There is a particular kind of performance required when you dine with three men who have all touched you in the past forty-eight hours, and none of them are the one you promised to marry.
I enter the formal dining room to find all three already seated. Dante claims the head of the table, his dark suit immaculate, his expression carved from granite.
Nico sits to his right, candlelight catching the sharp angles of a face I now know intimately. Luca occupies the chair across from him, hazel eyes finding mine for a fraction of a second before dropping to his plate.
The empty chair waits for me like a stage mark I am expected to hit.
I take my seat, and the tension wraps around me like a second skin. Dante will not look at me directly. The mark from my slap has faded, but the memory of it sits between us like a fifth guest.
Nico watches me with the satisfied patience of a man who knows exactly what sounds I made in his bed. And Luca's gaze finds mine again, brief and weighted, the invitation to his room hanging unspoken in the air.
The first course arrives. Braised lamb, rosemary potatoes, a reduction sauce that smells like heaven and tastes like nothing because my throat has closed around the absurdity of this moment.
I am eating dinner with men who are contractually entitled to my body, discussing nothing because everything is unspeakable.
"The wine is exceptional tonight," Nico offers, lifting his glass toward the light. "A 2015 Brunello. Dante keeps the good bottles hidden, but I have my ways."
"You mean you bribe the sommelier," Dante replies without inflection.
"I prefer the term strategic alliance." Nico takes a slow sip, his eyes never leaving my face. "Relationships built on mutual benefit tend to last longer than those built on obligation."
The subtext lands with the subtlety of a hammer. I reach for my own glass and drink deeply while the silence stretches unbearable.
"The lamb is overcooked," Luca says quietly. "Someone should speak to the kitchen."
"The lamb is fine," Dante counters. "Your standards have become unreasonable."
The exchange is so painfully mundane that I want to overturn the table just to feel something honest.
Nico breaks first.
"I have been thinking about our arrangement," he says, leaning back with a grin that promises trouble. "Perhaps we should rotate nightly. Dante gets Mondays, I take Wednesdays, Luca can have Fridays. Arianna, of course, remains the centerpiece regardless of configuration."
The joke lands badly. A laugh escapes me before I can stop it, sharp and surprised and edged with hysteria. Dante's mouth twitches despite himself. Luca shakes his head and reaches for the wine bottle, refilling everyone's glasses without being asked.
The alcohol begins its work.
By the second bottle, the edges have softened. Nico launches into a story about a negotiation in Sicily where Dante's composure cracked spectacularly, involving a rival underboss who kept calling him by the wrong name.
"The man called him Dario for two hours straight," Nico explains, gesturing with his wine glass. "Two hours of discussing territory lines and shipping routes, and every single time he opened his mouth it was Dario this, Dario that. I watched Dante's jaw get tighter with every syllable."
"That is not what happened," Dante says, but there is no heat in the denial.
"Luca was there. Tell her."
Luca's mouth curves into a rare smile. "By the end, Dante agreed to terms he never would have accepted, just to get out of the room. The man still sends Christmas cards addressed to Dario Serratore."
Dante counters with a story about Nico's failed attempt to impress a woman by cooking dinner. A kitchen fire requiring three extinguishers. The fire department arriving to find Nico shirtless and covered in marinara sauce.
"The smoke was not intentional," Nico admits. "But the shirtlessness was. I maintain that it nearly worked."
"She left before the firemen finished their report," Dante says flatly.
"She left because she had a prior engagement. The timing was unfortunate."
I find myself relaxing against my will. The wine warms my chest. Nico's charm becomes less irritating when I am not braced against it.
Dante's silence feels less like a weapon and more like a wound he is protecting. And Luca catches my eye across the table, the memory of his mouth on mine sending heat crawling up my neck.
The conversation shifts.
"When can I see Ethan?" I ask, keeping my voice casual.
The table goes quiet.
Nico sets down his wine glass with deliberate care, and the playfulness drains from his expression. What remains is the man who kidnapped my fiancé.
"You have not earned that privilege yet," he says.
The word lands like a slap dressed in silk. Privilege. As if seeing the man I agreed to marry is a reward rather than a right.
"What does earning look like?" I keep my voice level, though my hands want to shake beneath the tablecloth. "How many nights in your bed? How many dinners at this table? How much of myself do I have to hand over before I am allowed proof that Ethan is still breathing?"
"He is alive." Nico's tone carries the patience of a man explaining simple mathematics to a difficult child. "You will see him when I decide you are ready, and not before."
The warmth from the wine curdles in my stomach.
"I want her tonight," Dante says.
The words come out flat, almost formal. A claim staked, a turn taken. His dark eyes meet mine across the table, and I see the hunger beneath the composure, the need he has been compressing since I walked out of that sitting room with his secret ringing in my ears.
I look at him. I remember the things he said this morning. The way he threw the murder at me like a weapon he had been sharpening for two years.
"No," I say quietly.
The silence that follows is absolute.
Dante's jaw tightens. Nico's eyebrows rise. Luca goes very still.
"You offended me this morning." My voice does not waver even though my hands want to shake. "You do not get to rip me open and then climb into bed with me the same day. That is not how this works."
Dante does not argue. He does not push. He just looks at me with those dark eyes, and I see the cost of my refusal register. Not as anger, but as something closer to grief.
I stand. The chair scrapes against the floor.
"Luca," I say, not looking at him. "Walk me out?"