by Mara McQueen
The snow crunched behind her.
"Now you've uncovered my last secret." She turned around with a beaming smile. "What do you—"
The words died on her lips.
Enzo was kneeling in front of her, a tentative smile on his face, a gorgeous ring in his hand.
He took a deep breath, staring up at her. "Patrice Duval, will you—"
"Yes." Patrice nodded one too many times, because there was nothing else to say.
The man of her dreams was asking her to marry him, in her favorite location in the entire world.
She'd seen many smiles on Enzo. The edged one, the confident one, the wicked one. But she'd never seen such a happy smile like this one.
They stared at each other for a few moments, basking in their joy.
But it wouldn't be the right kind of proposal if they didn't do it their way.
"Yes, what?" Enzo asked, his smile never leaving his face. "Maybe I was asking for the deeds to your home."
After a lifetime of darkness and viciousness, Patrice might actually explode from all this happiness.
Enzo just got her. He was amazing and they were even more amazing together.
"Give me that ring and we can negotiate."
"You're incorrigible." He laughed, standing up.
Patrice raised her hand, wiggling her ring finger. "You like it."
"No," he said, suddenly serious. "I love it. I love everything about you. I love you."
"I love you, too. Every part of you."
Enzo's hand circled her wrist gently, steadying it, because Patrice was all shivers and giggles and very close to crying.
He held out the gorgeous ring, slowly easing it onto her finger. Then he stopped, the bastard.
"Are you quite sure you want to marry me?" he asked, laughter in his voice. "I wouldn't want to impose."
Oh, this man. She couldn't wait to spend the rest of her life with him. "Yes!"
He slipped the ring on and caught her lips in a searing kiss. Their hearts beat out of control as they melted into each other's embrace.
Seriously. So much happiness could actually make their Underworld hearts explode.
They rested their foreheads together, gently swaying from side to side, drunk on joy. The Viper and the Phantom, being absolutely silly and loving it.
"How does a November 18th wedding sound?" Enzo asked.
It sounded fucking fantastic. Any date would, as long as Patrice was marrying him. "We had a deal. You get to pick the date, you've won it. But I get to pick the location."
"Anywhere you want."
Well, she kind of knew where. Or the general idea of a where. "You're going to laugh…"
"I think our futures are going to be filled with laughter, yes."
Patrice bit her lower lip. "What about a museum? A really fancy one, where people aren't allowed after closing time, ever."
What could she say, Enzo had spoiled her with his lavish, secretive events, and she loved staring at old books.
"That sounds perfect for us. Have any particular one in mind?"
"I don't care as long as it's big and luxurious." See? Spoiled.
"Then how about the Louvre?" He winked at her. "I know a guy."
Getting married in Paris, where they had their first kiss? Back when they were still technically enemies, but unable to resist?
Yes, please. And they could have more of those flaky pastries.
"That's...amazing."
"You're amazing."
"You're amazing."
"We both are." He whispered against her lips. "And we get to be amazing together. Forever."
THE END
Afterword
THANK YOU for delving into THE INNOCENT’S twisted world with me!
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Patrice and Enzo’s steamy adventures are not over yet!
Want to learn what happened after the bloody wedding?
Check out the other books in THE SYNDICATE’S REVENGE Mafia Romance series:
The Witness: An Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance (The Syndicate's Revenge Book 0)
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The Target: An Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance (The Syndicate's Revenge Book 1)
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The Favorite: An Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance (The Syndicate's Revenge Book 2)
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The Innocent: An Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance (The Syndicate's Revenge Book 3)
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Scroll down for excerpts from the other books in THE SYNDICATE’S REVENGE Mafia Romance series.
Check out my Contemporary Gothic Romance series, BEWARE THE WICKED LOVE:
BEWARE THE WICKED HEIR (BEWARE THE WICKED LOVE SERIES BOOK 1)
A Contemporary Gothic Romance Novel
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BEWARE THE WICKED NIGHT (BEWARE THE WICKED LOVE SERIES BOOK 1.5)
A Contemporary Gothic Romance Novella
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Mara McQueen writes hot and twisted Mafia Romance and Contemporary Gothic Romance. She loves her books with heart, heat, and humor and she's never written a bad boy she couldn't redeem.
Her heroes are secretive, her heroines and stubborn, and when they meet on the page, sparks fly.
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The Witness
An Enemies-To-Lovers Mafia Romance
THE SYNDICATE’S REVENGE BOOK 0
She witnessed a dangerous conversation. Now he needs to track her down before a Clan war breaks out.
Chapter One
BIANCA
If there was one thing Bianca "Bia" Marino hated more than Clan weddings, it was rehearsal dinners.
You'd think that after a few decades on this planet, each and every single guest—no kids, thank God, too dangerous for the little tikes—would have learned how to walk in a straight line then get to a restaurant.
But no. They had to rehearse it. For the fanciest, most ridiculous wedding her Syndicate had organized in more than a century.
But Bianca knew why her Clan had gone all out with the decorations and location—a sleepy little island that didn't show up on any map and was a secret as guarded as the Syndicate's bank accounts.
Gaudy luxury was the proper way to go when a member of the First Family got married to the heir of a rival Clan, the Serpents. Even if said heir was nothing more than a mountain of muscles with too much money and not enough brains.
Then again, who was Bianca to judge? She'd been drooling after a gorgeous, infuriating Serpent bastard for the past six months, and he was way more dangerous than Darius could ever hope to be.
"I just don't get it," she whispered into her third champagne flute of the night, balancing her weight from one foot to another. She shouldn't have worn these heels, sharp and long enough to puncture a neck or two. But, damn, did they make her legs look fantastic. "Ava's smart. She's funny. What is she doing with that lump of a man?"
Darius was, to put in plainly, a waste of oxygen. The only thing he'd managed to do in his twent
y-three years was to party his liver away. But nobody said that out loud. He was the Serpents' heir. His Clan's future leader. God help those poor bastards he'd end up leading. And God definitely help Ava.
Natalia "Nat" Caputo, the Syndicate's Underworld law specialist and Bianca's sort-of-boss-in-the-Clan-hierarchy, definitely-best-friend shrugged, her tight blonde curls bouncing. "The heart wants what it wants."
Did it, though? Because all the guests had arrived on the island five days ago—and had two more to go before whatever this wedding was mercifully ended—and Bianca had seen the bride and groom kissing a grand total of two times. Chaste pecks, too.
Maybe they were just shy. Or maybe something was up.
"You're her cousin, did she tell you anything?" Bianca pressed on, even though she should have let the matter drop already.
But when did she ever?
She couldn't help herself, especially now. She came from a broken family. An only child to two very unhappy parents who should not have married each other. Or reproduced. And they'd dealt with that unhappiness by shouting and cheating whenever the other wasn’t looking too closely. Sadly, they were still married. At least they had both been too busy with their respective squeeze of the month to come here. They'd been embarrassing Bianca in the Syndicate for twenty-two years, she deserved a break.
So, no, Bianca did not like weddings. She liked Ava, though.
"You're her cousin, too," Nat said in that sing-song voice of hers. The sky could fall, but she would still be smiling while it happened. That was Nat, a petite ray of sunshine—which could turn vicious whenever the Underworld laws were broken. And she never, ever let any offender get away.
Bianca snorted a laugh. She could dress up in the silkiest green dress, wear the highest heels, have enough gold jewelry on her to make a priest weep, but she was still rough at heart—and damn proud of it.
Sure, she played at proper and polite during her duties as a Clan negotiator—and loved it when her voice echoed in those big Clan boardrooms—but she had a wild streak. Which she definitely needed to keep hidden if she had any shot of becoming the Syndicate's head negotiator before she turned twenty-five.
"Ava and I are sort of cousins. Fifty times removed."
Nat, however, was First Family. Practically royalty, if the Syndicate had ever bothered with those pretentious titles some other Clans obsessed over—like the loathsome Brotherhood, their worst, fiercest enemy. And everyone knew the five cousins in the First Family stuck together.
Loyalty ran deep in the Syndicate. It helped that most of them were related. Their family gatherings were full of dark hair, dark eyes, and darker hearts. They were Clan through and through. Or mafia, as the few civilians who knew they existed sometimes dared to call them.
"Maybe Ava and Darius are lovey-dovey behind closed doors." Nat sighed. "All she's done since she's been back is gush over him whenever anyone was listening."
Ah, yes. Ava's triumphant return back to the seedy Underworld and her Clan.
It had shocked the Syndicate and was still only whispered about, one year after she'd reappeared. When Ava had been only a child, her parents had taken her and ran away, hiding somewhere in the mountains. Why and how, Bianca didn't know. It was First Family business and you didn't butt in if you knew what was good for you.
But something felt off. About Ava's return. About her accepting Clan responsibilities so quickly. About her wanting to marry Darius, who was busy picking his teeth with a knife, in front of all the guests.
Charming. But if Nat said Ava was in love, then Bianca must've been imagining things.
After all, she has a reason to be antsy—but nobody needed to know that. Especially him. And those sharp eyes of his never missed anything.
She downed her champagne in one large gulp, loving the way it fizzled down her throat. She was very close to getting buzzed. But no matter how many fancy glasses she picked off the trays or how hard she tried to concentrate on anything else, even the "happy" couple, her nerves were still all over the place.
"Babe, stop fidgeting." Nat placed a gentle hand on Bianca's shoulder. "He's not here, I haven't heard anyone mention him."
"I have no idea who you're talking about," Bianca said primly.
But Nat had a bullshit radar set to high and Bianca had been craning her neck around all day, dreading the moment she'd see him.
It hadn't come. No sign of his handsome face that haunted her dreams. Nobody had even mentioned his name.
Bianca didn't know if she should be glad or furious he hadn't shown up. She would have loved to throw some wine into his face. The red kind, too, to know it would stain.
"Sure you don't." Nat scoffed. "I'm really curious to meet this Xander. See if the rumors are really true."
They were. He was as skilled, deadly, and charming as everyone had warned her he would be.
"Let's just enjoy this wedding week for what it is—an extended family holiday." Nat smiled, her cherub cheeks bunching up.
Almost half the family had flown in from the States, the Syndicate's territory, to this small Meditarean island. Neutral territory for an important marriage alliance.
Between making sure all the guests were accounted for and the decorations had been shipped out in perfect condition, Bianca spent her days lounging on white beaches, drifting for hours in the crystal blue water, and exploring the small cliff just off the coast.
It was the perfect vacation she'd never dared take. She couldn't afford to miss one day of Syndicate business. She also couldn't have afforded the plane ticket all the way across the ocean. Thank God for the Serpent bank accounts and their obsession with everyone knowing just how filled they were.
Nat waved another waiter toward them, eyes lighting up at the rainbow of drinks on his tray.
But Bianca had had enough for tonight. Perhaps a bit too much, because the back of her neck suddenly tingled and her skin felt hot. Definitely not the state any self-respecting Syndicate member should be in when surrounded by Serpents. Nobody apart from the security personnel had been allowed to bring weapons, but Bianca knew this loud, overflowing restaurant had more assassins and guns stashed underneath tables than plates and glasses.
"I'm going to get some fresh air," Bianca said.
Nat pouted, already picking up a pink cocktail that wouldn't feel all that great when it hit in the morning. "You are no fun."
Who needed fun when Bianca had a bright future ahead of her?
She wound between the tables, avoiding the uncles and aunts dancing up a storm in the center. Well, not quite a storm. Maybe a light, unbalanced drizzle.
The old-timers who'd served the Clan well back in their prime, had taken enough lives to fill more than one cemetery, and now could make fools of themselves whenever the band started playing too loud.
But nobody would ever say that to their faces. You'd be lucky if you came out of it with all your limbs. And after the last few shitty years, the Syndicate deserved a few rowdy nights.
As soon as Bianca stepped outside onto the terrace, the salty sea breeze ghosted across her heated face. But it did nothing to cool her down.
She wandered further underneath the wooden pergola dripping with sweet climbing jasmine. No matter how hard she tried to lose herself in the view of the gentle waves sweeping over the beach, in the calm reflection of the moon and stars, her skin still tingled.
As if someone was watching her.
She eyed the windows. Nobody in the restaurant was looking at her, not even Nat, who was busy giving her phone loopy smiles.
Then her gaze wandered to the edge of the beach, near the cliffs. Her heart stuttered.
There he was. The only man whose mere name could make bloody assassins quake. The man who made and crumbled fortunes with one word.
Xander Cirillo. The Serpents' fiercest negotiator—who was talking to the Syndicate's leader and trying to be very inconspicuous about it.
Get The Witness: An Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance (The Syndicate's Revenge
Book 0) for FREE
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The Target
An Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance
THE SYNDICATE’S REVENGE BOOK 1
His Clan destroyed her family. Now she's forced to be his.
Chapter One
AXTON
That had been the worst wedding in history. Definitely the bloodiest.
Most Clan gatherings—at least the ones Axton forced himself to attend—had a nasty surprise, but this one had been a massacre. Vicious, even by Axton's standards, and he'd been part of the Brotherhood Elite for close to five years now.
The would-be groom? Dead before he'd said his "I do". The bride? She hadn't been the one to kill him, but she'd stabbed the brute's hand, right there at the altar, while bullets rained down on everyone.
"We need to find out how this could have happened," Axton said calmly, breaking the funeral silence which had settled over the council room. All eyes snapped to him, like always. The Elite always paid attention when The Shadow spoke. As any good Clan, the Brotherhood had a very precise, efficient hierarchy they never strayed away from, and Axton had climbed his way to the top in record time. "That wedding was a shitshow."
"Let's call it what it really was. An ambush which could destroy our Clan if we're not careful," Raiden, the Brotherhood Crown Prince, said. His furious dark eyes traveled along the table, stopping at the golden bar nestled in the corner, looking on the verge of toppling it over.