Like Father, Like Son

Chapter 9

I've been staring at the ceiling since dawn, replaying the disaster of last night on an endless loop. His fingers around my throat. The way his body betrayed him even as his mouth said no. That broken sound when I mentioned his dead wife—because apparently I'm the kind of person who weaponizes grief now.

My breakfast tray sits untouched on the nightstand, coffee gone cold while I hide in this room like a coward. The east wing of the mansion might as well be on another planet today. I won't go near his door, won't risk seeing him in the hallway, won't give him another chance to look at me like I'm the walking embodiment of his worst mistake.

The knock at my door makes me jump hard enough to rattle the coffee cup.

"Mrs. Caruso?" Elena, one of the housekeepers, speaks through the wood with the careful tone of someone delivering bad news. "Don Caruso requires your presence in his study immediately."

Requires. Not requests. Not asks.

My stomach drops somewhere near my ankles as I pull on the most conservative dress I own—high neck, long sleeves, nothing that might suggest I'm the kind of woman who crawls into her father-in-law's bed at three in the morning. The walk to his study feels like a funeral march, each step bringing me closer to whatever punishment he's designed for my transgression.

The study door stands open, but crossing that threshold still feels like stepping into a trap.

Salvatore sits behind his massive oak desk, reviewing contracts with the focus of someone who absolutely isn't avoiding looking at the disaster standing in his doorway. The morning light catches the silver in his hair, and I hate that I notice, hate that my body still responds to him after last night's humiliation.

"Sit." He doesn't look up from his papers, but the single word lands like a physical blow.

I take the chair across from him, the leather cold against my skin. The silence stretches taut as piano wire, broken only by the scratch of his pen and the blood rushing in my ears. Each second that passes without him acknowledging me feels deliberate, a reminder of exactly where I rank in his world.

"Look at me." His voice cuts through the quiet, and when I raise my eyes, his are black as the barrel of a gun. "What happened last night will never happen again. You violated my privacy, entered my space without permission, and took liberties that could get someone killed in my world. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

"Yes." The word barely makes it past my throat because he's not just Salvatore right now—he's Don Caruso, the man who owns judges and makes grown men disappear.

"Yes, what?" He sets down his pen with careful precision, but I see the violence coiled in his shoulders, the barely leashed control that makes my pulse spike with fear and that sick heat I can't kill.

"Yes, Don Caruso."

"Better." He leans back, studying me like I'm a problem to be solved or eliminated. "You're young, confused, mistaking proximity for permission. Your marriage is difficult—I'm aware my son is a disappointment. But if you think I'm your escape route, you're more naive than I gave you credit for."

The dismissal cuts deeper than Marco's slap ever could. Young and confused—like I'm some desperate child instead of a woman whose body burns every time he walks into a room.

"With all due respect, Don Caruso, you don't know what I think." The defiance escapes before self-preservation can stop it, and his eyes narrow dangerously.

"Careful." The word drops between us like a blade. "I've had men's tongues cut out for less disrespect than you've shown in the last twelve hours."

"Then why haven't you?" The question tumbles out, reckless and raw. "Why am I still sitting here instead of floating in the Hudson?"

He's around the desk before I can blink, his hand slamming down on the armrest of my chair, caging me in. This close, I can smell his cologne mixed with the faint copper scent that always clings to men in his profession. My body's confused response—terror tangled with arousal—makes me hate myself.

"Because you're my son's wife, and I honor contracts even when they're written in blood and stupidity." His face is inches from mine, close enough that I can see the muscle jumping in his jaw. "But test me again, little girl, and family connections won't save you. I've buried relatives for less."

The threat should make me cower. Should make me pull back, make myself small, beg for forgiveness like any sane person would when Don Caruso promises violence. Instead, my traitorous body does the opposite—leaning forward by maybe an inch, maybe less, but enough that we both notice.

My skin prickles with electricity, every nerve ending suddenly aware of how little space exists between us. The rational part of my brain screams warnings about survival instincts and self-preservation, but my body operates on different rules now, drawn to his danger like iron filings to a magnet.

This close, I can feel the heat radiating from him, see the barely controlled violence in the tension of his jaw, and instead of fear making me cold, I burn. I burn with the wrongness of wanting him to close this distance, to make good on those threats with his hands instead of his words.

"You're shaking," I whisper, and it's true—his hand on the armrest trembles almost imperceptibly.

He jerks back like I've burned him, putting the desk between us again. When he speaks, his voice has dropped to that register that makes grown men soil themselves but makes me wet—God, what is wrong with me?

"Marco will be home tonight." Each word is carved from ice. "You'll be in your bedroom, dressed appropriately, ready to play the devoted wife. Whatever sick fantasies you've constructed about me, whatever delusions you're nursing—bury them. Tonight. Or I'll bury them for you, and trust me, my methods are permanent."

The threat lands exactly as intended. This is the man who runs New York's underworld, who orders deaths between dinner courses. The man whose hands have definitely ended lives but whom I still imagine touching me in the dark.

"Is that all, Don Caruso?" I stand on legs that shouldn't be steady but somehow are.

"One more thing." His eyes hold mine, and there's a promise there that makes my blood run cold and hot simultaneously. "If you ever enter my bedroom again without permission, if you ever put that mouth on mine while I'm unconscious, I'll make you disappear so thoroughly that even God won't remember your name. Are we clear?"

"Crystal."

"Get out."

I turn back, but he's already returned to his contracts, pen moving across paper like this conversation never happened. Like I never happened. The dismissal is complete, surgical, and somehow more intimate than if he'd touched me.

The hours until evening crawl by like wounded animals. I reorganize my closet twice, take a bath that doesn't wash away the memory of his fingers on my throat, and practice faces in the mirror for when Marco comes home. Devoted wife. Happy to see him. Not thinking about his father at all.

The front door slams at eight-thirty, hard enough to rattle the paintings. Marco's voice carries up the stairs, slurred and vicious, cursing someone's mother in creative Italian. My body tenses automatically, already reading the storm in his footsteps—too heavy, too fast, too angry.

He appears in our bedroom doorway like a thundercloud in an expensive suit, his face flushed with alcohol and rage. A business deal gone wrong, judging by the way he's loosening his tie like it's strangling him.

"There's my beautiful wife." The words drip sarcasm as thick as the whiskey on his breath. "My lucky charm. My blessing from God."

"Marco, what happened?"

"What happened?" He laughs, but it's all broken glass and bitterness. "What happened is that ever since I married you, everything I touch turns to shit. That's what happened."

He crosses the room in three unsteady strides, grabbing my arm hard enough to leave marks. "The Torresi deal fell through. Twenty million dollars, gone. And you know what Torresi said? He said the Santoro name is cursed. That marrying beneath ourselves brought bad luck to the Caruso family."

"Marco, you're hurting me." I try to pull away, but his grip tightens, fingers digging into flesh like he's trying to reach bone.

"Hurting you?" His free hand shoots out, catching my face in a slap that snaps my head sideways. Pain explodes across my cheekbone, copper flooding my mouth as my lip splits against my teeth. "You don't know what hurt is yet."