Page 46 of Until You Break
Emilio did. For a moment I only looked at him, pride sharp in my chest, a rush so fierce it almost startled me. He had come of his own will—no cuffs, no leash, no drugged compliance. That choice carried more weight than anything I could have forced. Adoration curled hot in my gut, though I would never speak it aloud.
He paused at the threshold like a man at the lip of a cliff, then stepped through. Damp hair combed neat, collar straight, wearing the clothes I had selected for him and brought up to our room, and the sight made me crazily smug.
He sat, shoulders squared, hands open like he’d learned that was safer, heat high on his cheekbones. A pulse worked in his throat like it wanted to speak first. “Good evening,” he managed, voice quiet, formal, the kind of greeting that sounded too small for this table. Shy, uncomfortable, yet he forced it out, fragile asglass. To me it looked delicious, my husband, fragile and mine, and still brave enough to speak into the weight of all their eyes.
Luca’s eyebrow tipped, cheap respect, still currency. Something old creaked in my chest. Pride makes the same sound no matter how often you oil it.
“Set another place,” Mama told the nearest pair of hands. Then to him, softer by a temperature, not a degree, “You eat with us. You live here, you eat here. Sit.”
Dinner felt almost normal. Family gathered around the table, food and wine warming the air. Alessandro kept checking his phone between bites, muttering about a ship’s schedule. Luciana chatted about Milan and a show she wanted to see, filling the pauses with easy chatter. Luca spun a knife once before abandoning it for olives, grinning at his own mischief. “Don’t fill up on olives,cognatino,” he smirked. “Our brother likes his husband hungry.”
Heat shot up Emilio’s throat. He stared at the bowl like figs were a battlefield. He didn’t answer. Luciana rolled her eyes and cut Luca off. “Enough, Luca. Don’t make him uncomfortable.”
Under the linen, my hand slid onto Emilio’s thigh. He jolted, stilled. A heartbeat later his palm found my knuckles. Damp. Brave. A small thing that went through me like a door.
“Our shipment arrived early,” Alessandro reported, folding his paper. “One of us will need to go and check it out.”
Mama sipped, set her glass down like a period. “After we’re done here, Damiano takes him to the warehouse. Routes. Eyes. Teeth. He sees what ‘ours’ looks like. He’s one of us now, and he needs to learn how our business works because he’s part of this family.”
Alessandro asked what other men avoid because he doesn’t mind bleeding for accuracy. “What if he calls his father?”
“He won’t.” Marcella’s mouth never changes once she decides. Then a small smile. “He sleeps where we sleep now.”
Conversation wandered back to food and wine, forks scraping gently on china, glasses clinking. Mama quizzed Luciana about her Milan trip, Alessandro complained about shipping routes with his mouth full, and even Luca managed to make the cousins laugh without throwing a knife this time. For a stretch it almost felt like any family dinner, the rhythm older than business or blood. Bread tore; wine refilled; the air softened around us like heat from the ovens had seeped into every wall.
The kitchen moved toward its ending. Plates scraped, wine sank to dregs. Conversations faded into softer laughter and the scrape of chairs, the kind of ending every family meal knows. Staff slipped in to clear, bodies moving around us like they knew not to exist unless summoned.
Chairs scraped. Order obeyed.
Emilio rose with the rest, slower, careful, as if testing whether the floor still belonged to him. He didn’t look at me. He didn’t have to. I would follow.
By the time the house exhaled into quieter heat, he was already upstairs.
He sat by the window, sketchbook balanced on his knee, lines ghosting into shapes I couldn’t see yet. The lamplight caught on his damp hair, the slope of his throat, the stubborn set of his mouth, drawing as if graphite could fortify him against me. I stepped in, latch clicking like a little law.
“You won’t hide in here today.” I let the latch click like a little law. “I prefer your choice. I’ll take obedience.”
He bristled, chin tipping up. “You think I’m obeying? Maybe I just didn’t want them to think you keep me locked up.”
I smiled, sharp. “Mouthy again. Good. It means you’re not breaking too fast.” My hand brushed his shoulder, lighter than he expected. “And thank you for coming down to dinner. You could have made me drag you. You didn’t.”
He looked like he meant to protest, lips parting, then thought better. He stood. Not ready, still standing. Good. I preferred men who bring their own spine.
“Chair,” I ordered, and he sank into it, stiff, chin lifted. I stepped close, rearranged the collar of his shirt until it sat the way I wanted, fingers lingering at his throat. “Good boy,” I murmured, before claiming his mouth in a kiss that went on too long to be decent. Deep, filthy, tongue stroking until he sagged against me, out of breath. I broke it slow, my mouth still ghosting his. “Now they’ll see exactly who you belong to.”
He hissed under his breath, anger masking the desire he couldn’t quite hide. I caught his hand and laced our fingers, walking him with me through the house, past marble and shadow, out toward the garage. He moved where I directed, spine rigid, breath uneven.
Adrian drove. Quiet, useful violence wrapped in leather and silence. Evening pressed warm against the glass, sea air curling through the cracked window. Streetlamps painted the road in liquid gold, balconies spilled with flowers, and somewhere the harbor breathed salt and tar. The city split into coins of light against the glass.
“Stop here.” I touched the headrest. Adrian eased the SUV to the curb.
I stepped out, came back with two cups sweating in my hand, pistachio and amarena bleeding together. I held one out like it wasn’t an offering but an order.
“Before it melts.”
He stared like it might bite. Ate anyway. Half gone before the docks. A low hum slipped from him, appreciation he probably hadn’t meant me to hear. He licked the spoon clean, careful work of tongue and teeth that belonged in a different room. My pulse marked every drag, every flick, hunger riding it until I had to look away or take his wrist and make him finish on command.
The car held the silence a beat too long. He broke it.
