The role they expected her to play was suffocating, a mask of silence and obedience that pressed against her skin until she felt she might claw it off. Every morning, Aria was reminded that she wasn't just a woman in Lorenzo De Luca's world—she was his wife, paraded as both trophy and shield. The staff bowed their heads when she passed, but their eyes lingered, full of curiosity and doubt. The elders whispered over porcelain cups of espresso, their sharp gazes slicing her apart piece by piece, judging whether she fit the mold carved by generations of women who had come before her. A mafia wife was meant to smile at the right times, to play hostess with charm, to say little and mean even less. She was supposed to be silent marble, sculpted and controlled. But Aria wasn't marble. She was fire trapped behind glass, and every day the glass cracked a little more.
It came to a head at the family luncheon, a gathering orchestrated in one of the sunlit courtyards that seemed designed more for surveillance than leisure. Lorenzo sat at the head of the long table, immaculate in a charcoal suit, his dark gaze sweeping over the men and women seated around him. Aria took her place at his side, the seat of honor that felt more like a chain. The conversation flowed easily at first—business hidden beneath the guise of small talk, veiled threats exchanged like pleasantries. Aria kept her eyes lowered, her hands folded neatly, until the barbs began to turn in her direction.
"She's a pretty thing," one of the older men said with a sly smile, his words deliberate, meant to provoke. "But I wonder—does she understand the gravity of her role? Does she know when to keep her mouth shut?"
A ripple of laughter followed, thin and poisonous.
Aria's jaw clenched. Her father's betrayal had already stripped her of dignity once; she would not let these men do it again. Before she could stop herself, before reason could tether her tongue, she lifted her chin and met the man's eyes. "I may be new to this table," she said evenly, her voice calm but sharp as glass, "but I understand enough. Respect should be given, not assumed. And perhaps a man so concerned with silence should practice it himself."
The courtyard stilled. Forks hovered above plates. Glasses paused halfway to lips. Every eye turned to her, and then to Lorenzo, waiting for his response. In this world, disobedience was weakness. A wife who spoke out of turn was a liability. The weight of expectation pressed down on him to correct her, to humiliate her into submission.
But Lorenzo only leaned back in his chair, expression unreadable, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. His hand brushed against hers beneath the table, the barest touch, enough to still the shaking in her fingers. "My wife speaks boldly," he said finally, his tone calm, measured. "It's one of the reasons I married her. And perhaps some of you would do well to remember that silence can be as dangerous as truth."
The tension broke like glass shattering. Some laughed nervously, others scowled, but no one dared press further. The conversation shifted, and Aria sat frozen, her heart pounding, her pulse roaring in her ears. He had protected her. Publicly. Not by silencing her, but by defending her right to speak.
But the cost of it came later.
When the luncheon ended and the last of the guests departed, Lorenzo's hand closed firmly around her wrist, guiding—no, dragging—her through the maze of hallways until they reached his study. He shoved the door closed with his shoulder, the heavy click of the lock echoing through the room. Aria jerked her arm free, turning to face him, her chin high, her defiance burning through the fear that clawed at her chest.
"You humiliated me," he said, his voice low and dangerous. His eyes blazed with restrained fury, the kind that promised storms if unleashed. "In front of the family. Do you have any idea what you risked?"
"I risked being seen as more than your ornament," she shot back, her voice trembling with anger but not fear. "I will not sit there and let them strip me apart like I'm nothing. I'm not nothing, Lorenzo."
His steps closed the space between them, his height casting her in shadow. His hand slammed against the desk beside her, the sound reverberating through the room. "You are mine. That is the only protection you have in this world. Do you think they respect you because of your clever tongue? They don't. They respect you because they fear me. And if you forget that, even for a second, they will devour you."
Aria's chest heaved, her back pressed against the desk, but she didn't shrink away. "And what am I supposed to be? Silent? Obedient? A doll you can pose at your side while you play king? I'd rather burn than let you turn me into something hollow."
The fire in her eyes met the fire in his, and for a moment, they stood locked in a battle neither could win. His breathing grew heavier, his composure fracturing, and she saw it—the crack in the mask, the raw edge of something he couldn't control. His hand lifted, fingers brushing against her jaw, rough and desperate. His eyes burned into hers, and when he spoke, his voice was a whisper, hoarse, as if dragged from the deepest part of him.
"You make me lose control."
The words hung between them, heavy and dangerous, more intimate than any touch. And Aria realized, with a rush of heat and dread, that control was the only thing Lorenzo De Luca had ever sworn never to lose.