Page 18 of Marrying His Son’s Ex (Forbidden Kings #3)

KASI

Maria wakes me with news that makes my morning infinitely more interesting.

“Mrs. Moretti, you have a visitor today,” she says, setting down my breakfast tray.

“Visitor?”

“Mr. Marco arrived last night from London. Mr. Moretti would like you to join them for breakfast in the dining room.”

“Marco?”

“Mr. Moretti’s nephew. Dante’s cousin.”

Oh.

Dante used to talk about his cousin occasionally—stories about their childhood, mentions of business trips to California. But I never met him in person. Dante kept our relationship surprisingly isolated from extended family.

“What’s he like?” I ask.

Maria’s face brightens. “Oh, he’s lovely. Very charming, very funny. Nothing like…” She stops herself, probably remembering she’s talking about my dead ex-fiancé.

“Nothing like Dante?”

“Marco is much more…approachable.”

I dress in a simple blue sundress and go to the dining room, where I find Alaric and another man seated at the long table. Lionel stands at his usual post by the door.

The stranger looks up when I enter, and my breath catches.

He has Dante’s face.

Not exactly, but close enough to make my stomach clench with unwelcome memories. Same green eyes, same sharp cheekbones, same dark hair. But where Dante’s expression was always calculating, this man’s face is open and friendly.

“I’m sorry,” he says, standing with a grin. “I am not Dante. As a matter of fact, he stole my face.”

“Dante was older than you,” Alaric says dryly. “You stole his face.”

“Ignore my uncle.” The man extends his hand to me. “You must be the newest bride in the family. I’m Marco.”

“Kasi.” I shake his hand, surprised by his warmth. “Nice to finally meet you. Dante mentioned you occasionally.”

“All good things, I hope.”

“He said you were trouble.”

Marco laughs, a genuine sound that fills the room. “He wasn’t wrong. Please, sit. I’ve been dying to meet the woman who finally tamed Uncle Alaric.”

I glance at Alaric, who’s cutting his eggs with unnecessary force. “I wouldn’t say tamed.”

“No? Then what would you call it?”

“Temporary ceasefire.”

Marco grins wider. “I like you already.”

Breakfast is the most entertaining meal I’ve had since arriving at the estate. Marco regales us with stories from London, including his recent breakup with an actress who apparently threw a lamp at his head when he tried to leave.

“Three months of pure insanity,” he says, buttering his toast. “She wanted me to propose after two weeks. When I said no, she started collecting my things like trophies. I found my watch in her freezer.”

“Why the freezer?” I ask.

“She said she was ‘freezing our relationship until I came to my senses.’” He shakes his head. “Actresses. Never again.”

Even Alaric seems amused, though he’s trying to hide it behind his coffee cup.

“So what brings you back?” I ask.

“Business. And curiosity about Uncle Alaric’s mysterious new wife.” Marco studies my face. “Dante never mentioned how beautiful you were.”

“Dante never mentioned a lot of things.”

“Fair point. He was always secretive about his personal life.”

“Secretive is one word for it.”

Marco raises an eyebrow. “Sounds like there’s a story there.”

“There always is.”

After breakfast, Marco offers to show me around the estate. “There are parts of this place even Uncle Alaric forgets about,” he says as we walk through a hallway I’ve never seen before.

“I’ve been exploring, but it’s enormous.”

“Wait until you see the family gallery.”

He leads me to a room lined with decades-old portraits. Men in old-fashioned suits stare down from gilded frames, their expressions stern and unforgiving.

“This is where it all started,” Marco says, stopping before the largest painting. “Vito Moretti, my great grandfather. Founded the Moretti dynasty in 1923.”

The man in the portrait has Alaric’s eyes but a harder face. Someone who’d kill you without blinking.

“What did he do?”

“Started with bootlegging during prohibition. Moved into gambling, then protection rackets. By the time he died, he controlled half the illegal activity on the East Coast.”

Marco moves to the next portrait. “This is his son, Lorenzo. My grandfather. He expanded into narcotics and weapons trafficking. Very traditional organized crime.”

“What does the family do now?”

“Now we do everything. Drug trafficking, arms dealing, money laundering.” His voice is matter-of-fact, like he’s discussing the weather. “But we also run legitimate businesses. Hotels, restaurants, and construction companies. Uncle Alaric wants to go fully legitimate eventually.”

“Why?”

“Times change. The old ways draw too much attention. Better to make money legally and avoid federal prison.”

We spend the rest of the morning walking the grounds, with Marco pointing out details I’d missed. The hidden security cameras. The reinforced gates. The underground bunkers where weapons are stored.

“This place is a fortress,” he explains. “Has to be, considering the number of people who want us dead.”

“Comforting.”

“You’re safe here. Uncle Alaric would burn down half the city before he’d let anyone hurt you.”

Something in his tone makes me look at him sharply. “What makes you say that?”

“My uncle is a principled man. Once you’re under his protection, he’ll go through hell to protect you.”

Over the next two days, Marco becomes my guide to Moretti family politics. He explains which relatives can be trusted, which ones are plotting against Alaric, and which ones are too stupid to be dangerous.

“Cousin Tony thinks he should be running things,” Marco says over lunch on his second day. “Uncle Alaric tolerates him because he’s family, but Tony couldn’t organize a grocery list.”

“What do you do? What’s your duty?”

“Me? I’m the charming nephew who keeps everyone entertained while Uncle Alaric does the real work.”

“Is that all you are?”

“What else would I be?”

There’s no edge to the question, but I file it away anyway.

What I notice most is how relaxed I feel around Marco. He treats me like a real person, not a prize to be guarded. For the first time in months, I feel like I might actually have a friend.

I also notice how cold Alaric becomes whenever Marco and I are together.

On the second day, during lunch, Alaric watches us with an expression that could freeze water. When Marco makes me laugh at dinner, Alaric leaves without finishing his meal.

Lionel seems affected too, finding reasons to interrupt whenever Marco and I are alone. Suddenly, he needs to check windows, deliver messages, or escort me to appointments that don’t exist.

By the evening of Marco’s second day, the tension in the house is thick enough to cut.

I find Alaric in his office after dinner, going through papers with the kind of focus that suggests he’s avoiding something.

“We need to talk,” I say, closing the door behind me.

He doesn’t look up. “About what?”

“About the fact that you’ve been acting like a jealous husband for two days.”

His pen stops moving. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Really?” I perch on the edge of his desk, the same spot where he kissed me on our wedding night. “You don’t know why you’ve been glaring at Marco like he’s stealing your favorite toy?”

“Marco is my nephew. I’m not jealous of him.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

Alaric sets down his pen and finally looks at me. “What exactly are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying I can’t help but notice that you get territorial whenever Marco is around me.” I lean closer, lowering my voice. “But don’t worry. It would surely be too much for me to sleep with the son, the father, and the cousin.”

The words hit their target. Alaric’s eyes flash with something dark and dangerous.

“That mouth of yours,” he says quietly. He stands slowly, like a predator preparing to strike. I watch him walk to the door and close it fully, the sound echoing through the room like a gunshot.

When he turns back to face me, his expression has changed completely. He’s suddenly the man who took me apart on our wedding night.

“If I didn’t know any better,” he says, moving toward me with deliberate steps, “I’d say you do this on purpose.”

“Do what on purpose?”

His hands move to his belt, fingers working the leather with maddening slowness. “You provoke me to get some kind of reaction that usually ends with you bending over or on your knees.”

My breath catches. Heat pools low in my belly as I watch him slide the belt from its loops.

“Oh, really?” I try to keep my voice steady, but my nipples are already hard beneath my dress, and there’s a coiling sensation in my abdomen that makes it hard to think straight.

“Really.” He’s standing directly in front of me now. “You say the most unhinged things. You walk around in those dresses and sit on my desk. All a ploy to make me lose control.”

“Maybe I like it when you lose control.”

“Do you?”

“Maybe.”

His hand tangles in my hair, tilting my head back so I’m forced to meet his eyes. “Maybe isn’t good enough.”

Yes,” I whisper. “I like it when you lose control.”

“Good.” His thumb traces my bottom lip. “Because you’re about to get exactly what you’ve been asking for.”

The door handle suddenly rattles.

His hand immediately drops from my hair as he steps away from where I’m still perched on his desk. He clears his throat, trying to compose himself.

“Uncle, I’ve got?—”

Marco bursts through the door and stops dead when he takes in the scene—Alaric standing stiffly by his desk, me sitting on the edge with my dress slightly disheveled, both of us breathing hard and obviously caught in an intimate moment.

I bite the corner of my lip, heat still coursing through my body from the interrupted encounter.

The silence stretches for several heartbeats as Marco’s eyes dance between us, clearly amused by what he’s walked into.

“Am I interrupting anything?” Marco asks, his voice carefully neutral, but his smirk gives him away.