Page 13 of Carlo (Sindicate Towers #9)

Carlo snorts. “The best of it? How the hell do we do that? None of us have any experience with this kind of shit.”

“It might not be so bad. Just keep your valuables locked up and put a tracker on her.” Mariano, ever the problem solver, adds.

His lawyer brain stays in find-a-solution mode.

“What does she look like anyway? If she’s pretty enough, I’ll marry her.

” He says it as a joke, but he can’t stop his face from wincing.

Mariano’s never shown any inclination to marry.

He keeps a rotating queue of women. Easily able to add to the queue thanks to his pretty boy good looks.

“Not so fast, Mariano. Your turn is coming.” We all freeze and turn as one to Bruno.

Salvatore Junior is the only one who’s privy to our dad’s plans other than maybe Gina.

Maybe . My father has been grooming him to take over the family business since birth.

He is the crown prince of our family. A position he relishes.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Carlo turns, fists ready, and growls at Bruno.

Bruno only arches a brow. Even Carlo’s not crazy enough to take on Bruno.

When he first started working for my father.

Handling my father’s enemies with precise civility, people called him a big brute, which was eventually shortened to Bruno.

However, anyone who made the mistake of thinking of him as just a big brute seriously miscalculated.

In the same way a magician fools audiences by having them focus on the wrong thing, Bruno misleads people with his size.

Because the most lethal part of Bruno is his brain.

He is a genius-level strategist. Salvatore Falcone built a kingdom, but it was Bruno who made it an empire.

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” I mutter, barely able to force the words out.

Marrying me off is bad enough, but I want my brothers to have their own options.

I shouldn’t be surprised. Father has been dropping hints for years about wanting to see his sons settled down with families of their own.

But to hear Bruno say it so plainly, so matter-of-factly, makes it all too real.

Carlo’s fists remain clenched, but he says nothing. Mariano is staring off into space, his mind racing with all the different scenarios he can think of to avoid this fate.

“What are you saying, Bruno?” I ask, my brows lowering, as I hold out the hope that I’ve misunderstood.

Bruno sits in the chair that Carlo earlier kicked away.

The high back makes him look like he’s reigning over the room.

We collectively hold our breath, instinct telling us we won’t like the coming proclamation.

“Father wants us to get married. And not just any marriage, but ones that will benefit our family and business.”

I can’t help but roll my eyes. Of course, it’s all about the business. But then Bruno continues, and this shit is serious.

“We’ve been lucky so far, but we can’t rely on luck forever. We need to marry…”

“I don’t. I love women too much to choose only one.” Mariano interrupts.

Bruno tilts his head in a curt nod. Each word is harder than gold when he continues. “Understood. Which is why we will choose for you.” Carlo rears up. “And for you as well.”

His words hush the room. Together we are four powerful generals in the Falcone army, but we sit in varying stages of shock. Bruno uses the silence to muscle his way through our denials. “We need to secure our future, and that means continuing our legacy through our children.”

I glance at Mariano, knowing that he’s thinking the same thing as me. We’re being forced to step up and take our place in the Falcone family, whether or not we like it.

I take another gulp from a glass that has turned ice cold while I listen to Bruno continue.

“Look, no matter what any of us says or thinks. We all have to marry—or should we let everything we’ve built die with us?

” Carlo, Mariano, and I exchange glances.

The weight of his question pushes our disgust down.

“We will marry. What better reason than to preserve our lineage and secure our heritage? If we don’t, then we might as well blow through everything we have now.

Just stop working and go on spending sprees until the end of our days.

” He takes his time holding each of our gazes in turn.

“You probably thought the other would be the one to have children. You’d be happy with a mansion full of nephews and nieces.

I would too. But if one of us doesn’t start, then who is going to have those children?

No, we all need to marry, and why not make those unions as advantageous as possible? ”

Carlo breaks the silence, his voice low and dangerous. “And who are we supposed to marry, Bruno? You have someone in mind?”

Bruno smiles, and for a moment, I wonder if he’s playing some kind of twisted joke on us. But then he speaks, and I know that this is deadly serious.

“We’ll discuss it at another time. For now, just know that this is happening. And there’s nothing any of us can do to stop it.”

This is the Bruno we don’t know. When he’s no longer the Sal jr, my mother would recognize. Now he’s all Salvatore Falcone, a forceful carbon copy of our father. And he’s honing all that brutality in my direction, with a fierce glare.

“Matteo, we need those ports in the eastern Caribbean secured. We pay Torres a lot of money, but another person with a better offer could strip away our advantage unless we start a war. Through marriage, with kids and grandkids, those ports are ours forever. If we have challengers, then the Torres and Falcone family will fight them off together. This marriage will bring us shipping lanes direct from Venezuela, through Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and straight to Florida. I don’t care if she’s the devil’s spawn.

” He turns to Mariano, “Or if she looks like a withered crone, marry her, get her pregnant, and keep her pregnant.”

I shake my head at him. My words are so crisp and cool that the air between us nearly fogs. “If you thought it was so strategic, then why didn’t you marry her?”

“Don’t worry, little bro. I’m right behind you.” He looks at Carlo and Mariano. “We all are. Because we are Falcones, and we will do whatever we need to do to preserve this family.” He lifts his glass and toasts. “Alla faccia di chi ci vuole male.”

We lift our glasses and repeat the curse on our enemies. Because he’s right, and we all know it.

“Even you, Bruno? You won’t marry for love?”

His eyes darken, and for a second, he’s not the future don.

He’s the big brother I remember from when Mama was still alive.

He’s wandered into his thoughts, but I know where they’ve taken him.

I recall the picture I once found of him and a pretty brown skin girl.

She was sitting on his lap in one of those cheap photo booths, but it didn’t matter.

I’m surprised they didn’t burn the booth down with the look they shared.

Before I could question him about her, mama died in that terrible car accident.

Bruno came home to help father and never went back to school.

I haven’t seen him with a woman since. He takes them at his convenience and discards them.

We only know he’s been with one when we see Gina sending another batch of roses and a box of jewelry. The goodbye kiss he gives every woman.

“No.” He focuses on us again. “I’ll do my damn duty to this family, just like all of you.”

* * *

Sindicate Towers sits on Chicago’s gold coast. And like every other building in this area, it shines regally. Has the audacity to gleam as if the vaults below don’t hold the ashes of others. As if the building wasn’t built as neutral ground for the mafia families that battled here.

I take a deep breath to settle my nerves.

Mariano pats me on the back, and I nod. Carlo bumps my shoulder with his.

I step forward a bit out of the line we present in front of the altar on the groom’s side of the wedding.

The Cathedral is on the tenth floor of Sin Towers.

It overlooks the city with stunning floor-to-ceiling vista views of Lake Michigan.

Part atrium and botanical garden, I tell myself that the humid atmosphere used to help the tropical flowers here flourish is why I’m sweating.

Although one glance around the families gathered before this altar tells me, I’m the only one who is.

I look beyond the chapel area to the other side of the room.

The tables are decorated in purple and silver.

That couldn’t have been my father’s decision.

He would have gone for black and bold slashes of blood red.

Nothing subtle about Salvatore Falcone. Gina brushes some specs of dust off his shoulders, and he smiles tenderly at her.

For God’s sake, why won’t she just marry him?

My mother never glanced that sweetly at him.

Her looks were divided between fear and scorn.

Possibly because she knew their affair had already begun.

The organist begins playing, and I turn to look down the cobblestone pathway.

My bride walks slowly down the aisle. Her dark eyes are lovely as she shyly meets my gaze.

I try to picture her slipping a priceless teacup into her purse, and for the life of me, I can’t.

Her dress is a pale lavender that flatters her dark olive skin.

Her eyes are the wide doe shape of a fairy tale princess.

My brother pats me on the back again, dragging my eyes away from the shy fairy who’s stolen my attention.

With a cough that could cover a laugh, he turns my attention back down the aisle.

Her father comes bustling in, rubbing his hands together in a gesture meant to declare, let’s get going.

But it is the harridan behind him that has stolen the attention of everyone.

The bridal gown bunches as she stomps down the path.

Her heels clatter dissonantly on the marble and stone walkway.

The askew veil on her head mocks everyone as if someone struggled to slap it on her protesting head.

A possibility endorsed by the two officers holding each elbow and marching her down the aisle.

I flick a gaze to her sister. The sweet dove I thought was my bride slides her eyes away as if she knowingly mislead me.

Carlo bumps my shoulder again, and I step forward to take her hands.

A task made more difficult by the handcuffs on her wrists.

Huberto Torres is not subtle, either.

If the obvious threatening presence of the police officer alarms the minister, he doesn’t show it.

The warm radiant smile he gives would easily comfort and welcome any other couple.

But we’re not any other couple. My heart dips, and I resist the urge to drop my head as well.

Mama would be so disappointed if she could see me now.

Since she was the only person in my life who ever really saw me, I’m glad she can’t.

At least, I hope she can’t. I speak my vows to a woman who is everything my mother wasn’t.

Everything I would never have picked for myself.

When I lean in to kiss her, she turns her head, offering me her cheek. One word scrapes along the side of my face as she hisses it in my ear. “Don’t.”

I kiss her cheek anyway, and she jerks back as if burned.

Great. Fucking great. This is the hellion I’m supposed to tame.

A woman her own father couldn’t control without handcuffs and police officers.

Without my glasses, up close, her features are slightly fuzzy.

But the fire breathing from them is crystal clear.

Someone forced her to stand here. I had no more say in this than she did.

But I’m the one she’s going to make pay.

This is no way to start a fucking marriage.

But like everyone else I’ve ever known, she’s underestimated me.

I have no desire to fight a woman. No desire to engage in the skirmishes I saw my parents engage in daily.

I will have peace in my house. If I have to put her over my knee and beat it into her.

If I have to fucking train her like a damn puppy to come when I call, I will.

My wife will learn to bend for me, or I’ll fucking break her. Her choice…