Angelo pulls up outside a huge house just outside downtown. There are already several cars parked outside, and the assortment of cars is so extravagant it’s almost comical. I don’t know much about cars, but I’m pretty sure two of them are Lamborghinis, and the other look so exotic and sleek that I’m fairly sure they cost more than most people’s houses.

“This is your house?” I ask.

“My brother’s,” he says. “Enzo.”

“The one who stepped down and handed everything over to you?”

He nods.

“So… What are we doing here?” I had been expecting Angelo to take me home. After all, it already feels like I’ve had more than my share of fun for the night. Yet at the same time, I greedily want more. Learning who he was has me feeling like I’m walking on a frozen lake with cracks sprouting out around my every footstep. I can practically hear the ground shuddering beneath me, threatening to give out and plunge me into an icy end, but instead of heading back to safety, all I want to do is run faster and harder—pointlessly trying to outrun the inevitable.

“I want you to meet my family. The enemy,” he adds with a playfully dramatic grit to his voice.

“Not my enemy,” I correct. “I’ve never been involved in the family politics. Not as any more than a pawn for my father to move around and protect, at least.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t think he’ll be too happy if he realizes his pawn is currently on the wrong side of the board, will he?”

I shudder involuntarily at the thought. I can already imagine the veins at his temples standing out. His gray eyes bulging with barely checked rage… “No. I don’t think he’d like that.”

“Then let’s make sure he doesn’t find out. Right?”

I laugh, but the sound is forced. “Right.”

He takes me inside the massive house. I’ve been around money before. My father takes care of his people well, and even after giving them their cut, there has never been a shortage of money in our family. But my parents’ style of luxury is more classical and understated. They prefer nice things to big things. To my father, it’s more fun to have a priceless painting that might look like a piece of junk than it would be to have a pool or a bigger house.

Here though…

It’s a style of luxury I’m not accustomed to. The decor is modern, with a huge moving art piece of geometric shapes dominating the entry area. The house feels more like a resort, with seemingly endless branching hallways and colossal gathering spaces, chief of which is the main living area Angelo leads me into once we’re inside. The far wall is completely open to the patio and the pool outside, giving me a confusing sense of being both inside and outside at the same time.

It doesn’t take long before my attention is dragged from the house to the company.

Wow.

I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised that Angelo’s family and friends are all drop-dead gorgeous, but seeing them all gathered here under the bright lights of Enzo’s living room really hammers it home. I vaguely recognize two of the men from the club from that first night with Angelo. Normally, either of them would’ve immediately burned a permanent and fond place in my memory for how gorgeous they are, but Angelo has a way of dimming everything around him so that it doesn’t seem quite as impressive or important.

Still, I find myself a little overwhelmed to have all of them looking at us.

The first to approach is the one I haven’t met before. He’s older than Angelo, maybe by five or ten years, with flecks of gray at his temples and shockingly intense green eyes. He wears a dark suit with his shirt unbuttoned enough to reveal his tattooed chest. He reaches to shake my hand.

I take his hand and smile.

“I’m Enzo,” he says, patting my hand with his free hand and clasping it for a second. It’s a warm gesture and makes me somehow feel immediately welcome in his home. “Angelo’s taking good care of you, I hope?”

“You kidding?” asks one of the men I recognized from the club. I can’t remember their names, but I can tell from the look of him that he’s related to Angelo. Enzo doesn’t carry a strong resemblance to his brothers, but Angelo and the man who is walking up look similar enough that I can tell they’re related at a glance. “Angelo is parading her around like some prize. We all know how Angelo gets when he has his hands on something he wants. I doubt he has even let a fucking mosquito get a taste of her since he claimed her.”

Claimed me. He says it so casually, so offhandedly, but the words ring true. Almost too true. He really has, hasn’t he? Since the moment I asked him to pretend to be my boyfriend, Angelo has been laying some sort of claim over me. A guilty rush of warmth pulses through me at the thought.

“Actually, I stubbed my toe a little on the way in,” I joke.

To my amusement, Angelo actually looks down at my foot with a concerned expression. His brothers grin at eachother, and the younger of the two lightly slaps Enzo on the shoulder with the back of his hand. “He’s losing his touch, I guess.”

“You remember Gino and Damian from the club?” asks Angelo, who doesn’t look as amused as his brothers.

I nod my head, pretending I remembered their names.

Damian doesn’t approach to shake my hand. He only gives me a faint tip of his finger in acknowledgment before turning to grab his drink from the table. His dirty blond hair is shaved at the sides but long on top and he has tattoos up most of his chiseled arms. He’s wearing a simple black dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and some buttons undone at the top. His blue eyes are just as hard as the other men, but somehow I can sense that he’s not part of the same world as them. Maybe not even mafia.

I finally notice the women in the room. From the looks of them, they might be sisters. One is standing close enough to Enzo and wearing a wedding band, so I venture to guess she’s his wife. The other is hanging back a little bit and giving Angelo a kind of hurt look I can’t quite figure out. A former girlfriend maybe? God. Please don’t let that be the case. I’d feel terrible being here in front of her.

Girlfriend… I wonder if that’s what Angelo would call me yet. I wonder if it’s what I would call me, for that matter. Giving whatever is between us a name feels terrifying. Like it’d make something physical that my father could latch onto and destroy. As long as it’s just some unidentifiable feeling or series of experiences though, as long as I don’t let myself really start to believe this is more than just pretend, then he can’t take it away. Except I think we both left behind the idea of this being pretend already, especially now that I know I definitely can’t have Angelo meet my father to convince him I’m dating someone.

It’s only a matter of time before reality comes crashing down on me. I know it. Everything that happened tonight is still so fresh, though. I can hold off the consequences for a little while longer. For tonight, I can just be here and ride the current. I can let it take me where it may and pretend I don’t know there’s a waterfall and a rocky bottom ahead.

I hug the women—Neela and Jamie. Neela is apparently Enzo’s wife and Jamie is her sister. I make some stiff small talk with the men for a few minutes, all while Angelo hovers protectively beside me. I notice he never lets his touch leave me for long, whether it’s a hand against the small of my back, around my shoulder, a touch of his fingers against mine. His body seeks mine out like there’s gravity constantly pulling him back to me.

It makes me feel important, and not in the way my father’s attention always does. The kind of obsession my father has with protecting me is a selfish kind. He sees any harm or insult to me as one to him. I’m just an extension of his pride, and it’s easier for him to try to lock me away than it is to risk letting me live my life and possibly bring shame to his name.

Angelo though… His attention is sweet and filled with a kind of steamy intensity that never quite leaves him. He can let his guard down, smile carelessly, and even joke with his brothers or Damian, but there’s always something more just behind it, something so strong and unwavering that it must always be there. There’s a purpose to him. He’s not just drinking and laughing with no care for tomorrow or any aspirations. He has something he’s striving toward, and it only takes one look at him to see that he never loses focus of that.

I only wish I could pick his brain and know what it is he wants so badly.

“Come on,” says Neela, who favors me with a warm smile while the men are all laughing hard over some joke Gino is in the middle of telling. It has the sound of a joke he’s told a hundred times, but none of the men seem to care. “This goes on a lot longer, and I’ll spare you the ending. It only gets more offensive the longer it goes.”

Her sister stands and follows us out to the patio, still watching me with that slightly accusatory look she has been giving me since I arrived.

We move out beside the pool, which is lit with a deep blue light that casts undulating reflections on the supports to the balcony overhead and the palm trees rustling in the night breeze. We sit at a stone table by a firepit and outdoor grill, far enough away from the men for privacy but not so far that Angelo can’t still keep glancing my way. Something tells me if we’d moved any farther, he would’ve excused himself and followed, just to avoid letting me out of his sight.

His attention feels welcome, though. It’s like being wrapped in a warm blanket. Comforting and safe. Flattering. If my dad’s attention was a blanket, it’d be one that was scratchy and so thick that it was stifling—so heavy that it felt more like a prison than a shield.

“So,” says Neela. “How’d you end up meeting Angelo?”

Her sister leans in even closer, eyebrows drawing together.

I start to wonder if maybe she knows or suspects I’m from the Torretti family. The idea makes my skin crawl. Is that why Angelo is keeping such a close eye on me here? After all, Enzo used to run the entire Luciani family. He’d surely still hold a serious grudge against my father, and why wouldn’t that extend to his wife. And her sister?

I explain the story to them anyway, carefully editing out any details that might even possibly lead them to suspect who my father is.

“What about you?” I ask Neela once I’ve finished telling my story. “How’d you meet Enzo?”

She smiles, biting her lip a little and studying her hands in a way that tells me she’s replaying memories she has treasured for a long time. “It was a blind date,” she says. “We uh… had a pretty instant connection,” she adds. To my surprise, her cheeks actually redden.

I grin. “It must run in the family with these Luciani guys,” I say. “I think Angelo and I had a similar experience.”

Jamie hadn’t been glaring at me as much but the angry look returns to her face at my words. Neela just frowns in surprise.

“He told you who he is?” asks Neela.

“He did,” I say. “I know about all the, well, you know.”

Neela nods. “Angelo must be pretty serious about things if he told you that m—hey, Jamie, wait!” says Neela, who turns toward her sister and reaches out to grab her hand.

Jamie walks off before Neela can stop her though.

I cover my mouth. “I’m sorry. That was my fault somehow, wasn’t it?”

Neela shrugs. “Jamie and Angelo dated really briefly, around the time I met Enzo. I don’t know why things didn’t work out between them, but I don’t think she has ever really gotten over him. Honestly, it probably wouldn’t matter how nice or amazing you were. I think so long as Angelo is interested in you, Jamie is probably going to have a hard time liking you.”

“I can’t blame her for it,” I say. “I’d probably have poisoned me by now if I was in her shoes.”

Neela laughs. “You must have it bad for him already, huh?”

I smile, but I feel a kind of sadness and guilt and fear all swirling together in my stomach that wipe it from my face too soon. “Yeah. I guess I do.”

I stare for a while at the water in the pool, the patio, the beautiful landscaping lit by dozens and dozens of little lamplights pegged throughout the garden. I look at the men laughing inside while Gino and Damian are pantomiming some kind of ridiculous story together that looks like it involves golf and crocodiles—or sharks, it’s hard to tell from their hand gestures. Most of all, I look at Angelo, who leans against the wall and watches the men laugh and talk. He watches with those cool, unfaltering blue eyes of his like a sentinel, like something too large for life and too grand to be contained in such a small, innocent moment.

He’s not just a man or some mafia boss. He’s a force. He’s action personified. Liquid momentum, as if even standing completely still, he’s still barreling downhill at full-speed with all the weight and momentum of his powerful frame behind him.

Somewhere along the way I grabbed on for the ride, and now I don’t know how I’ll ever get off or if I even want to.

I run a hand through my hair and sigh. “You know, men always like to think of themselves as such simple creatures. But if that’s true, why does it feel so complicated to have feelings for them?”

“You’re not kidding,” says Neela. “You know how I first met Enzo?”

“A blind date, right?” I ask, not exactly seeing her point.

“Yes, but that wasn’t where it ended. He kidnapped me. You want to talk about complicated…”

I give her an incredulous look. “You’re not serious.”

She smiles and flicks her eyebrows up. “Unfortunately, I am. But it’s a long story.”

“Somehow I can’t help feeling like whatever is going on with Angelo and I is also going to fall into the ‘long story’ category,” I say.

“I hope it does. For your sake,” she adds with a grin.

“So, uh, just stop me if it’s not my place to ask, but what happened with Jamie and Angelo? The parts you do know, at least.”

Neela winces a little, then shrugs. “So… you know Angelo is a Luciani. I assume you know that means he’s a—” she hesitates, giving me a chance to fill in the blank.

“A mobster. Yeah. I’ve seen the Luciani crime family in the news enough to figure that out.”

She nods, looking a little relieved. “Well, Enzo was too, when I met him. Once things got serious and he found out about the baby, he decided to step down from his role for the good of our family. He got out. For us,” she adds. I can tell from the way she bites her lip and glances his way fondly that she must love him still, maybe even more than she did back then. “Anyway, Jamie never really wanted to go into a lot of detail on it, but I think she might have implied she wanted Angelo to do the same for her.”

I frown. “So he wouldn’t leave the lifestyle behind for her?”

“That’s my guess.”

“My ears are burning,” says Angelo.

I jump a little at the sound of his voice. I didn’t even notice him moving away from the guys and come toward us.

“S-sorry,” I stammer.

He squints at me. “Sorry? I assumed you were saying good things.”

Neela saves me by leaning forward and smiling. “It was girl talk, Angelo. You know, sacred sisterhood and all that? I don’t care how scary you are, I’ll never spill a word of it no matter how much you torture me.” Her tone is teasing and familiar, but his hard eyes never leave mine or show any hint of him finding humor in her words.

“Why does everyone want to call me scary, lately?” he asks with a grin.

“Gee. I wonder,” says Neela.

I laugh.

He leans in so his lips are just beside my ear and his voice is a whispered rasp in my ear. “If you’re being naughty, I’ll happily take you to the fifth floor of my club for your punishment.”

I swallow hard. “I was—”

A loud knock at the door makes everybody look up at once, cutting me off mid-sentence. It’s not a gentle knock. It’s the kind of knock that says open up the fucking door, or else.

“Wait here,” says Angelo. He rushes off toward the door, along with the other men.

Neela and I both ignore him, moving behind him as closely as we dare until we can see the front door, where Enzo and Gino are already staring down two men I recognize. Donnie and Franco. Behind them, nearly every muscle-head and capo in my father’s organization is standing in a wide semi-circle around the door. No one is holding a gun, but there’s a very, very clear threat hanging in the air.

Angelo either doesn’t notice it or doesn’t care. He pushes past Damian, who is hanging back a bit and then between his brothers to face off against Donnie and Franco. “The fuck is this?”

My father steps forward from the back of the group of men. In all the years of my life, I’ve never really seen him in his element. I’ve seen him ordering his men around. I’ve seen the way they look at him. But I’ve never seen this side of him. There’s an aura of invincibility to him, like he knows down to his bones that no one could ever dare touch him because it would be a death sentence. It’s all the more impressive because he’s not a big man, especially standing face to face with Angelo, who is almost a foot taller than him. My dad looks up into Angelo’s eyes all the same and jabs a finger at his chest. “This is me coming to get my daughter.”

“Sorry,” says Angelo. “I must’ve missed the collar around her neck. I thought she was free to go where she pleased.”

“She is. Except here. Except to fraternize with Luciani filth.”

Angelo stands with his feet planted wide and his shoulders broad. His hands are in fists and his neck is bent to look down at my father. “I’m going to give you one minute to get all your fucking men off my brother’s property before I let things get ugly.”

“Angelo,” I say, making my way to the door and putting a hand on his shoulder. “No,” I say quietly.

“Come here, Anabella,” snaps my father. He extends a beckoning hand and flicks his fingers up twice like a master might call a dog who has misbehaved.

I look between the two groups. Angelo, Enzo, Gino, and Damian all stand like Greek gods—tall, regal, and powerful, each gorgeous in their own way. Then there are my father’s men. They stand with slouched postures and dark, slicked back hair—with mean faces and the promise of violence in black, beady eyes. For the first time, I see my father and my family how Angelo must. My father and his men look like the bad guys, like the classic villains in a movie, the ones you know to root against at a quick glance.

“Anabella,” says my father again, voice low and dangerous. “Do not make me ask twice.”

I hang my head and walk toward him, pulled by some invisible rope that he has spent my whole life tightening.

“Ana?” asks Angelo.

I can’t look at him because I already know what I’m going to do. No matter what has happened between Angelo and I or how much I might think I feel for him, my father is my father. I can’t just turn my back on him in front of all his men. He’d never forgive me.

“I’m sorry,” I say, still not looking into his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

I half-run out the door and let my father take me by the arm leading me toward the cars. I never look back to Angelo, but I know he doesn’t look away until long after we’ve driven out of view.