Chapter 1
“No. Your son was marrying into mine.”
Warren Hale froze in the doorway.
Behind me, the corridor had filled with Marconi capos and bodyguards. Nobody shouted. Nobody reached for a weapon. They simply stood there, shoulder to shoulder, while Preston struggled upright from the sofa and stared at the metal golf club lying at his feet.
My engagement ring remained on the vanity.
I had no intention of putting it back on.
Warren recovered first.
“You’re embarrassing yourself, Giulietta.”
I almost smiled.
“Your son locked me in a room with a golf club.”
“He lost his temper.”
Preston wiped his mouth. “She provoked me.”
I looked at him.
Ten minutes earlier, I might have felt something hearing him say that.
Now I felt nothing.
Then I remembered his first sentence.
This is how my father taught my mother to obey.
I turned toward Warren.
“Where is Celeste?”
His expression changed.
Small.
Enough.
Preston looked at his father.
Warren answered casually.
“My wife has nothing to do with this.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“She left years ago.”
Preston’s jaw tightened.
I noticed.
“When?”
Warren stared at me.
“Why does it matter?”
“Because your son just used her suffering as instructions.”
The room went silent.
Preston stepped forward.
“My mother made her choice.”
I looked at him.
“What choice?”
He opened his mouth.
Warren interrupted.
“She abandoned us.”
Preston looked toward the floor.
Two different reactions.
One rehearsed answer.
I walked to the vanity and picked up my ring.
Not to wear it.
To hold it between two fingers.
“You both expected this wedding to make me a Hale.”
Warren said nothing.
I continued.
“You expected my crews, my harbor votes, my captains, and my family name to become accessible because Preston put this on my hand.”
His face hardened.
That answered enough.
Then Preston muttered:
“Your father understood the arrangement.”
Everything inside me stopped.
My father had been dead four years.
“What arrangement?”
Preston looked at Warren.
Warren looked at him.
May you like
Neither wanted to answer.
And suddenly the golf club was no longer the biggest problem in the room.
