Chapter 2 - The Blood Debt
I woke up the next morning enveloped in silk sheets and silence. True to his word, Niko had not returned to the bedroom. When I finally gathered the courage to unlock the door and step into the sprawling, sunlit living area of the penthouse, I found him sitting at the dining table. He was dressed in a crisp black button-down with the sleeves rolled up, revealing a map of dark, intricate tattoos on his forearms.
He was speaking rapidly in Italian on his phone, his tone vicious enough to make the glass on the table vibrate. When he saw me, he abruptly ended the call.
"Sit," he commanded, though the word lacked the cruelty of the night before. He pushed a plate of warm pastries and a cup of black coffee toward an empty chair.
I sat down, pulling the silk robe tighter around myself. "Did you find out?"
Niko stared at me, his dark eyes intense, studying me as if I were a rare, fragile artifact he had just been handed. "Your father didn't sell you to me for money, Clara. He sold you to me for protection."
I stopped stirring my coffee. "Protection from what?"
Niko leaned forward, folding his tattooed arms on the table. "Arthur Shaw is a clean politician, but he made the mistake of borrowing political capital from the Volkov syndicate to win his mayoral primary three years ago. The Russians don't ask for cash in return. They ask for favors. Last week, Alexei Volkov demanded your father re-route a major police task force away from the Brooklyn shipyards. Your father refused."
My blood ran cold. The Volkovs were notorious. They were the ghosts of the New York underworld, known for a brutality that even the Italian families found distasteful.
"Volkov didn't take the refusal lightly," Niko continued, his jaw ticking. "He told your father that if the task force wasn't moved, they would take his most prized possession as payment. They were going to kidnap you, Clara. They were going to traffic you into the network, and your father would never see you again."
The room spun. The memory of my father's red, desperate eyes flashed in my mind. I'm protecting you. He hadn't been threatening me with disinheritance; he was trying to save my life.
"Why you?" I whispered, my voice shaking. "Why did he give me to you?"
"Because the Santoro family is the only organization on the Eastern Seaboard that the Volkovs are terrified to cross," Niko said matter-of-factly. "Your father came to me on his knees. He offered me complete political immunity in the city for the next decade if I took you under my protection. And the only way to make you untouchable to the Russians was to put my name on you. To make you my wife."
Tears spilled over my lashes. Everything I thought I knew about my father, about this marriage, had been a lie. I wasn't a pawn in a business deal. I was a refugee hiding in the fortress of the devil.
Niko stood up, walking around the table until he stood beside my chair. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a heavy, platinum ring set with a flawless, square-cut diamond.
"I thought I was marrying a spoiled, reckless liability," Niko said, his voice incredibly soft as he knelt beside my chair. He gently took my trembling left hand. "I was cruel to you yesterday, and for that, I will spend the rest of my life making amends. But you need to listen to me very carefully, Clara. You are a Santoro now. As long as there is breath in my lungs, the Volkovs will never touch a single hair on your head. You belong to me, and I protect what is mine."
He slid the massive diamond onto my finger. It felt heavy, cold, and undeniably safe.
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"What happens now?" I asked, looking down into his dark eyes.
"Now," Niko smiled, a predatory, devastatingly handsome smirk. "You put on some clothes. I'm taking my wife to law school."
