Chapter 16: Kira - Marrying the Mafia Daddy

“How long?” The words tear out of my throat before the elevator doors have fully closed behind us. “How long have you been interfering with my mom’s care?”

My voice echoes off the penthouse walls, too loud for the space, too raw for the morning light streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Domenico doesn’t flinch. He walks past me, jacket already off, throwing it over the back of the sofa with a flick of his wrist.

“Answer me.” I follow him into the living room, my shoes still on because I haven’t stopped moving since we left the hospital. “Domenico. Look at me.”

When he turns, his face is calm. Infuriatingly, unreasonably calm. The kind of calm that… that… that’s pissing me off even more, which I didn’t think was even possible.

“How long?” I ask again, quieter this time. The anger’s burning through the exhaustion, and my hands are shaking. “When did that happen?”

The drive home from the hospital plays in fragments behind my eyes. Me pressed against the passenger door, forehead against the cool glass, watching Boston slide past without seeing any of it. Domenico’s hands on the wheel, his jaw working, the silence between us building like pressure behind a dam.

We didn’t speak. Not when he parked. Not in the elevator. Not until I couldn’t hold it back anymore, and now the dam’s broken, and everything’s flooding out.

“Harry came to see me,” Domenico says, finally turning my monologue into a conversation.

God, I don’t think I’ve ever been this livid in my life. Despite everything that’s happened, despite what Dad’s done to me, this is the straw that broke my back. Because this isn’t about me. It’s about Mom.

“When?”

“Harry came to see me the day I dealt with Greg.”

I open my mouth to demand more details, but Domenico continues talking. He explains Dad showed up to get the remainder of the money he felt like he was owed. I listen intently as he details their meeting, including the original contract with Paolo, which was only ten years long. Apparently.

“That makes no sense,” I murmur, more to myself than my husband.

I signed the contract as well, and I don’t remember that clause being in there. Domenico’s expression hardens as I tell him just that.

“You didn’t know about that?” When I shake my head, he lets out a low growl. “I’ll call Paolo to confirm that was his agreement.”

“Don’t bother,” I snip. “I don’t care about any of that anymore. I want to know about my mom, Domenico. The rest is just… distracting.”

Something hard flashes in his eyes, but it’s gone before I can name it. “You already know I took over the expenses,” he says. Each word measured, precise. “I removed your dad’s authority and arranged for you to be placed in charge of her treatment instead. Every decision about Paige goes through you now, Kira. Not him. Not me. You.”

The words hit like stones, one after another, and for a second, I can’t breathe around them. “You gave me control.” My voice is barely a whisper. “Over my own mom. And you didn’t even care enough to tell me I had it.”

Domenico doesn’t apologize. He stands there, solid, unmovable, and the look on his face is the same one he wore in the hospital corridor. Certain. Unwavering.

“I would do it again,” he says, his tone matter-of-fact. “Without hesitation. You told me yourself that your dad was using Paige as leverage. Do you honestly think he would ever stop?”

When did I… oh, right. For a moment, I forgot I had told him all of this when we left the wedding reception and drove to his penthouse.

“You don’t know whether he would or wouldn’t,” I reply.

“Don’t be naïve,” Domenico scoffs. “Men like your dad don’t willingly let go of whatever small power they have, Kira. As his daughter, you should know this.”

He’s right, I know he is. But right now, I’ll die on the hill that he doesn’t know because I refuse to agree with him. My temper won’t allow it.

When I don’t speak, Domenico continues. “So yes, I took his control over Paige away. If you want me to feel bad for that, you’re shit out of luck, baby.”

“Then why not tell me?” I’m pacing now, back and forth in front of the windows where the city sprawls below us. “Why let me sit in that hospital for weeks thinking I had no say? Why let me believe my dad was still calling the shots when you’d already taken them away?”

He’s quiet for a beat. Just long enough for me to feel the weight of it.

“I should have told you,” he says. “That part, I’ll admit. I should have told you.”

It’s not enough. It’s nowhere near enough. The admission lands like a match on gasoline, and everything I’ve been holding back since yesterday—since the seizure, since the hospital, since Dr. Morgan’s cold certainty and the forms with my dad’s signature—all of it ignites at once.

“Of course you should have told me.” My voice is rising again, climbing toward something I can’t control. “There are so many things you should have told me, Domenico.”

“Like what?”

“Like… like when you’d beaten Greg and had him here to apologize.” I have no idea why that’s what my brain’s latching onto. “You could have given me a heads-up. But no, that would be too easy, wouldn’t it? Or is it beneath you to consider me in anything you do?”

I’m in his space now. Close enough to see the flecks of darker blue in his eyes, close enough to feel the heat coming off him, and I don’t care. My finger jabs at his chest, and he doesn’t move.

“Don’t fucking do that,” he growls.

“Do what?”

“Stand there and pretend I don’t consider you. Every goddamn decision I’ve made since putting that ring on your finger has had you somewhere in it.”

A bitter laugh tears from my throat. “Oh, well, how lucky for me. Maybe next time you can actually tell me about one of them.” Each word lands like the accusation it is. “I’m so tired of feeling like a passenger in my own life.”

His jaw works. I watch the muscle jump in his cheek, watch his hands flex at his sides, and for one wild second, I think he might grab me. Might shut me up with his hand around my throat or his mouth on mine.

But he doesn’t move. And that… that stokes my anger even more. Because how can he be so controlled when I feel like I might explode from everything? I’m overwhelmed, tired, and, well, I feel so goddamn used.

I continue to pace until I feel my control return. Well, at least the semblance of it. By now, my palms are tender from how hard I’ve been digging my nails into the soft flesh. When I raise one and study it, the small crescent marks look angry.

“I didn’t choose this,” I whisper. The anger’s burning out, leaving something raw and shaking underneath. “I didn’t choose to marry into your world. I didn’t choose any of it. My dad made that choice for me, and then you made it again when you stood up in that church, and now I’m here, and I still don’t get a say in anything that matters.”

“Don’t you fucking compare me to your dad,” he snarls.

The force of his voice stops me cold, and I know I should calm myself. I. Know. It. But… I can’t. Or maybe I won’t.

“Why?” I shout. “Because you don’t like hearing it?”

“Because I’m nothing like that piece of shit.”

“You both decided you knew what was best for me.”

“He sold you, Kira.”

Oh… this bastard. “And you bought me!” I scream.

His nostrils flare. “I fucking married you.”

“At gunpoint.”

The penthouse feels too small suddenly. The ceiling too low, the windows too wide. I’m trapped between the man in front of me and the life behind me, and neither one feels like mine.

Domenico’s eyes haven’t left my face. His anger hasn’t faded. But something in the set of his shoulders has shifted, and the air between us feels charged, like the moment before lightning strikes.

“You want a say?” he says. His voice is quiet. Dangerously quiet. “Then say it, Kira. Because I’ve been waiting for you to ask for something—anything—since the day I married you, and all you’ve done is take what I give you and thank me for it.”

He closes his eyes for a moment, long enough for me to shift my weight. Then he opens them again.

“I’ve repeatedly told you to use your goddamn words. Do you think I say that for fun? Or to remind you to use your voice? Hmm?”

The words hit like a physical thing. I open my mouth. Close it. The truth of it sits between us, ugly and undeniable, and for a second, I have nothing.

Then the anger finds its voice again, and it’s louder than before.

“You want to know what I want?” My voice is shaking. “I want you to stop making decisions about my life without asking me. I want you to look at me and see a person, not a possession you acquired.”

Domenico’s eyes darken. Something shifts in his posture—a tightening across his shoulders, a narrowing of his gaze—and the temperature in the room drops by several degrees.

“I did acquire you,” he says, his tone low and lethal. There’s an edge to it now that wasn’t there before. “You look at every boundary, every precaution, every decision I make, and you see a man who gets off on having power over his wife.”

“That’s no reason to treat me as such,” I volley.

His lips twitch as though he wants to smile. “Think carefully about what you’re saying, Kira.”

“What do you mean?”

“Am I treating you that way, or are you acting that way?”

“I…” I trail off when the words break through the cloud of anger that seems to flow around me.

“You married into a life where security isn’t a given, Kira. Where enemies exist. Where loyalty is the difference between living and dying,” he snaps. “The decisions I make—the rules I set—they exist because the alternative is leaving you vulnerable in a world that would eat you alive.”

“Then explain them to me.” I’m pacing again, my hands cutting through the air. “Don’t just hand them down like commandments. Tell me why. Make me understand. Treat me like I’m capable of understanding the world I’m supposedly part of.”

“You want understanding?” He takes a step toward me, and I hold my ground. “Greg approached and scared you in your own fucking home. In my world, that man doesn’t walk away. He doesn’t get a second chance. He gets buried. But because of you, he still lives. To you, that’s mercy. To me, that’s weakness.”

His blue eyes are hard, icy. “That’s the reality, Kira. Not the sanitized version you want to believe in. The real one.”

“That’s easy for you to say.” The words come out before I can stop them. Small. Raw. Devastating in their simplicity. “I didn’t choose to marry into your world. My dad sold me, and your son abandoned me, and you stood up and took me because it was convenient, and now I’m here, and I’m supposed to be grateful for the privilege of living by your rules?”

Something fractures in his expression. Just for a second—a flash of something that might be… no, it’s not hurt. Men like Domenico are incapable of feeling that. And it doesn’t matter because it’s already swallowed by something darker.

He takes a step closer to me. “Let’s get something straight here, wife.” Another step. “You did choose this, you told me so yourself.” I gulp as he takes a third step. “You told me your dad promised to spare your mom if you agreed, which you did. That’s a choice, baby. Choices don’t only exist when the options are palatable or even easy.”

When he takes another step toward me, I mirror him by taking one backward. It’s not until two moves later, as I feel the cold and unyielding wall at my back, that I realize I’ve cornered myself.

Domenico wears an infuriating smirk as he places his hand on the wall beside my head and leans in. He’s so close I feel his hot breath fan across my skin.

“Let’s suspend reality and say you didn’t have a choice.” His voice is rough. “It changes nothing, baby. You’re in it now. You’re my wife. And I will never, ever pretend this world is something it isn’t just to make you more comfortable.”

“Then where does that leave room for me?” My voice cracks. “Where do I fit in a life where you control everything? Where the only choice I get is whether to obey quietly or make a scene?”

“You fit wherever you fucking well please.” His hand drops from the wall. “But you don’t get to leave.”

The words hang between us. Heavy. Final.

“Maybe I will.” It’s out before I can think about it. A lie. A threat born of anger and exhaustion, and the desperate need to feel like I have options. “Maybe I’ll just walk out that door and never come back.”

As soon as the words leave me, I know I shouldn’t have said them. The anger surrounding Domenico doesn’t disappear. It crystallizes, hardening into something colder and more dangerous than anything I’ve seen from him before. His eyes go flat. His mouth sets in a line that could cut glass.

“No.” The word is quiet. “You’re not leaving, Kira. You’re mine, and you have been mine since the moment I stood in that church and took what belonged to me. You’re mine until death decides otherwise, and even then, death doesn’t get a say in my marriage.”

The possessiveness in it should make me recoil. Should make me furious… and it does. Without thinking, I raise my hand and slap Domenico as hard as I can.

The slap lands with a crack that echoes off the penthouse walls. My palm connects with his cheek with enough force to snap his head to the side, and the sound of it—sharp, definitive, unmistakable—kills every other sound in the room.

For one heartbeat, nothing moves.

Then Domenico turns back to face me, slowly, and the red mark on his cheek is already rising, four distinct finger-shapes blazing against his skin. His eyes are wide. Not with anger. With something I can’t name.

“Oh my God!” My hand flies to my mouth. Horror floods through me, ice-cold and immediate. “Domenico, I’m so sorry. I didn’t… I would never…”

His hand shoots out and catches my wrist. “Do it again.”

The words don’t make sense. I stare at him, my heart hammering against my ribs, my palm still stinging from the impact. “What?”

“Do it again.” His voice is rough. Commanding. His eyes hold mine, unblinking. “Hit me, Kira.”

“No.” I try to pull my wrist free. He doesn’t let go. “No, I’m not going to… let me go, Domenico. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Hit. Me.” His fingers tighten around my wrist. “You’re fucking furious. So hit me. Right here.” He tilts his head, presenting the other cheek with a cold, deliberate challenge. “Unless you’d rather keep shouting.”

Something breaks. Something deep and hot and raw, something that’s been building since the wedding, since the hospital, since the moment I realized my life belonged to someone else and I had no say in the matter.

My free hand connects with his cheek. Harder this time.

“Again,” Domenico demands as he releases my wrist.

I hit him. Open-handed, across the chest this time, the sound duller but the force behind it just as vicious. My palm burns. My wrist aches. I don’t care.

“Again.”

Another strike. Another. My hand is curling into a fist now, and the blows land against his chest, against his shoulders, anywhere I can reach, and he doesn’t block them. Doesn’t defend himself. Just stands there, solid as a fucking wall, and lets me hit him.

The tears come without warning. One second I’m swinging, the next I’m sobbing, great heaving sobs that tear out of my chest like they’ve been waiting for permission. My fists keep landing, but there’s no force behind them anymore, just the desperate, useless pounding of someone who has nowhere else to put the rage.

“Stop making decisions for me,” I choke out between hits. “Stop leaving without telling me. Stop treating me like I’m too fragile to handle the truth. Stop…” My voice breaks. “Stop making me feel like I don’t matter.”

Domenico’s chest rises and falls under my fists, steady and unyielding, and the only sound in the penthouse is the thud of my hands against him and the ragged, broken noise of me coming apart.

I hit him until my arms are too tired to lift. Until my fists uncurl and my hands flatten against his chest, gripping his shirt instead of striking it. And through it all, he stands there. Taking every blow. Not moving an inch.

My hands are still fisted in his shirt when my legs give out.

It happens without warning. One second I’m standing, the next my knees buckle, and I’m sliding down the wall with nothing to catch me but gravity and the sudden, sickening realization that I have nothing left.

No anger. No fight. Just the hollow, shaking aftermath of everything.

Domenico moves before I fully go down. His arms are around me, and then we’re both on the floor, his back against the wall, me pulled tight against his chest. One hand cradles the back of my head, fingers threading through my hair, and the other arm locks around my waist, holding me against him like he’s afraid I might dissolve.

I don’t dissolve. I sob. Great, heaving, ugly sobs that come from somewhere so deep I didn’t know it existed. I press my face into his chest, and I can feel his heartbeat through his shirt, steady and strong, and the contrast between his calm and my collapse makes me cry harder.

“I can’t,” I gasp between sobs. I want to tell him that I can’t keep living like this, but the relentless sobs make it impossible to speak. So I stop trying and just shake against him.

His hand strokes my hair. Slow. Even. It’s the kind of touch that says I’m not going anywhere, no matter how hard you fall apart.

“I will always protect you.” His voice is low, rough against the top of my head. “I will always control security around you. I will always make the decisions my position requires.” A pause. His fingers tighten in my hair. “But you’re right. You should know about the things that directly concern you.”

The admission lands like something fragile. I hold my breath for a beat, afraid it might shatter if I move.

“Yes, I should,” I sniffle.

“It’s a two-way street, Kira,” he murmurs. “You need to stand up for yourself, for the things you want. I’m not a goddamn mind reader. If you don’t speak up, how am I meant to know what you want?”

“I want…” I have to stop. Swallow. Try again. “I want you to tell me if you won’t be home for dinner.”

“Okay.”

“I want you to tell me when you’re leaving our bed in the middle of the night. Instead of me waking up and finding you gone.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t want us to live completely separate lives.” The words come easier now, tumbling out in the order I told them to Carly over pasta and lemonade. “I like talking to you, it makes me feel like we’re actually…” I trail off, not sure how to finish.

“A married couple,” Domenico finishes for me. His voice is gentler than I’ve ever heard it. “Not like you’re a tenant in my house.”

The accuracy of it makes my chest ache. I nod against his shirt.

“And if I’m going to come home to something like Greg again, could you warn me first?”

Domenico’s hand stills briefly against my hair. “Something like Greg?”

“Someone beaten and bloody in our home,” I say, my voice wobbling. “I know that’s part of your world, and I’m not asking you to pretend it isn’t. I just… I don’t want to walk into it without knowing what I’m about to see.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it.”

“So do I.”

Emboldened by his agreement, I continue. “And I want you to stop keeping me ignorant about decisions affecting me and Mom.” This one hurts the most. Fresh tears well up, hot and sudden. “You let me sit in that hospital for weeks thinking I had no say, when the whole time, the say was mine. You just hadn’t bothered to tell me.”

His arm tightens around my waist. “I am sorry for that.” The words are rough. Unpracticed. Like he’s saying them in a language he’s still learning. “That was a mistake. I should have told you.”

“It was.” I press my forehead harder against his chest. “But you still did it. You still took her away from him.”

“Without hesitation.”

“I know.” I close my eyes.

The realization is unfolding slowly, warming something cold in my chest. That’s the difference, isn’t it? My dad used control to take power from me. He used Mom’s care as leverage. He made sure I knew exactly how little say I had, because that’s how he kept me where he wanted me.

But Domenico—my husband—removed that leverage like it was nothing and gave it to me, demanding nothing in return. The silence stretches as his heart beats in a steady and soothing rhythm under my ear.

“Don’t do something like that again without telling me,” I whisper.

I expect another argument, so I’m surprised when he simply says, “I won’t.”

Satisfied with that answer, I curl deeper into him. My sobs have quieted to hiccups, then to the uneven rhythm of someone who’s cried themselves empty. Even though I’m still clenching the fabric of his shirt, the grip has changed from anger to something desperate and grateful and terrified all at once.

“Hold me tighter,” I whisper.

When his arms tighten immediately, I let out a small huff. I hate agreeing with him right now, even in my own head. But I do need to get better at saying what I want—or using my words.

One of Domenico’s large hands slides from my hair to the base of my skull, cradling me against him with a firmness that borders on possession. The other arm locks around my waist, pulling me flush against his chest until there’s no space between us, until I can feel every breath he takes, every shift of muscle under his skin.

I am a mess. Snot-nosed, red-eyed, emotionally flayed. And Domenico DeLuca, the man who rules Boston, is sitting on the floor while holding his crying wife.

For the first time since the argument began—since the hospital, since Dr. Morgan, since the moment I realized my life had been rearranged without my consent—I feel heard.

Not placated. Not managed. Heard.

And underneath the exhaustion, underneath the raw, scraped-clean feeling of having nothing left to give, something warm settles in my chest. Small. Tentative. The first green shoot after a forest fire.

Gratitude. For the man who took every blow I threw and didn’t budge an inch.