Page 4 of Unworthy Ties

Rocco

M y life felt like a bad movie.

I had hired movers to bring Gabriella’s things to my penthouse, but on the day of, they called out sick. The entire company had a potluck the night before and someone brought a bad dish, and every single employee had food poisoning.

When I called all the other movers in the city, they were completely booked. Something about this time of year being a busy time for apartment turnover.

So, there I was, hauling boxes of Gabriella’s things out of one of our “work” trucks. The same truck my friends and I had used to transport a dead body the night prior. Of course it had been cleaned, but the smell of bleach still hung in the air, a stinging reminder of my line of work.

“Are you sure you don’t want help?” Gabriella’s voice said from outside the car.

A small smear of blood that someone forgot to clean caught my eye. Definitely not.

“I’ll be fine,” I responded. “It’s not heavy. You can go wait inside.”

“Well… okay,” she said, peering anxiously inside the box I was holding.

An hour later, I finally had all of her stuff on my penthouse floor. And she had a lot of it. A collection of designer handbags, heaps of clothing, more shoes than I knew there were types of, and an overwhelming amount of makeup and beauty products.

I stood in the middle of it all, looking around my once orderly home now turned chaotic.

I frowned, looking at her purse collection spilling out of a box. Reaching down, I picked up two handbags. “Aren’t these the same thing?” I asked, holding up two identical square handbags in black.

She scoffed at me. “No. One has gold buckles, and the other is silver.”

“Of course,” I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes. “How could I possibly have missed that?”

She looked like she wanted to start a fight, but chose not to argue. “Where should I put it?”

“In our closet.”

Our closet. The words felt foreign on my tongue.

I had only known about our arranged marriage for a month, and already everything in my life was spinning around like a roulette wheel.

I’d never felt so completely thrown off balance, even when life in the mafia had thrown its worst curveballs my way.

My solitary existence, the lone nights in the penthouse with just the drone of the city for company, was coming to an end.

I caught her reflection in the mirror as she started walking away. She glanced back at me. From the steely look in her eyes, I wasn’t able to tell what she was feeling. Discomfort? Anger? Fear, perhaps?

I picked up another box and followed her into the bedroom. My closet, which had been a realm of refined suits, polished shoes and crisp ties, was about to be invaded by a sea of colorful dresses, dainty shoes, and designer purses.

She stared into the walk-in closet that had only been half-filled, her brows furrowed in contemplation. We stood there for a long moment, the silence between us stretching thin and taut like a violin string.

“Do you have a second closet?” she asked.

“A second closet?” I asked in disbelief. “This one is huge. Even all your crap can fit in here.”

“My stuff is not crap,” she huffed, crossing her arms.

“Whatever. You have more clothes than a department store,” I responded, my gaze traveling over the sea of boxes still waiting to be unpacked.

“You’re insufferable, you know that?”

I smirked, leaning against the door frame of the closet. “And yet, your parents still sold you off to me,” I quipped, watching as her frown deepened.

She scowled at me and started shoving her things in our closet, stacking dresses and skirts, shoes and bags, one on top of the other with a force that indicated her swiftly rising irritation. It was like watching a storm swell and surge.

“Don’t stand there and watch like a creep,” she said, putting another shirt on a hanger.

“I’m supervising.”

“Supervise from the other side of the room,” she spat back, her eyes flashing with irritation.

I shrugged nonchalantly, pulling away from the doorway and moving to stand near the window that overlooked the cityscape.

The city sprawled beneath me, a mass of glimmering lights under the shroud of the night.

The city that I helped rule; my kingdom.

But here, in this room, with her, I felt like an outsider.

We hadn’t talked about that day in the garden.

The kiss that had been shared between us was still looming in the air, an unspoken entity that was consuming the atmosphere.

It had been on my mind since that day, and when I saw her at the engagement party, I had wanted to try kissing her again to see if the first time was a fluke.

But she had been eyeing my brother. Gabriella tried to hide it; she just wasn’t good at being discreet. I tightened my grip on the windowsill until my knuckles turned white, my mind racing with unpleasant thoughts.

No, I couldn’t possibly be jealous. I just didn’t want the embarrassment of my wife being in love with my brother.

Absentmindedly, I tightened my grip even more on the windowsill, the bite of the ornate wood barely registering as it dug into the palm of my hand.

I exhaled slowly, forcing myself to refocus on the scene that unfolded outside, but the cityscape that usually enthralled me now seemed distant and uninteresting.

Gabriella finished putting away her massive amount of clothes in a respectable time. But that was only half of the boxes. She fluttered around the remaining stack, hovering around as if she were looking for something.

“It’s late,” I said, releasing my grip from the windowsill and walking towards her. “I need to get you back home.”

She wasn’t officially moving in until after our wedding, which was in a week.

“I was just…hoping to find something,” she said, chewing on her lower lip.

“It can wait a week,” I responded.

“Tch. I can be a little late going home,” Gabriella responded, digging through the boxes. “I’ll just finish it up tonight.”

She most certainly could not be “a little late.” If Tomaso Coscia thought I deflowered his daughter before our wedding night, he would freak out. The man has the shortest fuse of all the mafia families on the East Coast.

“We’re leaving,” I said, but she didn’t listen. If anything, she rifled through the boxes more slowly. “Cazzo,” I muttered under my breath, cursing the situation in Italian.

I wrapped my arm around her middle and lifted her off the floor with ease.

Gabriella yelped in surprise, her legs kicking and flailing as her hands clung to my shoulders.

I held her at her lower waist, pulling her closer to me.

“Enough,” I said, my voice stern. “You can sort through your stuff later.”

She opened her mouth to argue but turned bright red before she could get any words out. Her body was pressed against mine, every curve of her fitting perfectly against my form. Her heart pounded against my chest, her breath hitching as she finally locked eyes with mine.

Her embarrassment was adorable.

“What is it, Piccola? ” I said, bringing my mouth closer to her ear. Her breath hitched again, and I felt a thrill of victory. “Never been this close to a man before?”

I knew she hadn’t, of course. Tomaso was near insane about protecting his daughters’ virginity before marriage.

“Sh-shut up,” she responded, her voice shaky. “Just because the list of people you’ve slept with is longer than the Manhattan phone book, doesn’t mean that everyone has as loose morals as you.”

I stifled a laugh at her words. “Unlike my brother, I haven’t slept with every attractive woman in Manhattan.”

“Don’t say that about him,” Gabriella said, her eyes flickering with hurt.

There it was again, that small flame of jealousy that ignited within me each time she defended him. It was as if she thought he was a saint while I was the devil himself.

Looking at her flushed face, the small flame burned brighter than I had ever imagined, until a raging inferno in my chest took its place.

I grabbed a fistful of her hair and slammed her lips into mine, my other hand snaking around her waist, pulling her closer.

The surprise in her eyes only fueled my passion.

I kissed her hard, my tongue exploring the sweetness of her mouth. Gabriella stiffened, then melted against me, her arms wrapping themselves around my neck.

Gabriella’s inexperience was evident; her lips fumbled against mine, her movements uncertain. But there was a passion there, a raw hunger that matched my own. It was intoxicating.

I hardened at the sensation of her against me, her taste, her scent, all driving me into a fevered frenzy. I had to end this now before I took it too far.

I broke away from the kiss, and she gasped for air, her chest heaving against mine.

Her eyes were glossy, dilated, revealing a mixture of fury and desire. “I hate you,” she said, still breathing rapidly from the intensity of our kiss.

“Hm. Your body tells a different story.” I flicked my gaze down to her pebbled nipples, which were painfully obvious even with a bra and t-shirt.

“Ugh! Just take me home,” she said, breaking away from me and storming through the front door.

“Don’t want what you were looking for?” I asked, looking at the pile of boxes.

“No,” she responded, not bothering to face me.

Gabriella saw me as a devil indeed, but she seemed to forget that even some devils could be angels to the right person. Unfortunately for her, that devil wasn’t me.