Page 11

16 years old
Danilo was tense. Tenser than usual, that was. Since Dad’s death, he’d constantly been on edge. I still remembered a moreeasygoing Danilo, but that had been way before Dad’s death, before his fiancée had been kidnapped and then later run off with her kidnapper.
We moved into an accessible executive suite in the best hotel in Minneapolis a day before my brother’s engagement. The view over the Mississippi River and the city was spectacular. The hotel had two bigger suites, but they weren’t accessible, so we chose this one, and it offered enough space for us. Danilo had to sleep on a sofa bed because the suite only had one bedroom. The carpet was very fluffy, which made moving along with my wheelchair a bit strenuous and gave my arms a good workout.
Danilo’s face was hard, almost foreboding. Not the face of someone excited about his engagement. Hissecondengagement, this time to Sofia, his ex-fiancée’s little sister. She was only a month older than me. I really liked Sofia. She was kind, and she still talked to me like she did before my accident.
“Are you excited?” I asked him.
He looked up from his phone, where he’d no doubt been checking work emails. “Excited?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes with a teasing smile. “About your engagement.”
Danilo shook his head. “I don’t see why I should be. This is my second engagement, and I’m only concerned about making it to the wedding this time.”
I hoped he didn’t share his thoughts with Sofia. She struck me as an emotional person who seemed quite happy about her bond to my brother. “I would be excited if this was the day before my engagement.”
Danilo put down his phone, reluctance passing across his face. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
I wheeled closer. “My sentiments toward an engagement that’s probably never going to happen?” The moment the bitter words left my mouth, I wanted to slap myself. I didn’t like itwhen I turned bitter. That Cincinatti had broken our families’ promise that we’d marry had stung, and my options were slim, but my happiness didn’t depend on marriage. At least, I tried to tell myself this as often as possible, especially now that I was at an age when most other girls were already promised. Sweet sixteen. I wasn’t sure who’d invented that term, but they’d probably never heard the jibing comments of older female relatives who made sixteen sound like the tipping point before you turned rotten and unmarriageable. I often felt left out. When girls my age talked about how guys checked them out, I always felt a pang. I’d had boys give me flirty looks before, but they hadn’t been part of our world where everyone just seemed to look at my wheelchair and not the person inside. It frustrated me, but I wasn’t sure how to change people’s perception.
“No,” Danilo said slowly. He stood and squatted before me like he often did when we had something unpleasant to discuss. I narrowed my eyes, wondering what was going on. “The Miones and I came to an understanding.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. Sofia was a Mione, but I didn’t understand his strange behavior if this was about his engagement to Sofia.
Danilo met my gaze and took my hands. Now I was really concerned. “Pietro, Samuel, and I agreed that you would marry Samuel.”
Samuel Mione.
Future Underboss.
Ice prince.
I had only talked to him once, and the memory washed over me like an icy flood.
Samuel and his father attended Dad’s funeral like all Underbosses of the Outfit. Samuel stood out from the crowd with his blue eyes, blond hair, and tall frame. Many girlsfancied him. Now he looked tired, with dark shadows under his eyes and a haunted expression on his face. Ever since his sister had run off to join the Camorra, he’d looked like that. It must have been hard for him.
He and his father shook hands with Danilo before they turned to me.
“My condolences,” Samuel said, meeting my gaze. He was one of the very few who looked me in the eyes. Most people seemed uncomfortable to do so—either because of my grief or my wheelchair. In most cases, it was probably a combination of the two.
“Thank you,” I said softly. I considered telling him I was sorry about his sister, but I wasn’t sure if that was a good idea. Danilo always got grumpy when I mentioned her, and I had a feeling Samuel felt even worse, considering it was his twin.
Samuel nodded, then returned his gaze to Danilo. The tension between them was palpable. It had gotten much worse in the past year, but Danilo refused to discuss it.
I stared at my brother in the present. My heart began pounding, my ears closing off, my throat feeling tight. Samuel was a good catch, a great catch. Most people in our cruel mafia world would even go as far as to say he was too good a catch for me.
Sometimes I caught myself mimicking those horrible thoughts. Not because I believed that I was worth less because of my wheelchair but because the people in our world thought so.
Women were judged by their, if possible, flawless beauty. To think of a disabled woman as beautiful was unheard of. People’s sight reduced itself to the device supporting me, not the body it held. It wasn’t my job to make them see reason.
Even as a child, I’d heard and understood the whispers when Cincinatti had broken off things. People had pitied me becauseI was disabled and doomed to be alone, but nobody had really blamed Cincinatti’s Underboss for wanting the best for his son, which apparently wasn’t me, and protecting him from a childless future at my side.
And now the Miones, now Samuel had chosen me as his wife?
“Why—” I cleared my throat. “Why did he choose me?”
Danilo frowned. “Aren’t you happy?”