or they’ll think Damiano married a corpse. To the clarity of a good morning.”

Damiano’s thumb still marked my throat when he turned me a fraction, guiding me from the altar as if the ceremony were finished and the next act already waiting. I could hardly believe it.

I had just been married.