Dictating The Terms

VICTOR

She let out a shaky breath, the faint sound barely piercing the stagnant air of my study. "We’ll be married in exactly three months."

Her voice trembled. The words hung in the space between us, carrying the crushing reality she was finally forced to acknowledge.

I gave a curt nod, my expression locked into an unreadable mask. "Yes. The date is set for the very moment you turn twenty-one."

Her brows pulled together. The tiny crease forming above her nose signaled her frustration. "Do you really think it makes a difference? A few more months won’t suddenly turn me into a wife."

I studied her. She sat in one of my oversized leather chairs, looking small but surprisingly defiant. She was saying things the hardened, blood-soaked men in my syndicate wouldn’t dare whisper in my presence. Yet, beneath the brave front, the nervous cadence of her voice betrayed her. I could hear how scared she truly was.

"You’re right," I stated, offering a brutal slice of honesty. "You’re too young now, and you’ll still be too young then. But at least when you are a legal adult, I won’t feel quite so much like I am marrying a literal child."

She pressed her lips into a tight, thin line and shook her head slowly. She clearly disagreed with my assessment, but she did not dare argue further. She knew better than to push her luck.

Shifting to the practical reality of our impending future, I leaned forward, resting my forearms on my thighs to command the space. "I have two children. They are small, and they require stability. Matteo will be almost five years old by the time we marry, and Gia will be six months old."

I watched her closely. I expected her to recoil in horror. In this treacherous underworld, instant motherhood to another woman's offspring was a burden no young bride ever wanted. I braced for the inevitable reaction—the panic, the revulsion, the selfish tears of a spoiled girl realizing her carefree life was over.

Instead, to my profound surprise, Camilla bravely looked me in the eye. "Do you have pictures of them? Can I see them?"

I was a master at masking my emotions, a skill honed through years of ruthless survival, but I had to work to conceal the shock at her request. A mafia princess asking to see her future stepchildren without an ounce of calculation was an anomaly I did not anticipate.

I pulled my phone from my pocket, tapped the screen, and held it out, showing her the lockscreen. The photo showed Matteo holding his baby sister in a sunlit garden. I didn't need to look at the image. The colors and outlines were permanently burned into my memory.

As Camilla gazed down at the photograph, her tense, guarded expression melted away. The rigid line of her shoulders relaxed. Her face softened into a pure, unguarded smile. For a man surrounded daily by the fake, calculating smiles of mafia lieutenants and rival bosses, her genuine warmth felt jarring.

"They're precious," Camilla murmured softly, clearly captivated by the screen. "And how sweet, the way he’s holding her."

Then, she glanced back up at me. The beautiful smile faded in a heartbeat, replaced by a look of deep empathy that made my chest tighten. "I'm so sorry... about your wife. I heard—"

The mention of Bianca was a raw trigger. The air in my lungs turned to ash.

"I do not want to talk about my dead wife," I snapped.

The words tore out of my throat with a harshness that was far more aggressive than I intended. The icy wrath in my voice cracked through the quiet room like a warning shot.

Camilla physically recoiled. She threw herself back against the leather cushions, biting down hard on her lower lip to stop it from trembling. She gave a quick, jerky nod of submissive fear, her wide eyes locked on mine.

I let the oppressive silence stretch, taking a moment to assess her appearance and regain my own control. Sitting there in her denim jorts and a simple beaded earring, she looked untouched, raw, and bare-faced. She was a total contrast to the polished, contoured mafia princesses I was used to dealing with. Those women painted their faces like armor, desperate to look older and deadlier. Recognizing her stark lack of sophistication, I forced my temper down and let my voice cool to a professional, icy detachment.

"Do you always dress like this?" I asked, nodding critically toward her outfit.

She blinked, glancing down at her clothes with a tiny frown. "I like these types of clothes."

A deep flush crept up her neck and across her cheeks as she realized the sheer intensity with which I was analyzing her.

"I am sure you do," I told her, my tone devoid of warmth. "But I find your current choice of clothing far too casual for your future station. These clothes are not refined or elegant. You will need to wear outfits that explicitly demonstrate you understand the heavy, powerful image you must project as the wife of an Underboss."

She opened her mouth, but I kept talking, dictating her reality without asking for her opinion.

"If you give me your sizes, I will personally have someone put together a new, proper wardrobe and send it to you."

Camilla stared at me in sheer disbelief at my controlling audacity. Her jaw tightened, but recognizing her lack of power in this room, she forced her protests down. She swallowed hard and offered only a stiff, defeated nod.

"Good," I muttered.

Leaning back comfortably in my chair, I proceeded to coldly dictate the rest of the terms of our arrangement. "There will be no engagement party. I do not have the time for such trivialities. Furthermore, I refuse to be seen in public with you until you cross the threshold into legal adulthood."

I let that sink in before delivering the final boundary. "We will remain apart, with zero contact, until the actual day of the wedding. You will not be permitted to meet Matteo and Gia until the morning after the wedding night."

Her shoulders slumped slightly under the crushing weight of my emotional distance. She tentatively pushed back, gripping the arms of her chair. "Wouldn't it make more logical sense for us to spend at least some time getting to know each other before binding our lives together?"

"I don't see the point," I stated sharply, shutting down her plea for connection with a tone that brooked no argument.

She looked down at her lap, defeated. The spark drained out of her, leaving behind a quiet resignation.

"Is there anything else you expect from me?" she asked quietly, her voice barely a whisper. "Other than changing how I dress?"

For a split second, I stared at her undeniable youth. I seriously considered ordering her to start taking birth control immediately. I knew exactly what was expected to happen on our wedding night, and I had zero desire to father any more children in this dark, violent life. The syndicate bred monsters, and my bloodline was complicated enough.

But looking at her innocent face, the crude words stuck in my throat. She was barely turning twenty-one.

Swallowing the demand, I stood up abruptly, towering over her sitting form.

"No. That's enough for now," I said dismissively. "You should leave the library before your parents realize we have been alone together."

Camilla rose slowly, wrapping her arms tightly around her own body as if trying to hold herself together. She lingered in the space for a long, painful moment. An unspoken, desperately lonely question flickered in her wide eyes. She searched my face for any crack in my armor.

Finding none, she pressed her lips together. Without ever voicing the question, she turned sharply on her heel and slipped quietly out the heavy wooden door.

The silence she left behind in the library felt unusually, oppressively heavy to me. I stood there, staring at the closed door, my jaw clenched.

A few moments later, the door handle clicked. Vincenzo stepped back inside, pausing to scan the room before fixing his gaze on me. He arched a skeptical brow.

"What exactly did you say to the girl?" Vincenzo asked, noting the aftermath. "She looked like she was on the verge of tears as she fled into the hallway."

My jaw tightened defensively. I built these emotional walls for a reason.

"Nothing," I lied flatly.

Vincenzo gave me a disbelieving look. He let out a harsh breath, shaking his head.

"I doubt that," he muttered with a sarcastic edge. "But if you say so."