The Bastard's Betrayal (Scandalous Scions 1)

Foolish. So fucking foolish.

She let her head drop back against the seat. “Damn it, I didn’t expect them to move so fast.” It wouldn’t matter that she’d made the right call—and she was certain she’d made the right call—the day of the wedding by getting in that trunk. It wouldn’t even matter if she’d made no calls at all and Dante had overpowered her. She’d disappeared with the enemy, put their alliance with the Capparellis in jeopardy, and had been missing for days. Of course, they would use that opportunity to their advantage. “Fuck.”

The trees opened up the tiniest bit as they came to a stop sign at what appeared to be a highway. Dante looked at her. “Are they a danger to you?”

“Da.” No reason to lie. She’d be gone before it mattered, and even if she didn’t manage to escape, he’d figure it out eventually. “They aren’t my biggest fans, and if in the course of this whole clusterfuck, I somehow died and Sasha became the next heir, they’d have a better chance of convincing my parents to marry her off to someone of their choosing.” Sasha wasn’t built like Rose and their other sisters. She was softer. A brutal husband would break something fragile inside her that she might never recover from. Anya and Lorelei would make sure he never had a chance to do it again, but that wouldn’t save Sasha after the fact.

“Rose.” From the way he said her name, it wasn’t the first time. Dante waited patiently for her to drag herself out of her dark thoughts and look at him. “They won’t touch you.”

“I wouldn’t be in this position if it weren’t for you.” Not the truth, not really. If not this, then something else would have happened to give them the excuse to go after her. She just thought she had more time, more space to build up the walls to keep herself and the people she cared about safe.

“They won’t touch you,” he repeated.

She had no business feeling warmth from his assertion. Even if the fairy tale in this man’s head came to reality, even if he was as formidable as his reputation, in the end, Dante was only one man. He couldn’t protect her from the full might of the Russian Romanovs if they decided to take advantage of her being outside the relative safety of New York. “Do they know where we are?”

She half expected him to brush off her question like he had in the past. Instead, Dante pulled onto the highway. “Si. Not our specific location, but they’re in the area.”

Her breath whooshed out. “Dante, you have to let me go. If your uncle wants me dead and they’re sniffing around… You’re outmanned and outgunned. Eventually they’ll find you—find us—and then it’s all over. They’ll kill both of us and make it look like it’s your fault and…” And then the people she loved would pay the price.

What was the fucking point of all this power if all it did was paint a target on her forehead? Her parents claimed it served to keep their family safe, but if she were a civilian, she wouldn’t have to deal with shit like this. Rose didn’t spend much time worrying about what her life would have been like if she were born into a different family because, ultimately, it didn’t matter. Her circumstances were what they were, and she mostly loved her life.

Just not when it seemed like everyone and their dog was gunning for her.

Dante didn’t look at her, but his body had gone tense at her statement. “All the more reason for you to agree to my terms.”

“That’s not possible and you know it. You are one man, Dante. No matter how good you are, they’re better. Marrying you would just make it worse.”

“That’s not a no.”

She opened her mouth to tell him no but couldn’t make her lips form the word. Dante was not for her. He couldn’t be for her. It didn’t matter that she was starting to believe him about their connection being real even before they were honest with each other. It didn’t matter if he fucked like a dream and seemed to enjoy her at her most monstrous. It didn’t matter that he’d most likely burn the entire world down for her if she set that as her condition for marrying him.

It didn’t matter what she wanted.

She closed her eyes. Okay, fine, she wanted Dante. She even liked the way they circled each other, neither willing to pull their punches. She liked that he was the perfect combination of Jackson Smith and Dante Verducci. She liked how they fit in so many ways.

But he wasn’t for her. He couldn’t be. Even if they could get the situation figured out with the Russian Romanovs, her family would never accept Dante. The Capparellis would never accept her marrying a Verducci, either. The implications for following what her heart may or may not want…