Page 46 of Runaway in the Mafia (The shadows of Cosa Nostra Chronicles #3)

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

AHANA

M y life was a movie. A thriller with a tragic ending.

That was the only explanation I could come up with.

It was the ebb and flow at the beach. Constantly changing, constantly erasing.

Pulling me in and pushing me out. An imbalance and a trilling underneath me.

Nothing was firm. Nothing fixed. It revolted, and I went around with it with my head in a daze, like I was on a roller coaster.

Nothing made sense anymore. How I felt about it made even less sense.

This household functioned like a chicken hut gone berserk.

They all went from shocked to elated. There was nothing in between.

They didn’t get a choice. He didn’t give them one.

The very next day, there was an engagement party.

Put together by Ada overnight. It felt like everything flowed smoothly, or maybe my dazed mind didn’t catch the cracks of a hurried party.

All I had to do was throw on the dress laid out on my bed. Raw silk in saffron yellow, wrapped tightly around my breasts and flowing freely around me. When it trailed behind me, even my four-inch gold sandals couldn’t keep it from kissing the floor.

Divya apologised. It was a last-minute thing she’d put together.

An all-nighter, apparently. I couldn’t imagine what she’d do if she had a month to prepare.

Because the only thing alluring about this day was the dress.

Sure, the weather was amazing. The food, delicious.

Probably. But I couldn’t feel it or taste it as numbness cloaked around me.

The doors to the garden swung open and closed.

People streamed constantly in and out of it.

The house was packed. He hadn’t bothered to wait for the weekend.

But all of them had flocked down here on a working Thursday.

Ninety-five per cent of them I didn’t know.

The five per cent I did seemed to live in another reality than mine.

It was like he’d invited the whole of Italy to come.

And they had dropped everything and accepted the invitation.

With less than a day’s notice. The power this man held was terrifying.

A burst of laughter grated on my spine like nails on concrete. Clutching the glass of champagne I was pretending to sip, I made my way out of the living room. I never drank, and I wasn’t going to start when I was already tilting without it.

My heart rate was loud in the quiet hallway.

My chest felt tight. Constricted like it was bolted inside a cage.

I needed to get out of there. I half ran, half walked to my room.

Just five minutes. Five minutes of alone time.

To collect my thoughts and regroup. They wouldn’t miss me for five minutes.

Panic crawled up my chest. How long before he found out I hadn’t told my family?

I couldn’t bear this anymore. This constant fear.

Loyalty to my family and the desire to be with him warred within me.

I felt trapped. The choice between the life I wanted and my loved ones at home wasn’t really a choice.

I’d almost broken. Had the phone clutched in my hand, ready to press the green button.

Until I realised my life was never going to get the green light from my family.

Divorcing my first husband was already a sin.

Vitale thought getting rid of Rajesh solved the problem.

He didn’t know. He couldn’t know, no matter how much Rajesh had been a monster, that he’d only been part of the problem.

The right thing to do now was to go back home.

To live in shame under my parents’ roof.

Not to marry a man who didn’t share a culture or caste with me…

or the murderer of my first husband. If this came to light, Pāpā’s reputation would be ruined.

The damage would be worse than news of my divorce.

My family’s name would be tarnished. The whole of Delhi would make a laughingstock of them.

And I couldn’t do it. I was selfish in thinking about my happiness when I had to put my family first. That was the task I should uphold as a daughter. Right?

I was almost at my room when the door pushed open and two girls burst into the hallway. “She’s so fucking boring—” the blonde noticed me and turned a deep shade of red. The pretty brunette coming behind her didn’t. “I know, right? What on earth does he see in her?

“Gia, stop.”

The brunette turned and locked her gaze with mine. Spite coloured her vision as she took me in rudely from top to toe. “I don’t see it,” she observed nastily.

I don’t either.

“Shut up, Gia.” The blonde turned to me and added hurriedly, “We were just curious.”

“Can’t really blame us,” the other one said. “It’s not like you are so fucking special to trap him.”

Don’t I know it.

I wasn’t even insulted. Only relieved that someone saw it as I did.

The man couldn’t have had a single cell in his brain active to have chosen me as his wife.

Let alone Sicilian, I wasn’t even Italian.

Wasn’t catholic. Wasn’t pure, which I already knew from Lia what a big thing that was.

I was nothing to his everything. He couldn’t walk a mile without attracting a woman’s glance like a bee to honey.

He was the damn don, for heaven’s sake. And I was… what... I didn’t even know myself.

This pressure. All these gazes on me like I’d taken something of theirs.

Cheated them out of it. Tainted their reputation with it.

I couldn’t stand it anymore. All I wanted was to be rid of it.

I didn’t want to want him. If Rajesh was truly out of the picture, I needed to shift to my plan B.

I didn’t know yet what it was. But I’d have it.

When I stepped out of the shadow of his magnetic charm.

“I agree,” I whispered softly.

“What?” The blonde asked.

“You are welcome to him.”

Take him off the table so I could lead a normal life.

A stable one. Where I wasn’t overwhelmed and doubted the morals I’d been brought up on.

One where my pulse only jerked in my wrist, not down south.

One where hot desire didn’t burn in my body, or my heart didn’t rattle like leaves in a storm.

He intoxicated me when I’d never had alcohol.

He made me careless when my life had only been structured.

I abided by rules. I wasn’t the girl to break them.

I expected them to laugh it off or agree to the challenge. But they paled as fear rounded their eyes. For a second, I was flattered that I had achieved this. Quiet triumph hummed in my chest. Then my back heated, and I knew I wasn’t the reason for it.

“So eager to trade me off, mia ammaliatrice. ” I didn’t have to turn to see his dark amusement.

It was almost comical to watch the reaction of the two girls across from me.

Switching between a need to pee in their pants and morbid fascination.

“You know, the only one who’s welcome to me is the witch in yellow.

” His deep voice rumbled softly. Sank, with its claws, right into my chest. Then he seamlessly brought up the volume and scared the shit out of our audience.

“ Now fuck off before I put bullets in your mouths for insulting my wife.”

They shrieked and scurried off. Their gasps and running feet echoed in the hall. I wanted to do the same. I took a step and jerked back. The champagne in my glass sloshed over my hand. I spun to find him, leaning on the wall, the tip of one black shoe firmly placed on my yellow trail.

I pulled my angry gaze from the floor to his. “Do you mind?”

Leaning forward, he took my glass from my lifeless hands and emptied it in one gulp before placing it on the console behind him.

“I do.”

A sheet of awareness pooled through my body.

He rubbed his hand thoughtfully on his jaw, wicked delight dancing in his eyes.

He was dressed from top to toe in black.

It felt like a warning. Since the last time he’d been complaining that his victims made Pollocks out of his white shirt.

He had a vest on underneath his coat, and the devil head tie pin he’d apparently had a fondness for clipped on to his vest rather than the tie behind it.

For some reason, it notched up his looks to dangerously hot.

Not that he needed the addition, anyway.

All of him was a delicious decadence. The pin, the vest. I wasn’t sure why, but the way it stretched tight on his flat abdomen and ruffled softly with every breath he took made me want to step up to him, rip it apart, and sink into his naked abs.

I shook my head to clear my maddening thoughts. I needed to get away from him so I wouldn’t indulge in them. I tugged at the fabric. Realised there was a fat chance of it moving with his weight on it. Frustration rolled up my throat. “You’re going to tear it.”

“I’ll buy you another one.”

“You can’t,” I hissed. “It’s custom-made.”

I tugged again.

“All this effort,” he muttered. “You’re going to tear that button.”

I stilled. His gaze was right between my breasts on the button hidden from view behind the tight silk. How did he know...

“Who do you think gave Divya instructions?

He stepped back, then reached down and grasped my waist before I could storm off.

He reeled me in, like a lifeline coming to shore.

“To make it tight around your tits, leave a hidden slit right between your...” I gasped as his hand landed on my crotch.

“Ah, found it.” Satisfaction hummed in his tone.