Chapter 7: The Hobby's Husband

Dario saw him before I finished turning my head.

His hand came down on my shoulder, warm and perfectly still.

"Do you want him gone?" he said, very low.

"No."

"Elise."

"I want to do it myself."

He looked at me for one long breath.

Then he took off his jacket and put it around me.

It came to my knees, and it smelled of him.

He unknotted the ribbon at my wrists and left the one at my throat.

"Walk," he said. "I'm behind you."

I stepped down from the stage in my underwear and his jacket and my bare feet.

Forty people moved aside to let me through, and none of them spoke.

The bar was a long way off.

Stefano watched me come the whole way, with a glass of something amber untouched in his hand.

Beside him sat the oldest of my husband's capos, a heavy man with a gold watch.

He suddenly found the ceiling interesting.

"Elise," Stefano said. His voice was hoarse. "Look at you."

"Look at you," I said. "In a club you aren't a member of."

"Dad doesn't own this city."

"No, but he owns the guest list. Who signed you in?"

The heavy man cleared his throat.

I didn't look at him.

I had read the guest book by the door on our way in.

Every guest needs the Don's initials beside the name.

"The capo signed you in," I told Stefano. "Your father's initials aren't beside your name."

The capo's face went the color of putty.

Stefano's jaw worked.

"You're being used, you stupid girl."

He kept his voice down, but in that silence it carried.

"He wanted a wife who would never say no, and you ran to him with your hand out. You've known him one week."

"Yes."

"He's forty years old."

"Yes."

"He tied you up in front of strangers and you let him."

I could have lowered my eyes.

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