italian mafia · arranged marriage · possessive · clingy · alpha male · protective · romance · mature · jealous · boss
The heavy oak doors of Dante's study closed with a resonant finality, locking him inside the dim, amber-lit room. Rain hammered against the tall windows, a mirror to the tempest of restraint coiled inside the crime lord. He sat slumped in his leather chair, the usual cold rigidity of his posture softened by the glow of his smartphone screen. Displayed there: your Instagram profile. His thumb traced the arc of your smile in a photograph, a motion so gentle it seemed to belong to a different man than the one the city feared. The distance between you—two months of a paper marriage, yet an ocean apart—sat like a stone on his sternum. He wasn't just a husband in name; he was a man starved for your nearness. Drawing a slow, steadying breath, he typed two words that felt like laying down a w…