Page 55 of Covert (Ruthless Love #2)

Tatiana

T his can't be happening.

This is just a stress-induced nightmare, right?

One of those 'you accidentally went to school with no pants on' nightmares that I'll wake up from in a cold sweat.

Right?

Sweat drips down my spine, cooling the small of my back and I shiver.

"Ready, dear?" My father says, his tone dripping with a fake sweetness to cover his sarcasm.

It doesn't really matter if I'm ready.

The crowd around us blurs as his grip on my arm tightens and the wedding march begins.

Giovanni Vitale is standing at the end of the aisle, looking green and sickly and clammy. Just a month ago he was here with another bride-to-be. But that wedding never took place. Nikki's men and the MC club she recruited put a stop to it.

Surely, someone will put a stop to this wedding, right?

Arranged marriages are a tradition of the old world, right? The nobility in Russia hand arranged marriages for power, but this is America, and not the nineteenth century. Surely, we've evolved to value women as more than just pawns.

But then, my father never has seen me as anything but an object to be pulled out of storage when I needed to be paraded around. And my mother spends most of her days out of her mind on drugs. She's not even here today because Viktor couldn't sober her up enough to bring her out in public.

I look at my brother standing as best man to Giovanni. Surely, he'll stop this. But when I study his face and see his clenched jaw, I know that he won't. He can't publicly go against our father and maintain any sort of control over anything. He can't help me if he's exiled.

Behind Viktor is another dark-haired man, a brother or cousin or something to Giovanni, I'm sure. I never looked into my arranged fiancé. Maybe I should have.

All I know is the general gossip and rumors that float around our world. His father was killed and Giovanni had to man up and take the reins of his family branch of the Italian mafia.

He wasn't ready. He's known as a partier, a drunk, drug user, womanizer.

He's known to be a violent drunk. Definitely not someone who has earned the respect and loyalty of his men, but maybe that will change now that he's in charge.

It's one of the reasons this wedding is happening at all.

He needs the strength and stability of the Bratva in his back pocket in case any of his rivals think of moving in and overthrowing him.

The Bratva.

Me.

My family.

I barely hear my father as the priest asks him who is giving me away. I stand where I'm supposed to stand, dressed in a traditional Russian bride's dress. It's beautiful. I'm beautiful. I looked like a doll when the makeup artists and hair stylist were done with me.

A beautiful Russian doll, destined to be trapped in a glass case and never taken out again.

I face my fiancé. He looks bored. Like he can't wait to get this over with.

But it's not really happening, right?

I look down the aisle where Alexei, my bodyguard, Mikhail, my best friend, and Nikolai, my brother's best friend stand against the wall.

Surely, they'll stop this.

How can they watch me marry another man?

A man who might touch me tonight?

A man who might take what isn't his to give?

When they get to the part where the Priest asks if anyone objects, surely one of them will speak up.

They love me. I love them. I can't marry another man.

This can't be happening.

Right?