Page 13 of A Love Most Brutal (Morelli Family #2)

MAXIM

The church is full, one half of Russians, the other of Italians and a large handful of Irish clan members, too. They’re not all criminals. Some are children, others just married to mobsters, some none the wiser or perfectly fine pretending to be oblivious.

Our communities have been friendly enough these last months, a feat considering that when my father was alive it wasn’t uncommon to spit as you walked by a Morelli. ‘Friendly’ might be too strong a word, but there is a cordiality there.

Or maybe a begrudging respect for the decisions of their dons, even if they can’t get behind them with all sincerity.

My three sisters sit at the front row on my side, Nadia looking like she is going to burst with the excitement of the event, Vera off in her own world, and Sophia vaguely bored but as put together and polished as ever.

Her husband, Dante Delvecchio, an underboss in Chicago, sits by her side, arm slung behind her.

They loathe each other, but he knows that hurting her would mean death by me if not by Sophia first.

Now that it’s the day of the actual wedding, I’m trying not to take our mother’s absence personally. She hates this city, but I’m certain she does love me. Just too many memories of him .

Nadia meets my eyes and hers sparkle as she gives two thumbs up. She said that a new person joining the family is the most exciting thing to happen in a decade, and she might be right about that.

When a violin and piano spring to life with a romantic wedding march, and the tall wooden doors at the end of the church open, blood rushes in my ears.

I’m thirty-eight years old, I’ve never been married, and now— right now —I’m marrying someone I barely know, who barely knows me . We have no grand presumptions of love for each other, only shared duty and mutual benefit from the arrangement.

That is all.

I’ve already seen Marianna, just twenty minutes ago when I brought her the necklace. But when she appears down the aisle after each of her sisters, her arm wrapped in her mother’s, I am bowled over once again with the sight of her.

She is stunning, as she always is, but I have a unique reaction to her beauty as she is swathed in white, stepping toward me to become my wife. I cannot help but stand taller, stretch my chest wider, lift my chin, flex my hands at my side.

As she approaches, my mind settles on one truth: Marianna Morelli is not a woman, she is a cataclysm. A natural disaster bound straight for me, and I will be as powerless to stop what she stirs up as someone in the path of a hurricane.

Her face is serious, as it so often is, but her eyes contain a multitude of intrigue that I can’t tear myself away from.

Her mother hugs Marianna first, and then offers me a hug as well, which I accept, kissing the matriarch softly on her cheek and trying to imbue as much sincerity as I can in my expression.

I try to assure her that, if her youngest daughter cannot be with someone she loves, she will at least be safe.

She will be cared for and cherished, protected and enabled, and our children will be adored and given what they need to thrive in a world that is punishing and cruel.

I try to tell her, with only my eyes, that Marianna is secure with me.

I don’t know that she gets all that, but she does nod, and squeezes my forearm before ushering me to look at her youngest daughter who stands across from me now, a bouquet overflowing with fresh flowers and eucalyptus clutched in her hands.

Her niece holds out a hand for the flowers, and Marianna startles, realizing she’d forgotten the step and hands them to her.

Now, with both of our hands empty, she meets my eyes once again. After a quiet moment, one side of her mouth lifts into a slight smile.

I offer her one of my hands and she takes it, then the other, and her fingers are cold and mine are too warm and we’re holding onto each other before a city of mobsters.

The priest begins his speech, and I barely hear him.

Marianna looks at the priest while he speaks, and it gives me the opportunity to study the slant of her nose, slightly crooked like it’s been broken once before.

She has freckles on her cheeks, ones you’d have to be very close to see, and I want to count them.

The dress’s straps slightly cover the scar on her shoulder, but not entirely.

“Maxim?” The priest says, repeating himself.

I clear my throat. “Hm?”

“I know she’s stunning, but now you have to say your vows,” he says with a smile, and a chuckle sounds from the audience.

Even if I wanted to, there would be no going back after this.

I tune into the words the priest has me repeat and, in front of every person in my world and hers, I vow to be faithful and honor her. She does the same, her voice steady and determined.

And then her nephew is at our side, rings in hand, and before I know it, I’m slipping a thin gold band on her finger and reminding myself to breathe when she puts a ring on mine.

“You may now kiss,” the priest says with a grin.

Marianna looks up at me from beneath her lashes and tilts her jaw up as I lean down to meet her mouth.

The church feels heavy with silence. Her eyes close as my lips press against hers and I know in this instant I will not be the same again.

I attempt to move away before I fall too deep into the madness that is kissing her after imagining it for so long, but one of her hands comes up to grip my lapel and tugs me back to her, closer this time, and deepening the kiss as the church erupts into loud cheers and applause.

My hands slip around her waist and pull her up to me. We didn’t talk about kissing, nor intimacy, only about the necessity of making a child. I don’t know if she’ll kiss me again for the rest of our lives, but if this is the last she ever offers me, at least it is this one .

Immediately following the ceremony came the pictures, then the food, the line of guests to congratulate us, the cake cutting, more pictures, before, finally, it’s time for our first dance as husband and wife.

The DJ announces that it’s time for the bride and groom to make their way to the dance floor, dimming the lights as we approach, and Marianna grabs my forearm and pulls so that she can reach my ear.

“Pretend you love me,” she whispers. Her eyes are on the table where her family and my sisters sit. “Please. Make it look like you actually love me. I don’t want my Goddaughter forever disillusioned by the institution of marriage.”

“Yes, wife.”

She smirks at my response, and doesn’t stiffen when I pull her close to me, one hand on her back and the other holding up her hand. We are still, everyone quiet like a held breath, and then the music begins and I lead her in a dance.

She’s in shorter heels than usual, putting the top of her head in line with my chin.

Tiny pearl pins are arranged in her curly hair without order, reminding me of the freckles on her chest. I was engaged once, a separate time from my nonexistent engagement to Vanessa, and my ex fiancée was tall, almost six feet.

I always believed I wanted a tall woman.

I had many beliefs about my type; what they should look like, be like, act like.

Marianna fits not a single one of them.

She is brash and violent, a storm of a woman in a very compact form. Her hands are calloused, knuckles scarred, and her arms and shoulders have muscle definition in spades. She seldom smiles, and laughs less.

And yet.

“You’re good at this,” she says.

“Dancing?”

“Acting.”

“Right,” I breathe.

“This isn’t the first time we’ve danced like this,” she says, like she’s just remembered. I wait a beat to nod as if I haven’t recalled the weight of her hand on my shoulder dozens of times in the last eight months.

“The Mayor’s Gala,” I say, and hitch her closer until her chest is pressed against mine. It’s all for show, of course. And because, well, this is my only wedding as Vera so kindly pointed out.

“Do you remember what you told me?” she asks.

“Hm.” I stall by leading her into a spin under my arm and am surprised to see a light in her eyes that immediately makes me do it again.

She smiles, eyes shining, and I pull her closer to me still.

The night of the Mayor’s Gala wasn’t the first time I’d seen Marianna Morelli, but it was our first real conversation. I was just a person on her list, assigned by her sister to seek intel from while the rest of the family did the same with every other criminal in attendance.

My resolve to stay away from her was weak after just one conversation. A five minute interaction and I was ignoring the careful rules I’d set for myself and asking her to dance.

I saw on her face that it was begrudgingly, but she said yes.

“I asked if your sister knows where you like to spend your evenings,” I recall from that night.

“And I told you to fuck off and mind your business.”

It’s my turn to smile, much like I did then, and duck my head. “And then I told you that rumor has it you’re as good of a fighter as you are a dancer.”

“And that’s when I thought you might be trustworthy,” Marianna says. Her hand travels up to my neck and tugs until my face is close to hers. I think for one mindless moment she might kiss me, but her lips pass mine and press near my ear, sending goosebumps I hope she can’t see over my skin.

“Do not make me regret that trust, husband ,” she says, and it doesn’t matter how scary she sounds, hearing her call me that makes my stomach flip.

I’m fucking thirty-eight years old reacting like a teenager to my own wife calling me her husband.

“I vow to kill you if you do,” she says, and her lips trace over the shell of my ear like a kiss.

I pull back to meet her eyes that remind me of fall; of the sun filtering through leaves.

I smile and press a kiss to her temple. She tenses, just barely, in my arms.

I don’t recite my own private vow.

I vow that you will be the very death of me, Marianna Orlov.