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RAFFAELE

“ I want to be clear. There is no landlord anymore. I own the damn building?—”

“Lift your arm,” mutters Vito to my left.

I obey. “So I’m the one you deal with. I don’t care if you get ten letters from the landlord. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s me . So?—”

“Other arm.”

“Just rip those up, burn them, I don’t care, okay? In fact, beyond that, I own the fucking land it stands on?—”

“Chin up.”

“So if anyone has any problem with that, then they need to come to me directly. Beyond that, I can look into where those threats are coming from, but the bottom line is I’m in charge now and you?—”

Before I can finish, Vito snatches the phone out of my hand and hangs up.

“Vito—”

“Enough,” he scolds, sliding the phone into my pants pocket. “You’re getting married today. In an hour, in fact. No more business.”

“You’re playing a dangerous game.”

“Am I?” He lifts one brow as he adjusts my tie and smooths down the suit jacket he wrangled me into while I was busy. “How do you feel?”

“Fine,” I say curtly. “Did you dig anything up on Pascal?”

“Nothing,” Vito replies, moving around me and smoothing things out. “He seems pretty regular, and I couldn’t find a good reason he would give up his daughter. The deal between him and the Giordanas seems to have been beneficial to both businesses, so I think he’s scrambling to keep himself afloat. He’s got a lot of debt.”

“Gambler?”

“No. Loans to pay for the shit he sells. Construction has been slow in the city as well. Everyone’s poor, so no one’s renovating.”

“There must be something else.” I turn to face the mirror and admire the black suit Vito picked out for me. The tie and silk handkerchief tucked into my pocket are the same burnt amber as Adelina’s hair, my choice to make us match. “Why else would he give up his daughter?”

“Why does anyone?” Vito brushes along my shoulders. “Money. Power. Business. You’re saving his, so that could be it.”

“Maybe.” I adjust my cufflinks and wiggle my head back and forth, fighting the constriction of the collar around my throat. “My gut tells me there’s something more.”

“Maybe she’s a problem woman, and he’s just going to be insanely grateful to you for taking her off his hands.”

“You think there’s something wrong with her?”

“Maybe.” Vito snorts. “A beautiful woman like that, being single and only being wed out to other families?”

“You know our traditions,” I point out. “Her father is old.”

“My point is that if he cared about those traditions, he would have married her off the moment she turned eighteen.”

“So why did he wait until now?” I ask, finally catching on to what Vito is saying. “See, there’s something else going on.”

“Maybe she’s going to assassinate you in your sleep.”

“Kinky.” I snort. “That would be the most exciting thing that’s happened to me all year.”

“Right, come on. Enough stalling.”

“I’m not stalling, I’m musing behind the hidden reasons I’m about to marry this woman. And also wondering why some fucker is pretending to be the landlord of the buildings we claimed from the Amantes and milking me for money.”

“Probably some idiot who doesn’t know who he’s dealing with.” Vito stops in front of me and places his hands on my shoulders. “Enough stalling . You asked for this.”

“I did.”

Vito squints at me, and I avoid his gaze, tweaking my tie slightly. “Are you nervous?” he asks.

“No.”

“You are, I can tell.”

“Fuck off, I’m not nervous. I’m just…” I can’t place my finger on it. While I never expected Pascal to agree to these terms, it’s strange to me that this is happening. Adelina didn’t try to run and Pascal didn’t try to negotiate terms like divorce after five years. He just said yes. That was it.

It’s strange.

“Whatever.” I shrug the uncomfortable feeling away and straighten my posture. “Let’s go and get fucking married.”

The hotel is decorated exactly as I expected from the hotel brochure with only one exception. Since I had no time to spend with Adelina to learn what she likes and was under no illusions that this was anything other than a business transaction, I simply selected a package when I booked the place and ran with it.

The only request I made was to ensure the flowers matched the gorgeous copper red of her hair. Standing at the altar, they did exactly that. Each chair, filled with guards from my family and a handful from hers, is draped in white fabric with orange roses holding the silk ribbons closed along the backs. The aisle is covered in orange and red rose petals, and each large planter that sits in the gaps between the floor-to-ceiling windows is filled with orange, brown, and red flowers. The scent in the air is amazing. Sun pours in through the lace curtains, creating a golden hue in the room, which brings an unexpected warmth.

Maybe too much warmth.

Heat beads underneath my collar, but I refuse to adjust it, knowing every pair of eyes in this room is locked on me, watching and waiting. I’m about to marry a woman I have never met, but she currently holds immense power over me. One decision could leave me standing here, alone, while she vanishes into the wind.

That kind of embarrassment will not be lived down.

I debate leaving. If I’m the one to leave her at the altar, then I can come up with some crazy excuse and have us married at the registrar’s office a few hours later. Maybe I should have done that instead, a smaller wedding with a handful of people to watch us sign on the dotted line. That would have been my preference.

Over the years, however, I’ve learned that my position of power comes with certain unusual expectations. If I were to get married in secret, people would talk, and that kind of talk is the seed of distrust. To some degree, it has to be a spectacle. It shows people that I’m confident in my people to keep me safe while showing off the woman I deem good enough to be by my side. The showy side of things has never been to my taste, but if it’s the price I have to pay for getting this far in this life, I’ll get through it.

Vito stands next to me, ready to throw his life on the line should it come to it. If anything, he looks more nervous than I do and when our eyes meet, he flashes me a quick smile.

“Imagine she doesn’t turn up,” I murmur in a low voice.

“Don’t fucking jinx it,” Vito hisses back. “We don’t need that kind of bad press.”

“ Bad press ?” I snort. “What are we, celebrities?”

“You know what I mean. Something like this makes people look at you differently. It’s the difference between someone agreeing to a deal or pushing back because they think you’re weak.”

“It’s just marriage.”

“It’s commitment.” Vito sighs. “It’s power. It’s responsibility, and it opens you up to the most powerful thing everyone looks for.”

“Which is?”

“An heir, dummy. You’re powerful now, and having an heir implies you mean to stay that way.”

Shit.

In all the commotion, I hadn’t given much thought to what would happen after Adelina and I marry. I presume she’ll hate me, given that everyone else does, but if she comes from a family following traditions such as arranged marriages and more, will she do her duty there and lie in bed with me?

This new information worms around my mind and serves as a good distraction for the next few minutes as we wait for the arrival of my bride.

Then, the subtle music filling the air swells and the traditional wedding march suddenly belts out from the speakers. The double doors at the far end of the aisle swing open and in walks my bride.

Adelina’s face is hidden by a long white veil draped over it. Her modest but beautiful dress has lace sleeves that wrap down to her hands, a silky ivory bodice that hugs her natural curves, and a large puff skirt that kisses the ground with each slow step she takes. The ivory against the vibrant, deep red of her hair makes my heart skip a beat.

The pictures don’t do her justice, and I haven’t even seen her face yet. She’s escorted by her father, a portly man with a thick mustache that takes over most of his face. He pats her hand as she grasps his elbow and together, they slowly walk toward me. Pascal’s gray suit is as muted as the rest of him, and he quickly fades into the background.

I watch Adelina’s every step like a hawk. She flows down the aisle like she’s walking on air, and it’s difficult to decipher each step. With one hand holding onto her father, the other clasps a small bouquet of orange roses and the petals tremble slightly with each step she takes.

She’s nervous. Her body language betrays that in a second, and I don’t blame her. She must be aware of how her family’s future now rests on her shoulders, and that’s a weight I’m familiar with. Years ago, my family were nothing but feral attack dogs for the Italian Mafia. Easily expendable. Now I have the power, and other people bark for me.

The music swells once more and then tapers away as Adelina and Pascal reach me. I breathe in. The floral scent of the room is suddenly mingled with a sweeter scent that drags me right back to a childhood candy shop.

Pascal flashes me an over-eager smile. “Mr. Varricchio.”

I say nothing. My full attention is on Adelina, but she doesn’t speak. Despite the tilt of her head, it’s difficult to tell whether she’s looking at me or beyond, but it hardly matters. I hold out my hand, and she slides her lace-clad fingers into my grasp.

My attention stays on her for the entire ceremony. The officiant marrying us gives a generic speech about love and acceptance, but the words barely resonate with me. I’m too caught up in watching her, intrigued by the sweetness of her scent and the way in which she hasn’t moved a muscle since she took my hand. She’s almost like a porcelain doll.

We recite vows that hold no personal value, vocalizing the contract that will bind us together, and after I’ve said everything that is required of me, it’s Adelina’s turn. Her head shifts direction away from me, and when she speaks, I realize it’s the first time I’m hearing her voice.

She speaks softly and carefully, enunciating each word as if they hold some sort of importance to her. It’s not until she gets to the end that I realize what she’s doing. She’s not carefully reciting these vows because they’re important to her. She’s repeating them like one would carefully go over the lines of a contract.

It’s subtle, but it’s becoming abundantly clear that there’s defiance in her heart too.

“Rings?” asks the officiant after the vows complete.

Vito steps up to my shoulder and holds out the two simple gold bands purchased for today. I take Adelina’s hand in my own and raise it so I have a full view of her delicate, lace-wrapped fingers. “If the ring’s too big,” I say as I slide it into place, “we’ll resize it.”

By fate or some stroke of luck, the ring slides easily onto Adelina’s finger and remains there. Then we switch, and her delicate yet firm touch takes hold of my hand and shoves the ring on. It’s subtle, but there’s a fraction of force behind the movement, and something hot stirs in my gut.

She doesn’t like me.

And she isn’t going to hide it.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife,” states the officiant with a wide smile, completely oblivious to the historical marriage she’s just created between Adelina and myself. “You may now kiss the bride.”

Adelina’s head tilts back to me, and we stare at one another—or rather, I stare at where I think her eyes are behind the veil.

This is the moment. The moment where she could embarrass me or kill me, depending on how she’s feeling. Her hands fall away from mine and the room is completely silent while I grasp the end of her veil and slowly lift it over her head.

A pair of stunning blue eyes, shining like glass, stare at me from dark lashes. Thick, ruby-red lips press together, and my breath catches in my throat. I knew she was beautiful from her pictures, but reality hits a little differently.

She’s like staring into the face of a siren, holding the very ocean she emerged from in her gorgeous eyes. She blinks slowly, and her eyes flutter, betraying her nerves. Adelina is clearly a woman who tries to remain in control of herself, but the subtle signs are there.

The room holds its breath as I reach for her face and cup the side of her neck. My thumb runs along the soft line of her jaw, and two of my fingers trace over the smooth skin behind her ear. Her lips press together once more, and as I guide her closer for that kiss, I expect to feel resistance.

There is none.

I close the inches between us and breathe deeply, soaking up the sweetness of her perfume. This close, I detect something warm like chocolate mingling with the scent. She smells as divine as she looks. Something hot twists in my gut. I look in her eyes, then down to her lips, then back up to her eyes. She doesn’t look away.

Suddenly, her soft breath ghosts over my skin, and a shudder rolls down my spine. Her eyes flutter closed and her lips part a fraction. I step close and slide my other hand around her waist, which causes her eyes to fly back open. Then, as I press my palm flat against her hot back and pull her close, I lean down and kiss her.

Mrs. Adelina Varricchio.

Welcome to my world.