Page 209 of Untamed

Heat burns in my chest, crawling up my throat, settling behind my eyes. I press my hands into my lap to hide the way they’ve started to shake.

She crosses the room with perfect steps, greeted by Enzo and Luciano like she’s royalty.

Like she already belongs here.

I stare down at the napkin in front of me, counting the seams in the linen. Trying not to scream. I know who she is. I know what tonight is supposed to be. And I know what I am in all of this. A shadow. A complication. Amistake.

But what she doesn’t know is this, he’s already mine. In every fucking way that matters.

Giana takes her seat across the table with the ease of someone who’s never once questioned her place in the world.

The conversation around her picks back up, but it’s stilted now. Shaped by her presence. Everyone’s tone shifts, straighter backs, polished smiles. The kind of performance that feels less like a dinner and more like a coronation.

She laughs softly at something Enzo says, her posture elegant, her fingers curling around the stem of her wine glass with slow, deliberate grace. Every movement says the same thing:I belong here. This is my world.

I haven’t taken a sip of my wine. My throat’s too tight for that.

Instead, I keep my eyes lowered, pretending to study the embroidery on the tablecloth. But I feel her. Every glance she throws. Every measured smile. Every inch of her long, perfect frame draped in silk like it was poured onto her by God himself.

She hasn’t looked at me once. Not really. Not the way women do when they’re sizing each other up. Because she doesn’t see me as competition. She sees me as… irrelevant.

I want to claw that smug stillness right off her face.

My stomach turns, a slow burn building low in my gut as I force myself to sit straighter. Bianca leans in toward me, her voice barely above a whisper.

“You don’t have to stay,” she says, eyes scanning the table as if she’s commenting on something ordinary. But her words aren’t casual. They’re careful. Quiet. Laced with something like warning.

I force a smile, small and brittle. My hands stay folded in my lap, nails digging into my palm.

“I’m fine,” I lie.

She exhales, slow and tight. Doesn’t push again. But I can feel her watching me now. Like she knows I’m bracing for impact and she’s waiting for the crash.

My smile stays fixed. But inside, I’m screaming.

Where is he.

Where. Is. He.

Because every second that seat next to me stays empty, it looks more like surrender.

More like she’s won. And I don’t know what I’ll do if he walks in here and plays along.

If he so much as smiles at her. Shakes her father’s hand. Takes the seat beside her and not the one by his father.If he acts like I was ever something he could give up.

I press my hand flat to the table to stop it from trembling.

And I wait. And then, moments later, the door opens a second time.

I don’t turn. I can’t. But Iknowit’s him.

The shift is instant. Tension pulls tight through the room like someone just strung a wire across the table and dared everyone to breathe wrong.

I glance up, slow and cautious.

And there he is.

Ares Russo walks in like a slow-moving storm, dark suit, no tie and his hair a little messy like he ran his hands through it one too many times. A ghost of defiance in every step. He doesn’t offer a smile. Doesn’t bow to custom. He just moves, each footstep purposeful, dragging silence in his wake.

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