Matteo watches me the whole time, the grin never quite leaving his lips. “So what happens now? You here to tell me what I’m worth?”
“Something like that.”
And just like that, an idea starts to form, and I can’t get rid of it.
A man like this, standing next to me, with his looks and his name and that Gaviani blood. Everyone out there expects a man at the head of the table. They want someone to bow to, someone whose orders they can follow without their pride getting in the way. Fine. Let them have one. Let them think this beautiful, dangerous man is the one calling the shots.
While I run everything from behind him.
It would solve so much at once. The men who’d never take orders from a woman would happily take them from her husband. Our enemies would back off, because going after a married couple looks different than going after a lone woman they assume is weak. And if Matteo turns out to be a problem, well, husbands have accidents.
A husband. I’d have to marry him. The thought should bother me more than it does, but I’ve never had romantic notions about any of this. My father saw marriage as a transaction, and for once in my life, he and I agree on something.
I study Matteo a little longer. He’s leaning against the wall now, watching me think, and I bet he’d take the deal in a heartbeat if it got him out of these chains. A man rotting in a cell to pay off his father’s debt has nothing to lose, and a crown handed to him, even a hollow one, has to beat this.
But I can’t let him see how much I want it. I’ve learned that much. Never let anyone know what you’re really after, because the moment they do, the price goes up.
“You’re quiet,” he says. “Are you deciding whether to keep me or shoot me?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“Take your time.” His grin widens. “I’m not going anywhere.”
I’m glad I had the schooling for this. Most of the men upstairs can barely count past their own fingers, but I can look at a situation like this and see five moves ahead. And I owe most of that to one person, who isn’t here anymore.
Tomasso. My father’s second in command, and the closest thing I ever had to a real father. He’s the one who sat me down and taught me the things my own father never would, because my father thought a daughter only needed to know how to smile and stay out of the way. Tomasso saw something in me. He drilled the numbers into my head and showed me how the family really worked, all the quiet machinery underneath the threats and the blood.
And then Dominic put a bullet in him. Of course, he thinks no one knows it was him, but I do.
My jaw tightens at the thought. Dominic, my father’s oldest enemy, who’d been circling us for years. He took Tomasso from me, and I never even got to tell him how much he meant to me. I cried more at his funeral than I ever will at my father’s, and I had to do it in the bathroom, where no one could see and use it against me.
I miss him. More than I’ll miss the man whose chair I’m sitting in upstairs, that’s for sure.
Matteo shifts in his cuffs, and the sound brings me back to the cold little room and the problem in front of me. “You’ve got plans for me,” he says. “I can see it on your face.”
I let my lips curve into something close to a smile. “Maybe I do.”
Then I turn toward the door, because I’ve decided I’m not telling him anything tonight. Let him sit in here and wonder. Lethim sweat a little. A man who thinks he has the upper hand is easier to handle than one who knows exactly where he stands, and right now, I need every advantage I can get.
“We’ll talk tomorrow,” I say over my shoulder.
“Looking forward to it, boss.”
I head up the stairs, leaving him in the dark with his chains and his charming smile, and for the first time since my father died, I feel like maybe I can do this. Maybe I can hold on to everything he built and turn it into something he never imagined. A woman at the top, with a beautiful puppet to point at when the men get restless.
All I have to do is convince Matteo Gaviani to marry me.
And honestly? I don’t think that’s going to be the hard part.
Chapter 2
MATTEO
THE CELL DOOR OPENS, and she’s back, just like she said she would be. I push myself up off the cold floor where I’ve spent the night with the cuffs digging into my wrists, and I give her the grin I gave her yesterday, because it’s the only thing in this place that still belongs to me. She looks rested, put together, in control of every inch of this room. She looks like she owns the air I’m breathing, which, technically, I guess she does.
“Morning, boss,” I say. “I was starting to think you’d forgotten about me.”
She holds up her phone and turns the screen toward me, and I figure she’s about to show me a list of all the ways she can make my life worse. Fine. I’ve heard threats before. My father made an art form out of them.