Page 42 of Until You Break
“He looks like his mother.” Nonna’s tone softened just a fraction, pride and warning in equal measure. “That same light in the eyes.”
Sadness tugged low in my chest, sharp and quick, like someone had brushed a bruise I’d forgotten was there. I forced a polite nod, a small curve of my mouth, armor thin as glass. Heat climbed my neck. Their laughter pressed like hands against my skin—familiar, invasive, the kind of attention meant to parade rather than protect.
“Good morning. And thank you.” My voice sounded steadier than I felt, breath shallow against the weight of their eyes.
“Morning,caro.” Nonna’s cane tapped once more. Her gaze shifted back to Cosima. “Marcella outdid herself. Two families tied, one city shocked, and my grandson finally leashed. Yes, my daughter-in-law really knows how to play politics and war at the same time.”
Their smiles carried approval, but it felt like permission stamped on a leash. Their laughter trailed as they moved down the path, chatter light as birdsong, echoing like judgment. For a second, I imagined Mama here, sitting under these same trees, sketching on her lap.Your mother once drew in this garden too,I could almost hear Nonna say, though she hadn’t. The ghost of it stung sharper than her cane.
Damiano let them go, then turned his eyes back to me.
He didn’t watch them leave. He watched me.
“You slept.” The words landed like a verdict.
“I was unconscious with style.” I tried for humor, but my lips trembled around it.
His gaze dipped to my mouth, one second, two, enough to make everything in me miscount. A grin tugged at his lips, hungry. “Perfect.”
“I didn’t ask for your evaluation.” My pulse betrayed me, thudding quick.
“You don’t have to. You give everything away.”
“I give you nothing.”
His smirk sharpened, criminal. “We’ll disagree later. Come.” He gestured toward the house.
“I wasn’t asking to be escorted.” My arms folded tight across my chest.
“You’re not.” He was already walking. “You’re obeying.”
We climbed the stairs. Every landing brought another cousin, a guard, a servant, each one stopping to congratulate Damiano with bows or kisses to his cheek. His phone buzzed in his pocket, again and again, a steady pulse of messages and calls. He ignored none of it, only tightened his grip on my wrist when someone lingered too long.
I thought of my own phone, gone since the day they threw me into the van. Messages from Enzo had been waiting then, lighting up the screen. I still wondered what he’d sent, what words I never saw. If I’d ever know.
Damiano led me back into his suite. The bed still looked the way I'd left it, slept in, blankets tucked to the side. Morning made everything different. Sunlight flooded the glass terrace, gilding the floor, turning shadows into weapons of light. The same room but sharper, hungrier, more his.
A record player perched near a low shelf. Damiano was already at the desk, phone pressed to his ear, voice low as he spoke to someone I couldn’t see. Business, another cousin,another deal. He didn’t look at me, and that silence pressed harder than his eyes. I drifted to the record player because sound could make a room less sharp. I fumbled the vinyl, set the needle. It scratched, popped once, dust, static, and then a smoky trumpet slid out, slow and honey-low, like an apology.
I found a pencil and a sheet beside the turntable. The paper’s tooth bit back, graphite silvered my thumb, little moons on skin. My hand moved before sense could catch it. A few quick leaves, a spine of branch. A curve that could have been glass or a cage. A shadow that might have been him if I was cruel to myself.
A soft murmur reached me, so close I startled. “You draw when you think no one’s looking.” I turned and realized he was off the phone, device still in his hand but silent now, his attention entirely on me. Shame flickered sharp in my chest, the private moment of drawing snatched away, exposed under his gaze like everything else he claimed.
“I do here. Not in Paris." The memory made my chest clench with a feeling of a missing. College felt like another life, rain on café glass, the sharp scent of turpentine, freedom I’d carried like a passport.
Damiano’s grin cut sharp at the mention, like he’d tasted freedom on my tongue and wanted to ruin it. “Paris,” he murmured, savoring the word. “Another life. This one’s mine.”
He closed the distance the way only he could, unhurried, unapologetic, inevitable. He plucked the sheet from my fingers. When I reached, his ring grazed the corner of my mouth, cold shock, the metal tasting like minted fear.
“Pretty.”
The word curled like ownership, not praise.
“It wasn’t for you.” My throat went dry, voice rasping.
“Everything here is for me.” His tone was lazy, certain. “Especially the things you don’t offer.”
“Give it back.” Heat flared in my cheeks.
