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Chapter one

Red and Green

Cillian

Four Days Later

“ R ed goes well with Green.” Randa’s crisp, pin-striped suit was as sharp as my own as we stood front and center, at the holiday altar of holly and berries.

She was remarking on my family name and the crimson decor that hung on every surface: red ribbons, red Christmas balls, and the red berries strung up above.

“Hmm,” I said, assessing the overdressed bishop who’d been carted in for the occasion. “A Christmas wedding. How nauseating.”

My fucking wedding day.

My parents had been planning this since I was two years old. Now that the appointed day had arrived, it felt oddly anti-climactic.

“Christ.” Randa lifted a single condescending brow. “We should change your name to Ebeneezer Green.”

“Bah, humbug!” I said quietly as we both chuckled at the procession of gowns and suits that paraded before us as the witnesses to this farce.

Randa, or Miranda O’Malley, was the daughter of my father’s favorite guard. Three years my junior, she was raised as family. Now, she was my right-hand man.

“Your mother is putting on a lovely event, Cillian,” Randa chided. “The least you can do is show some appreciation, you overgrown brat.”

Was she an unconventional choice for best man?

Yes. But she was my only trusted friend.

My brother, Riordan, tried to depose me at every turn.

My sisters were as disinterested as could be, and as for other “friends”—well, they weren’t aware of this sham of an engagement.

One that was manufactured when we were still in diapers.

The people outside of the life weren’t privy to how medieval we were in these echelons.

“Appreciation?” I stared out into the crowd, where Riordan schmoozed with the District Attorney. “Thank you, Mum, for forcing me to stick my cock in the ice queen.”

I theatrically shuddered, and covered my nuts, as if they were shrinking from the cold.

“Gia’s really not that bad.” It was Randa’s same old song and tune. “If you’d take the time to know her.”

“She’s as frigid as a Serbian winter.” I was referring to the ice witch that was my fiancée. “And you don’t know her. You just spy on her.”

That was Randa’s gift. She had a network of backstabbers and spies that was unmatched. An intelligence network that clandestinely kept us in control.

“Truly, I wonder if I should abdicate the throne, and pass it to little Rio,” I joked. “Let him take the arctic bitch.”

I’d never give it up. Not now. Because the twerp was second. Second place, second to me. He was the first loser, and nothing more. I would never let him lead. Ever!

“Do you know why your fiancée came back to New York so suddenly?” Randa tilted her head, as if this was an interesting puzzle that would help us pass the time.

I hadn’t thought about it. I spent a lot of time not thinking about Giovanna Eugenie Durante.

“I thought she was going to stay in Boston for a few more months.” Randa reached out and fidgeted with my pocket square, tugging at the corners where it had fallen limp.

“Is that right?” I faced Randa fully as we tilted our heads together in whispers.

“She packed up her apartment three months before her lease was up. As far as I can see, she hasn’t gone back to her mother’s house. I can’t track down where she’s been staying.” Randa clicked her tongue. “That’s not like her.”

My eyes flitted around the room, to the mix of Irish and Italian features that lingered, parted down the middle like they were the Red Sea.

The old war didn’t die when my father slit Eugenio Durante’s throat. It didn’t die when his granddaughter and I were betrothed. It was still alive and well, judging by the polarization of our wedding guests.

“She’s very steady and disciplined.” Was Randa impressed? “Not impulsive in the least.”

‘You mean icy and frigid?”

“Potato, po-tah-toe.”

“Does anyone actually say po-tah-toe. I mean—”

The air left my lungs the instant she came into view. It was those crystal eyes that sparkled brighter than the diamond studs on her ears that did me in.

I hated my cold, treacherous bride with a passion–but those eyes did something to me. She had no business having such stunning windows into her perfidious soul.

It had been seven years since I’d seen her. It was at our ‘engagement party’ when we formally announced this travesty. I had placed the obnoxious ten carat diamond on her skinny hand.

She was a frizzy-haired, zit-covered thing.

Well, ugly ducklings, and swans and all that …

She glided toward me, her arm linked with her weeping mum, Cosima Durante. The witch was dressed from head to toe in the black of mourning. Like she was attending her daughter’s funeral, instead of her wedding.

I could make the change in program if she wanted…

With their steps in time with the melancholy rendition of “In the Bleak Midwinter”, there was a thawing in my bride’s exterior. It was slight. But I had never seen it before. The closer she got the clearer it was. It was a single unshed tear that lined the lower lashes of her left eye.

Like the Madonna weeping.

“Doesn’t she look lovely?” Randa nudged me with her shoulder. “Your mouth is open, Cill.”

“If you say so,” I grumbled, shutting my lips.

Randa was right. But I would never admit it.

It didn’t matter how great the prize was if it wasn’t my choice.

I could never call off this joke of a wedding.

My parents would never allow it, since it kept the peace between us and the Mafia rebels who groused and moped underfoot, promising to overthrow their Irish masters.

My father should have crushed them all instead of granting leniency during the great war.

When Giovanna Durante stood before me, her mother kissed her cheek. The two gazed at each other as if she was about to set sail on a transport ship to Australia. A bit dramatic, if you ask me.

The bride raised her chin, clenched her jaw, and turned to me with great disdain. “Cillian.”

The tear in her eye disappeared, and she was the regal frigid flower once again. A marble statue, covered with icicles.

My name was a curse on her pretty lips. So why hadn’t she called this wedding off?

My parents would have granted her that. They were protective of her. They loved her. They doted on her and spoiled her far more than their own children, and I didn’t know why. Even my father looked at her with a level of gentleness he didn’t have for his own spawn.

“You came,” I whispered, as I took her hand in mine and bowed, pressing my lips to the back of her knuckles.

If we were in a medieval arrangement, then I would play the part.

She lifted an irritated brow.

“The Green family called.” She stepped away from me for a moment, then quietly mumbled, “Like your dogs, the Durantes must obey.”

I smiled, despite myself.

“I should place a collar on this pretty throat.” I reached out and grazed the back of my index finger along her pretty pulse point.

Her skin flushed at my insult. She might be a marble bitch, but I did delight in her annoyance. It showed me that there was a beating heart somewhere under that cold exterior.

“It’s been seven years, little Gia. You’ve been far away in Boston.” I looped my arm around hers, tugging her closer to me. “I’ve missed you.”

I said it to annoy her, and to punish myself.

How easily these words of lovers slipped from my mouth. How I desired them to be true.

“I hardly know what you’ve been up to out there in Harvard.” Which was bullshit. I had our Murphy cousins in Boston looking into her. I had weekly reports on her security, her grades, her habits…

But Randa had opened the door to new information—that my bride came home too quickly. What coup was my lovely Italian prisoner trying to plot?

I stared at the ice queen, who did everything to avoid my gaze. No matter, it meant I could observe her more freely.

Her gray eyes and her pale, snowy skin contrasted against her dark walnut hair.

Her stark white dress matched her skin perfectly, except for the slight pink on her cheeks.

I stared harder, looking at the blush beneath the layer of makeup.

It must be positively red beneath all the war paint.

Was she blushing? Maybe she was fevered.

How like a Durante to come to a wedding sick and contaminate us all. I didn’t think that the Mafia would resort to biological warfare, but the clever girl at my side would do anything to subvert my family.

I was surprised she didn’t run from me screaming, just to humiliate the Green family.

But she’d played her part. She was stiff and robotic, bordering on malicious compliance. But it was compliance, nonetheless.

The vows were unremarkable. I hadn’t even brought my blade.

Why would I? Handfasting, and blood vows, were done for love. There was none of that here. We hadn’t written our own vows but parroted what the bishop said, and let that be the end of it.

We didn’t even hold hands as we walked down the aisle. Instead, she strode on, the bouquet of lilies in her fist facing down, like sad little funeral bells. She dumped it on a decorative end table before we walked into the reception hall.

“Quite a romantic, your bride,” Randa teased with a smirk.

“Oh, shut up,” I grumbled as I followed my wife to the grand staircase where the obligatory photos would be taken.

She and I stood at the bottom, her white, muslin, and crystal dress draped long beside her as we stood, side by side, with my family behind us, and her mother hovering like a devil on her shoulder.

“ Mi perdoni ,” her mother wept, holding my bride’s face in her hands. “ Mi perdoni, bella.”

What the hell was she apologizing for?

I rolled my eyes, grabbing my wife around her waist.

“Least we can do is look the part,” I muttered into my wife’s ear. “Look at least a little pleased on your wedding day, Mrs. Green.”

She practically snarled at me. It was adorable. Like a kitten showing its claws after I’d irritated it for too long.

“Smile,” I said with a wink, as I looked up to the camera that clicked and flashed its lights.