"I had it commissioned for you," he said, his voice carrying that practiced smoothness I had once mistaken for affection. "You'll find it suitable."
I regarded the gown where it lay across the velvet settee. The cut was impeccable—the work of a master tailor who understood how fabric should fall against a woman's form. The color was the deep crimson of old blood, the shade favored by Corleone brides for three generations. Every stitch spoke of wealth, of power, of a legacy I was meant to embody.
Yet it had nothing to do with me.
"Try it on," Giorgio said, as though issuing a directive to one of his soldiers. "A woman of your position deserves nothing less than the finest."
I did not refuse. In this world, such small battles were not worth the cost of fighting.
When I emerged from behind the dressing screen, the silk against my skin made me deeply uncomfortable—like being fitted for a coffin while still breathing. The gown was a beautiful cage, and I could feel its bars pressing against my ribs with every breath.
I had barely stepped into the lamplight when his phone rang—the sharp, insistent tone reserved for matters of the Family.
Giorgio moved toward the window, deliberately putting distance between us. Perhaps he had forgotten how close we had once been, how I had learned to read the tension in his shoulders, the subtle shifts in his breathing. Every word of his conversation reached me with perfect clarity.
"I'll be there right away."
A pause. His spine straightened almost imperceptibly.
"She got caught in the rain."
His voice dropped, taking on a quality I had never heard directed at me—something soft and urgent and real.
"The southern road. I know the place."
Another pause, longer this time. When he spoke again, his tone was low and intimate, meant for someone who held his heart in her hands.
"Red suits you, cara mia."
The endearment landed like a blade between my ribs.
When the call ended, Giorgio turned back to me, his expression rearranged into the mask of the dutiful betrothed. "I'll have someone bring you medicine. You look unwell."
I nodded, my face as still as marble. "All right."
The moment the heavy oak door closed behind him, I remained where I stood, unmoving as a statue in a mausoleum.