Page 23 of Scream (Duchess & Devils #1)

Maksim.

I've heard stories of men who take one look at their brides walking down the aisle and completely fall apart for them. It's the happiest day of their lives. So overcome by emotions they can't contain them.

I will have no such issues.

Being essentially thrown off Sabrina's family jet was the single most humiliating thing to have ever happened to me.

Ever. Well, except that time I had a gun pointed at some asshole's head, pulled the trigger, and I'd forgotten to refill the magazine. Then again, I was only seventeen at the time, and I always double-check now. It’s never happened again.

I hadn't heard a word from her since that fiasco on the plane, and had I not checked the cameras to find her sitting on her deep berry suede love seat in her home periodically, motionless and reading, I never even would have known she was home.

"Son," Aristide Giordano, my father, says from his wheelchair in the corner.

Dark eyes clash with even darker eyes through the reflection of the full-length mirror in the groom's suite as I put on the gold, generational cuff links – the kind that are passed down on this specific milestone.

Polished. Shiny. More glitter. More gold.

There is more wealth in one single link than your kidney is worth.

My hair has been tapered and styled into a pompadour with hair products.

My beard was shaved completely, and not one hair was missed.

I raise a dark brow in question at my father as I reach for my suit jacket, throw it on, then fix the lapels. "Yes?"

"The heads tell me you're... enthralled with your bride-to-be.

" He talks a little too loud in perfect Italian, my father, due to his hearing loss and illness.

He had me at thirty-two, only two years after he wed my mother, who was twelve years his junior.

A marriage that was arranged between the Pakhan at the time, her father, Dimitri Sokolov, and my grandfather, Alessio Giordano.

It was to stop the constant bloodshed between the bratva and the mafia.

After my would-have-been uncles murdered each other, giving me the title of King and peacemaker between the two clans.

It is a heavy crown; one my father wore until his illness made him almost immobile and wheelchair bound.Yet the title will not be fully passed down to me until he dies… which will probably be sooner rather than later, with the way his health is declining so rapidly.

He’s looking a lot less pale than usual today, most likely from the blood transfusion from earlier since he landed late last night.

"Everyone out," I say loudly to those in the room with us.

It takes them less than sixty seconds, and then we're alone.

I inhale sharply, ready to spew some lie to the great man in the room.

Although sickly, with a blanket that covers his useless legs, he still carries that weight, that air about him that tells you this man is still dangerous.

And he is. I've seen him pull a trigger from the very armrest of that damn wheelchair.

"I let them see what I want them to see.

Nothing more, nothing less. Just another contract, I told you this. "

"Remember what I told you, son. Women-"

"-Yes, ‘ will either make you stronger or weaker. And if they make you stronger, they'll become a target.’" I quote him, to which he frowns.

But what about her? Would I make Sabrina stronger?

Weaker? Will there be more of a target on my back because she's marrying me?I took her from a Syndicate prince, didn’t I?

That… Kane guy. As much as I want to deny it, I know Sabrina is safer with Parker than without him.

After all, he seems to know her better than she knows herself most days.

"Your mother was a great woman, Maksim." My father says, disrupting my thoughts.

"I know."

"Loved by both the Cosa Nostra and the Bratva.

She was," his voice breaks "the most incredible woman I have ever known.

We hated each other, did you know that? She hardly spoke English when we were married.

She hated having been forced to marry me, and I didn't want her.

I wanted to keep fucking whoever pleased my eye for the evening.

I thought a wife would only slow me down.

.." he trails off and I can see the memories dancing behind his eyes.

He shakes his head, and I don't interrupt him, seeing as this is the most he's ever talked about her.

"But then we were forced to live together, and I found that I lived for the moments she cursed me in Russian.

And then all too soon... I simply lived.

.. for her." I can hear his lungs rattle from where I stand.

"I was distracted from my duties and matters at hand.

Simply living to make my wife and my son happy, and it caught up to me.

But she knew the snakes and the vermin in my gardens.

Could spot them a mile away... a queen rises from ashes and helps eradicate those that mean her king harm. .." he takes another wet breath in.

"Your bride... you either keep her close when she makes you stronger.

.. or you keep her at arm's length. And when she meets the famiglias, who are expecting your return soon," another wet gasp, "they will need to believe this marriage you have brought upon yourself.

.. and vice versa, Maksim. They'll need to believe you love her.

.. since you rejected the offers for their daughters over and over again.

.. For you'll be blood by bond. And the famiglias. .. they don't forget."

That is exactly why I told Sabrina she had to seem in love with me the night of the charity fight – the heads here talk to the heads back in Italy.

She passed that test with flying colors, obviously, and made it seem as though I was also smitten with her as well.

Two unlikely beings, a lawyer and a crime boss, in love.

She even made me believe she liked me, at least a little bit.

.. but I realized the day of the plane incident, that she truly couldn't stand me.

She doesn't want this marriage today any more than she wanted it the day her father told her.

I haven't made her feel welcomed or wanted, either.

She wants nothing to do with me.

She doesn't want the notoriety that will come with being my wife. Not my touch, not my kiss, not my money, not my heir, not even my protection. And it’s all my fault.

Even though I watch her closely through screens, I don’t know who my wife really is.

Brilliant, of course, a beautiful liar… but not much else.

There's a knock on the door, and I realize I've merely been staring at my father.

I seem to do that a lot when I think of Sabrina, and I see what my father means - she's already a distraction.

If I ever fall in love with this woman..

. I can't love her alone. I have duties to uphold.

I have too much on my shoulders, this metaphorical crown thrust upon me at only thirty is so goddamn heavy, I feel at times my skull is cracking wide open.

Parker flashes through my mind just as another knock comes through. The way he loves her and how she seems to tolerate him.

"Hey cousin, everyone is seated. The priest is ready."

"One second," I call out to Kallum, my only cousin and head of the Chicago chapter, but keep my eyes steady on the man who's fading quickly before me. "It's a contract meant to bind us to the Syndicate... and nothing more."

He quirks a brow. "Il Sindicato?"

I nod.

"Ottimo." Very well. And then, "I trust you, son. With more than just my very life. "

His empire, he doesn't say.

The one that dies with me.

I blink, and before I open the door of the Groom's suite and incline my head at Niko to let him know I'm ready, my father decides to leave me with a nugget of wisdom.

"If you fall for her, or you don't, be prepared to lose her. That's what this world is, Maksim. We are born alone... and we die alone."

Again, Parker flashes through my mind. "... All that matters is that she stays alive in your world until you get your money. And I think we both know that without me, she won't survive it."

Six hundred seventy-five thousand, four hundred twenty-three dollars and fifty-three cents.

That's how much this venue that hosts up to five hundred people cost us to rent for the weekend.

It's a gorgeous, enormous, three-story rustic lodge we rented for our three hundred guests to stay, bordering New York and Canada.

There's a large lake outside the venue where we're supposed to marry, with a mountain backdrop, “perfect for pictures,” then everyone will head inside the venue for the reception, which is decorated to absolute perfection.

It's a beautiful day, even with heavy clouds overhead that either promise a storm later or snow on that mountain.

As I make my way down the hallway, Giovanni, my father's second and Kallum’s father, wheels him down to the elevator while Niko and I go down the grand staircase that splits the bridal suite from the groom's suite.

At the base of the stairs is where the reception will be.

I have no idea how Sabrina pulled this off.

It looks like I stepped into a fairytale.

While the walls are oak, there are large champagne, cream and what I found out is called rose pink drapes along the floor-to-ceiling windows.

It all ebbs and flows together, along with the twinkling lights hung from each wooden pillar that holds up the ceiling.