Page 12 of Pretty Plaything

“I don’t know. Something must’ve convinced him,” my father says.

I have no idea what they’re talking about. Maybe it’s some other business they’re discussing, and not my impending doom, err, I mean marriage.

“The Bellinis aren’t that rich. There’s no way they bested our offer,” Santiago says.

“Unless there’s something we don’t know.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the Bellini boy has a good plan.”

Santiago snorts. “What plan can he possibly have that’s better than ours?”

“It’s possible Troy prefers the underdog. The Bellinis may not be as powerful as us, but they’re a formidable opponent. This might change everything.”

“And turn them into a real enemy. One that we’ll have to eliminate. What are we going to do? Like you said, the Bellinis aren’t like us, but if we go to war to get the recipe, it won’t be easy. We’ll make ourselves vulnerable to our other enemies, and once we defeat the Bellinis, we’ll have to fight to keep their territory too. When the Bellinis are out of the picture, there won’t be anything between us and our other potential enemies in the south. Right now, they won’t risk going through the Bellinis to get to us because it would weaken them, but if we stretch ourselves thin taking care of a territory we don’t even want—”

“Not if we come up with a better plan. We can still have everything. We can get the recipe, and we can let the Bellinis stay where they are so we don’t have to worry about their territory and the enemies coming for us from their side too.”

“But how?” my brother asks. “Should we try to find Troy? Or someone who can recreate the recipe?”

“No. Troy is probably far, far away from here by now. Chasing after him would be a waste of time and money. We’re going to strike a deal instead.”

“Do you think that will work?”

“It will. Alessandro Bellini doesn’t have a wife, and if he shares the recipe with us, he loses nothing. Actually, he’d only gain, and we’d gain too.”

“You’d marry Sienna to Alessandro Bellini?”

I cover my mouth with my hand to stifle a gasp.

“Yes. No deal is as important as this one,” my father says. “Now that he has what we want, Alessandro is the perfect match, and it’s a good thing if we can keep an eye on him too.”

“What if he doesn’t agree? He might think he has everything now and that he’ll become even bigger than us.”

“Leave that to me. I’ll convince him.”

I may not know much about the Bellinis, but I do know Alessandro, and I absolutely don’t want to marry him.

Maybe he’s not some creepy old man, but I’ve always dreamed of marrying someone I can fall in love with eventually, like my mother and father did.

Alessandro just isn’t it.

I could never love someone like him.

There are rumors about him. They say he’s often visiting some prostitute and that he’s far from nice. They say he’s bloodthirsty.

Crazy.

Twisted.

And I don’t even know what that really means because no one ever wants to explain.

I remember seeing him once, when I was very young.

My parents took me to some party that a few other mafia families attended too. Alessandro was with his brothers, and he was bragging about something and seemed so full of himself.

Another boy walked up to him and said something to him. Alessandro must not have liked it because he launched at the boy.