by Cora Reilly
Luca and Matteo glanced our way. Gianna hadn’t bothered lowering her voice and pointedly ignored Father’s death glare. I tugged at her arm. I didn’t want her to get in trouble. With a huff, she filled her plate with antipasti and dug in. My plate was still empty. A server filled my glass with white wine and I took a sip. I’d already drunk a glass of champagne; that combined with the fact that I hadn’t eaten much all day made me feel slightly foggy.
Luca put a hand on mine, preventing me from taking another gulp. “You should eat.” If I hadn’t felt the eyes of everyone at the table on me, I’d have ignored his warning and downed the wine. I grabbed a slice of bread, took a bite, then put the rest onto my plate. Luca’s lips tightened but he didn’t try to coax me into eating more, not even when soup was served and I let it go back untouched. They served lamb roast for the main course. The sight of the whole lambs made my stomach turn, but it was traditional. The cook rolled a rotisserie table toward us, since we had to be served first. Luca, as the husband, got the first slice, and before I could decline he told the cook to give me a slice as well. The center of the table was loaded with roasted rosemary potatoes, truffled mashed potatoes, grilled asparagus and much more.
I forced a bite of lamb and potato into my mouth before I set down my cutlery. My throat was too tight for food. I washed it down with another gulp of wine. Luckily Luca was busy talking to the men at the table about a club the Russians had attacked in New York. Even Dante Cavallaro, the future Boss of the Outfit, looked almost animated when he talked about business.
A band started playing when dinner was over, the signal that it was time for the obligatory dance. Luca stood, holding out his hand. I let him pull me to my feet, and at once “Bacio, Bacio” rang out again. Gianna narrowed her eyes and searched the guests, as if she was thinking of attacking the culprit who’d started the chanting.
When Luca tugged me toward him, I stumbled against his chest as dizziness caught up with me. Luckily, nobody noticed because Luca’s arms around me held me firm. His eyes pierced mine as he lowered his lips and brushed them against mine. The band played faster and faster, urging us to finally enter the dance floor; the tables had been set up in circles around it. Luca kept his arm around my waist as he led me toward the center. To everyone around us it looked like a loving embrace, but it was the only thing keeping me upright.
Luca pulled me against his chest for the waltz, and I had no choice but to rest my cheek against it. I could feel a gun under his vest. Even the groom couldn’t come to his wedding unarmed. For the first time I was glad for Luca’s strength. He had no trouble keeping me on my feet during the dance. When it ended, he leaned down. “Once we’re back at the table, you’ll eat. I don’t want you to pass out during our celebration, and much less during our wedding night.”
I did as he asked and forced down a few more bites of now cold potato and meat. Luca’s alert gaze kept checking on me while he talked to Matteo. The dance floor was filled with other people now. Lily rose from her chair and asked Romero to dance. No surprise there. He couldn’t refuse her, of course. Neither could I refuse when Luca’s father asked me for a dance. After that I was handed from one man to the next until I lost count of their names and faces. All through it Luca’s eyes followed my every move, even when he danced with the women of our families. Gianna, too, couldn’t escape the dance floor. I caught her dancing with Matteo at least three times, and her face grew more sullen by the minute.
“May I?”
I startled at the distantly familiar voice that sent a thrill of fear through my body. Dante Cavallaro took the place of whomever I’d danced with before. He was tall, albeit not as tall as Luca, and not as muscled. “You don’t look impressed with the festivities.”
“Everything’s perfect,” I said mechanically.
“But you didn’t choose this marriage.”
I gaped at him. His dark blond hair and blue eyes gave him a look of cold efficiency, while Luca radiated fierce brutality. Different sides of the same coin. In a few years the East Coast and Midwest would tremble under the judgement of these two men. I snapped my mouth shut. “It’s an honor.”
“And your duty. We all have to do things we don’t want to. Sometimes it might seem as if we don’t have any choice at all.”
“You are a man. What do you know about not having a choice?” I said harshly, then stiffened and ducked my head. “I’m sorry. That was out of turn.” I couldn’t talk to someone who was practically my Boss like that. Then I remembered he no longer was. I didn’t fall under the rule of the Chicago Outfit anymore. With my marriage, I’d become part of the New York mob and thus Luca’s and his father’s rule.
“I think your husband is eager to have you back in his arms,” Dante said with a tilt of his head, then handed me over to Luca, who gave him a hard look. Two predators facing off.
Once we were out of earshot of Dante Cavallaro, Luca looked down at me. “What did Cavallaro want?”
“To congratulate me on the festivities.”
Luca gave me a look that made it clear he didn’t believe me. There was a hint of mistrust in his expression.
The music stopped and Matteo clapped his hands, silencing the guests. “Time to throw the garter!”
Luca and I stopped as well as the guests gathered around the dance floor to watch the show. A few even stood on chairs or held up their kids so everyone could get a good look. Luca knelt before me under the cheers of our guests and raised his eyebrows. I gripped my gown and lifted it up to my knees. Luca slid his hands up my calves, over my knees and up my thighs. I stilled completely at the feel of his fingers on my naked skin. Goose bumps erupted all over my body. The touch was light and not uncomfortable, and yet it terrified me.
Luca’s eyes were intent as they watched my face. His fingers brushed the garter on my right thigh and he pushed my gown up for everyone to see, revealing the entire length of my leg. I gripped the hem and he put his arms behind his back, then he bent over my thigh, his lips brushing the skin under the garter. I sucked in a deep breath but tried to keep my face in happy-bride mode. Luca closed his teeth around the edge of the garter and pulled it down my leg until it landed in a heap at my white high heels. I raised my foot so Luca could pick the piece of lace up. He straightened and presented the garter to the applauding crowd. I forced a smile and clapped as well. The only person who wasn’t smiling was Gianna.
“Bachelors,” Luca called in his deep voice. “Gather around. Maybe you’ll be the lucky one to marry next!”
Even the youngest boys stepped forward, Fabiano among them. He was scowling. Mother had probably forced him to participate. I winked at him and he poked out his tongue. I couldn’t help but laugh, the first genuine gesture I’d managed during the wedding feast.
Luca’s eyes darted toward me, a strange expression on his face. I quickly looked away. Luca raised his arm, the garter in his fist, before he thrust it into the cluster of waiting men.
Matteo snatched it out of the air with an impressive lunge. “Any willing Outfit ladies out there that want to further the bond between our families?” he boomed, wiggling his eyebrows.
Cheering and laughter sounded from many married and unmarried women. Of course, Lily was among them, jumping up and down with a bright smile. Everything was a game for her. I didn’t want Matteo’s eyes on her, I didn’t even want her name in his mind when he thought of marriage. As was tradition, he had to pick an unmarried woman to dance with.
Luca stepped close to me, his arm sneaking around my waist in casual possessiveness. I flinched at the unexpected contact and Luca’s body became rigid.
Matteo extended his hand toward Lily, who looked close to exploding from excitement over being chosen. My chest tightened. I knew it was a joke right now. Nobody took a fourteen-year-old girl seriously.
As Luca and I waltzed over the dance floor, I kept an eye on Lily and Matteo. His hand was high on her back, his expression teasing. He didn’t look like a man who’d set his eyes on his futu
re wife.
“If my brother married your sister, you’d have family in New York,” Luca said.
“I won’t let him have Lily.” The words were fierce. How could I be tough when it came to protecting my sister, but not when it was about me?
“It’s not Lily he wants.”
My eyes flew to Gianna, who stood with her arms wrapped around her chest, eyes like a hawk as they followed us. Father wouldn’t give away another of his daughters to New York. If he wanted to strengthen the position of our family in the Chicago Outfit, he needed to make sure he had enough family around him.
After the waltz was over, a faster beat began and the dance floor was once again flooded with guests. Luca started dancing with my mother, and I used the moment to slip away. I needed a few moments to myself or I’d lose it. I lifted my gown off the ground and hurried to the edge of the garden where the grass met the bay before I walked down the few steps to the dock, where a yacht was lying in wait. To my right a long beach stretched out. The ocean was black under the night sky, and the breeze tugged at my dress and ripped strands from my updo. I stepped out of my high heels and jumped off the dock, my feet landing in the cool sand. Closing my eyes, I listened to the sound of the waves. The wooden boards creaked, and I tensed before glancing over my shoulder and spotting Gianna. She shook off her own shoes and joined me on the beach, wrapping an arm around me.
“Tomorrow you’ll leave for New York and I’ll head back to Chicago,” she whispered.
I swallowed hard. “I’m scared.”
“Of tonight?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “Of tonight and every night that follows. Of being alone with Luca in a city I don’t know, surrounded by people I know even less, people who might still be the enemy. Of getting to know Luca and finding out he’s the monster I think he is. Of being without you and Lily and Fabiano.”
“We will come to visit as often as Father allows it. And about tonight.” Gianna’s voice turned hard. “He can’t force you.”
I let out a choked laugh. Sometimes I forgot that Gianna was younger than me. These were the moments that reminded me. “He can. He will.”
“Then you’ll fight him with all you’ve got.”
“Gianna,” I said in a whisper. “Luca is going to be Capo dei Capi. He’s a born fighter. He’ll laugh at me if I try to resist. Or my refusal will make him angry, and then he’ll really want to hurt me.” I paused. “Bibiana told me I should give him what he wants, that I should try to make him be good to me, try to make him love me.”
“Stupid Bibiana, what does she know?” Gianna glared at me. “Look at her, the way she cowers in front of that fat fool. How she lets him touch her with his sausage fingers. I’d rather die than lie under a man like that.”
“Do you think I can make Luca love me?”
Gianna shook her head. “Maybe you can make him respect you. I don’t think men like him have a heart to be capable of love.”
“Even the most cold-hearted bastards have a heart.”
“Well, then it’s as black as tar. Don’t waste your time on love, Aria. You won’t find it in our world.”
She was right, of course, but I couldn’t help hoping.
“Promise me you’ll be strong. Promise me you won’t let him treat you like a whore. You are his wife.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Yeah—whores at least get to sleep with other men and don’t have to live in a golden cage. They are better off.”
I snorted. “You are impossible.”
Gianna shrugged. “It made you smile.” She turned and her expression darkened. “Luca sent his lapdog. Maybe he was worried you’d run.”
I followed her gaze to find Romero standing at the crest of the small hill overlooking the bay and the dock.
“We should have taken that yacht and run away,” Gianna said.
“Where could I run? He’d follow me to the end of the world.” I glanced at the elegant golden watch around my wrist. I didn’t know Luca, but I knew men of his kind. They were possessive. Once you belonged to them, there was no escaping. “We should go back. The wedding cake will be presented soon.”
We put our shoes back on and walked back toward the noise. I ignored Romero but Gianna scowled at him. “Does Luca need you for everything? Or can he at least take a piss on his own?”
“Luca is the groom and needs to attend to the guests,” Romero said simply, but of course it was a reprimand in my direction.
Luca’s eyes settled on me the moment I returned to the festivities. Many guests were already drunk, and some had moved up to where the pool was and were taking a swim fully clothed. Luca held his hand out, and I bridged the distance between us and took it. “Where were you?”
“I just needed a moment to myself.”
There was no time for further discussions as the cook rolled a table with our wedding cake toward the center. It was white, had six tiers and was decorated with peach flowers. Luca and I cut it under another round of applause, followed by “Bacio, Bacio,” and put the first piece onto our plate. Luca picked up a fork and fed me a bite as a sign that he’d provide for me, and I then fed him a piece as a sign that I’d take care of him as a good wife was supposed to.
It was close to midnight when the first shouts rang out that suggested Luca and I retire to the bedroom. “You wed her, now bed her!” Matteo shouted, throwing his arms up and bumping into a chair. He’d drunk his fair share of wine, whiskey, Grappa and whatever else he could get his hands on. Luca, on the other hand, was sober. The small inkling of hope I’d harbored that he’d be too drunk to consummate our marriage evaporated. Luca’s answering grin, all predator, all hunger, all want, made my heart pound in my chest. Soon most of the men and even many women joined in the chorus.
Luca rose from his chair and I did the same, even though I wanted to cling to it with desperate abandon, but I had no choice. A few looks of understanding and compassion from other women were directed my way, but they were almost as bad as the jeering.
Gianna rose from her chair but Mother gripped her upper arm, holding her back. Salvatore Vitiello shouted something about a bedsheet, but the sounds and colors seemed dimmed to me, as if I was trapped in fog. Luca’s grip around my hand as he led me toward the house was the only thing keeping me in motion. My body seemed on autopilot. A large crowd, mainly consisting of men, followed after us, their chant of “Bed her, Bed her!” growing louder as we entered the house and ascended the staircase toward the master bedroom on the second floor. Fear was an insistent throbbing in my chest.
I tasted copper and realized I’d bitten the inside of my cheek hard. We finally arrived in front of the dark wooden double doors of the master bedroom. The men kept clapping Luca’s back and shoulders. Nobody touched me. I would have wilted if they had. Luca opened the door and I walked in, glad to bring some distance between the leering crowd and myself. The shouting rang in my head, and it was all I could do not to clamp my hands over my ears. “Bed her! Bed her!”
Luca slammed the door shut. Now we were alone for our wedding night.
CHAPTER SIX
The commotion in front of the door stopped except for Matteo, who was still shouting lewd suggestions of what Luca could do to me, or I to him.
“Shut up, Matteo, and go find a whore to fuck,” Luca growled.
Silence reigned outside. My eyes wandered toward the king-sized bed in the center of the room and terror gripped me. Luca had his own whore to fuck tonight and until the end of days. The price for my body hadn’t been paid in money, but it might as well have been. I wrapped my arms around my middle, trying to quench my panic.
Luca turned around to face me with a predatory glint in his eyes. My legs turned weak. Maybe if I fainted, I’d be spared, and even if he didn’t care if I was conscious and took me anyway, at least I wouldn’t remember anything. He thrust his jacket over the armchair next to the window, the muscles in his forearms flexing. He was muscle and strength and power, and I might as well have bee
n made from glass. One wrong touch and I would shatter.
Luca took his time admiring me. Wherever his eyes touched my body, they branded me as his possession, the word mine edged into my skin over and over again.
“When my father told me I was to marry you, he said you were the most beautiful woman the Chicago Outfit had to offer, even more beautiful than the women in New York.”
To offer? As if I was a piece of meat. I dug my teeth into my tongue.
“I didn’t believe him.” He stalked up to me and grabbed my waist. I swallowed the gasp and forced myself to be still as I stared at his chest. Why did he have to be so tall? He leaned down until his mouth was less than an inch from my throat. “But he told the truth. You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and tonight you are mine.” His hot lips touched my skin. Could he feel the terror pounding in my veins? His hands on my waist tightened. Tears pressed against my eyeballs, but I forced them back. I wouldn’t cry, but Grace’s words slammed into my brain. He’ll fuck you bloody.
Be strong. I was a Scuderi. Gianna’s words flashed in my mind. Don’t let him treat you like a whore.
“No!” The word ripped from my throat like a battle cry. I wrenched myself away from him, stumbling a few steps back. Everything seemed to still then. What had I just done?
Luca’s expression was stunned, then it hardened. “No?”
“What?” I snapped. “Have you never heard the word ‘no’ before?” Shut up, Aria. For God’s sake shut up.
“Oh, I hear it often. The guy whose throat I crushed, he said it over and over and over again until he couldn’t say it anymore.”