Fallen From Grace [Married to the Mafia Novel] novel Chapter 3

“I’m selling myself to you.” My voice rings clear through the room. If I didn’t have Dante’s attention before, I have it now. He stares me down as he waits for me to elaborate.

It tells me he’s not a man of many words. His piercing gray eyes hold mine and it takes everything in me not to lower my eyes. I hold my head a little higher, my back straighter. I explain to him as concisely as I can about my escape from the Regis family and how Serafino Regis now owns me and my sister. “Buy me and save me from death.”

Dante merely scoffs at my declaration. “Why should I save you? I’m no hero, girl. You’ve stepped into a dragon’s den on your own and now, you’re committing yourself to me? Do you know what that means?”

I’m taken aback by his voice, deep and low. He reminds me of a predator, cold and calculating, waiting for the perfect show of weakness before he lunges at his prey.

Impeccably dressed, in a designer white button-down shirt and black pants, he seems like a man who wouldn’t do anything without expecting something in return.

Slowly, he rounds the large mahogany table and makes his way to me. I stand frozen, not knowing what to do. I don’t know what he wants me to say.

My eyes track his movements, graceful and lightfooted. His footsteps were barely audible on the hardwood floors; a common and effective assassination technique. Yet not many are able to execute it to perfection.

Is this what it feels like to stare at death? Earlier, as Serafino’s bodyguards pointed their loaded guns at me, I felt fear but this is totally different. Under this man’s scrutiny, I’m trembling in fear.

Dante stops in front of me, hands in his pockets. He looks relaxed but I know he would be able to deflect any blow should anyone attack him right now. Suddenly the air is too thin and the temperature is too cold. The power this man radiates can’t be contained in this room. The room felt as if it were shrinking, proof of how his presence is suffocating.

I can’t take it, his aura is forcing me to submit. I lower my eyes as he crowds my personal space.

“You’re afraid.” He comments, and he’s not wrong. “You should be.”

I can’t speak, frozen where I stand. Dante circles me like a hawk as it circles its prey before it attacks. I don’t budge, fighting the urge to cower before him. I can’t falter now. “You’re right,” I say, not taking my eyes off his shoes, too afraid to meet his eyes. “I am scared. I don’t know what it means to sell myself to you but I don’t care. The only thing I care about right now is staying alive.”

Dante chuckles at my answer, “What makes you so sure, I won’t kill you? Your name is already smeared. Why would I want to keep a lady of the Atwood family?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” comes Luca’s reply. I didn’t realize he was still in the room. Being too focused on Dante, I belatedly realize we’re not alone.

That interruption earns him a glare from Dante. He whispers a warning and I feel the anger radiating off him. He doesn’t like being interrupted. I make mental note of it, don’t speak unless spoken to.

“Answer me, woman.” Dante’s anger translates perfectly in his tone. Hearing his voice forces my eyes back to his, which is a mistake because his eyes are boring into mine, demanding and forceful.