The Woman with the Ring (Costa Family)

When I took a couple steps to the side, sure enough, I saw more exposed brick and windows, but also an all-black kitchen. The cabinets and cupboards, the countertop, and all the appliances looked to be black stainless steel. It was a big kitchen, too, but all standards, not just New York City ones.

I loved to cook.

But I’d be damned if I ever cooked for him.

“You’re free to roam around,” Terzo said, walking over toward the couches and dropping down, reaching for his phone. “It’s yours now too,” he added, and his words were like a kick to the stomach.

It was mine now.

Because I would never see my own apartment again.

Okay, admittedly, this one was much nicer than mine, but mine was full of the love I’d put into it. It was my safe space. It was the one place in the world I had to go to when everything felt like it was falling apart, and I could bundle under the covers and recover.

I would never have that again.

This would be my home.

This warehouse apartment was owned by a man who’d forced me into agreeing to marry him.

A pathetic whimpering sound rose up my throat.

My gaze shot over toward Terzo, not wanting him to hear if I was about to have another weak, emotional moment. I opened my mouth to say something to him about exploring the upper level before I remembered his words.

This was mine now.

I didn’t need to explain myself to him.

Squaring my shoulders and lifting my chin, even if my insides felt like they were shaking, I made my way across the apartment toward the staircase that led up.

It wasn’t that I wanted to be in Primo’s bedroom. In fact, it was the last place I wanted to be. But it was the only place I could see that I could escape for a little while.

I needed to get myself together.

I might have been stuck in an impossible situation, but I was not going to let Primo see that he was getting the better of me. I needed to wash my face. I needed to give myself a pep talk. And then I needed to slip behind a shield of cold indifference.

It was the only way I was going to make it through this sham of a wedding.

And whatever might come afterward.

Primo’s bedroom was, essentially, a brick-walled box. No windows. But the anxiety didn’t build as I made my way toward the door that looked suspiciously like the same material the metal box we’d stepped into from the elevator. Because the bedroom stretched the entire width of the warehouse and about a third of the length.

There was a moment of hesitation as I reached toward the handle, a part of me worried it wouldn’t open without a code, and some prideful part of me not wanting to have to ask Terzo Esposito to give it to me.

The matte black knob turned in my hand, though, and I felt a trip in my heartbeat as I pushed it open. Some twisted depth of my mind had me wondering if this was going to turn into some cheesy erotic fiction movie, and I was going to walk into a full-on sex dungeon complete with whips and chains. He already carried handcuffs on him, after all.

But I simply walked into a bedroom.

Like the floor below, the walls were all exposed brick. There was the same dark wood floor and the same exposed wooden beam ceiling. The bed was enormous. A California King, perhaps? It was impossible to know since any apartment I’d ever been in was lucky if it could hold a queen, let alone anything bigger. It had a sturdy wood frame stained the same color as the floor and all-black bedding. Two nightstands flanked it in a matte black color. Each had a lamp.

It was clear that Primo slept on the side nearest to the door judging by the discarded coffee cup on the nightstand and a pair of cufflinks left sitting close enough to the edge to fall off.

I had the asinine urge to go over there and push them back so they didn’t fall. What did I care if he lost one of his fancy cufflinks? I wasn’t supposed to be helping the man who’d ripped me off the streets and out of my old life. Hell, I should have been walking around the house, breaking all his mirrors and spilling all his olive oil, hoping to bring some bad luck into his life. The kind of bad luck that would make me a young widow, and free to get back to my old life.

I took a slow, deep breath, then let it out on a sigh.

That was likely a pipe dream.

The reality was, I was probably stuck with this man forever.

“At least my prison is pretty,” I mumbled to myself as I moved past the bed to the far wall where Primo had another—smaller—record shelf set up with a wooden player on top with a clear plastic cover.