She Kissed His Rival to Make Him Jealous—The Mafia Boss Quietly Locked the Ballroom Doors

The black Maybach cut through the rain-drenched avenues of Manhattan like a private hearse. Inside the armored cabin, the only sound was the rhythmic thud of the wipers against the glass and the quiet hum of the climate control.

Mateo sat in the far corner of the leather bench seat, staring out the tinted window at the blurred neon lights of the city. He had loosened his bow tie with one hand before they left the ballroom, leaving the collar of his white shirt slightly unbuttoned, exposing the taut line of his throat. He had not spoken a single word since they stepped past the flashing cameras of the society reporters outside the venue.

Vivienne sat opposite him, clutching her beaded evening bag so tightly the small glass pearls cut into the soft flesh of her palms. She stared at his profile—the sharp, aristocratic nose, the lean hollow of his cheek, the faint shadow of stubble along his jawline.

He looked completely unaffected. That was what infuriated her most. If he had dragged her into the car, screamed at her, demanded to know why she had publicly humiliated him in front of every major family on the Eastern seaboard, she could have fought back. She could have screamed that he had neglected her, that he treated her like a piece of fine porcelain meant only to sit on a display shelf.

Instead, he gave her silence. The same heavy, suffocating silence that had been killing her for months.

“Are you going to kill him?” Vivienne asked, her voice cracking slightly against the hum of the tires.

Mateo did not turn his head. “Declan Fitzpatrick is a dog who barks when he wants attention. If I killed him tonight, the Council would demand a tribunal for disrupting the port treaty. He isn’t worth the paperwork.”

“Then why chain the doors?” she demanded, the bitterness bubbling to the surface. “Why put on that theatrical display if you were just going to throw him in an alley?”

Mateo turned his head slowly. The amber light of a passing streetlamp washed over his features, carving his face into sharp planes of shadow and bone.

“The doors were not chained for Declan,” Mateo said softly.

Vivienne’s breath caught. “What?”

“They were chained so that no one could leave before they saw me reclaim what belongs to me,” he said, his tone shockingly even. “They were chained so that every man in that room understood that whatever game you thought you were playing, you were still walking out of that building under my hand.”

“I am not a territory, Mateo!” she snapped, leaning forward. “You don't own me like one of your shipping warehouses!”

Mateo leaned forward too, suddenly closing the space between them until his face was inches from hers. The calm mask slipped, revealing a dark, predatory intensity that made her stomach drop.

“Your father begged me to buy your family’s debts out from under Fitzpatrick three years ago,” he whispered, his eyes boring into hers. “He signed your hand to me to keep Fitzpatrick from turning your ancestral home into a brothel and putting your brother in a shallow grave in the Pine Barrens. You took my ring. You took my name. You sleep in my bed. So do not sit there in your diamonds and tell me what I own, Vivienne.”

Vivienne felt the sting of tears behind her eyelids, hot and humiliating. “You haven't looked at me in three weeks! You don't touch me! You leave before I wake up, you come home smelling of smoke and other people's blood, and tonight you spent forty-five minutes letting Elena Vane stroke your sleeve like she was picking out curtains for our bedroom!”

Mateo’s jaw ticked. His gaze dropped to her lips.

“Is that what this was?” he murmured, his voice dropping an octave, rich with dark amusement. “A tantrum because I was talking to an informant?”

“It wasn't a tantrum!”

“You kissed a man who would gladly cut my throat and display your body in a shipping crate, Vivienne,” Mateo snarled, his hand flashing out to catch her jaw in a firm, unrelenting grip. His thumb pressed against the corner of her lower lip, right where Declan’s mouth had brushed. “You gave our enemies a weapon. And you did it because you felt lonely?”

He rubbed his thumb across her lip, hard enough to hurt, wiping away the dark plum lipstick until her mouth burned.

“He tastes like cheap whiskey,” Mateo said, his eyes darkening to coal. “Disgusting.”

“Let go of me,” she whispered, refusing to look away even as tears threatened to spill over her lower lashes.

Mateo didn't let go. Instead, his fingers slid down to her throat, resting directly over her racing pulse point. He could feel the furious, terrified beat of her heart against his palm. For a moment, the tension in the car was so thick it felt like oxygen had been sucked from the interior. His gaze lingered on her mouth, hungry and furious, and for a split second, she thought he was going to kiss her with the same brutal possessiveness he used to rule the city.

Then the car slowed, turning smoothly into the underground private garage of their residential high-rise.

Mateo pulled his hand back, as if touching her burned him. He adjusted his cufflink, his face returning to an expression of impenetrable ice.

“We are home,” he said quietly. “Go upstairs. Go to our bedroom. Do not leave it until I tell you.”

“I’m not a prisoner, Mateo.”

The driver opened Mateo’s door from the outside, the cool garage air rushing into the warm cabin. Mateo stepped out onto the concrete, then turned and looked back at her through the open door.