The click of the door shutting sounded like a bomb exploding in the otherwise silent office. Each wall had been soundproofed, and I wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or not. Dad said he needed the quiet to work, but I knew it was so that he could do anything inside this room and not be heard.
I kept my back to the wall, staring at the furniture, unable to imagine what it would be like when it was all removed. How was I meant to make this space my own when my dad’s ghost haunted it? I stared at the decanter of whisky and stepped toward it, needing the burn of alcohol to tamp down all of my thoughts. But I’d only made it halfway there when the office door that led into the main part of the house flung open.
“What the fuck—"
“Language,” a deep, Italian-accented voice said. “Is that any way to talk to your uncle?”
I blinked, keeping my expression neutral as I stared at my uncle Paolo—my dad’s brother. “Uncle,” I greeted, pushing my hands into the pockets of my slacks and trying not to act surprised at seeing him. It was a move I knew he noticed as his gaze flicked down, then back up to my face. “What are you doing here?” What I really wanted to ask was why he was here now and not weeks ago. He’d missed his own brother’s funeral, so why was he here, barging into what would be my office.
He tilted his head, his inky black hair moving as he did, and sauntered toward the desk. “I came to see my family.” He tsked as if me asking was a stupid question, but both he and I knew it wasn’t. I hadn’t seen him since I was a little boy, and even then, my dad had kept us as far apart as he could. “Such sad news about my brother.” He pushed aside some papers on the desk, trying to read them. “And now you’re left with no leadership.”
I narrowed my eyes on him, taking in his wrinkled, tan face and his pristine gray suit. He’d dressed for business. “We have leadership.” I stepped toward the desk, clenching my hands in my pockets.
“Do you?” He raised a brow, staring at me like I was an annoying fly buzzing around him. “Who?”
“Me.”
He laughed, and it took everything in me not to make a dart toward him. “Are you forgetting the rules, nephew?” I knew the rules. I knew them too fuckin’ well. “I don’t see a ring on your finger.” He lifted the cane he held in his left hand and signaled to my pockets. “Or was I mistaken when I first walked in here?”
My chest heaved. “It’s under control.”
“Hmmm.” He walked around the desk, stopping several feet in front of me. “You only have eight days until you turn thirty.” He tapped the designer watch on his wrist. “Time is ticking, nephew.”
He smiled, the kind of smile that was fake as fuck. “It was nice to see you.” My muscles locked in place as he tapped my shoulder, then spun around. Each of his steps was measured, but I wasn’t sure whether it was him trying to invoke some kind of stature or whether it was because he was nearly seventy years old.
My guard was well and truly up now that he was in the country. My instincts told me whatever he was here for didn’t bode well for me.
“Oh.” He halted at the door and faced me. “Don’t forget, if you can’t meet the requirements by your thirtieth birthday, you forfeit your position…” I opened my mouth, about to tell him I was aware of that, but he continued before I could even say anything. “To me.”
I ground my teeth together, my body taking an involuntary step toward him. “That’ll never happen.”
“We’ll see,” he sang. His Italian accent made him sound like he was being polite, but I heard the veiled threat. He was here to take the business.
He was here to steal what wasn’t his.
My father had been given permission to move from Italy to America when he was eighteen so he could expand the business. And he’d done just that, making it ten times more profitable than the Italian arm of the operation. The Italian arm that Uncle Paolo was the boss of.
I wasn’t going to let him take anything from us. He’d destroy my father’s legacy.
Fuck. But he wasn’t wrong. If I didn’t meet the requirements, he could take it without a fight from a single person.
I yanked my cell out of my pocket and clicked call on Christian’s name. Two rings, and he answered, “Lorenzo.”
“I need an answer from the Ricci girl,” I gritted out, walking toward the office door and staring down the hallway, watching my uncle make his way out of the house with his two personal guards. Who the hell had let him in in the first place? “Now.”
CHAPTER 4
AIDA
“Aida?” Noemi called as she walked into our bedroom. “There’s a package for you.” She stared down at the box in her hands. “It’s from Lorenzo Beretta.” Her gaze focused on me, an expectant look in her eyes.
I’d tried to push everything to the back of my mind since my date with Brad, but it felt impossible when everyone in my family would stare at me, waiting for me to give them an answer. Every day there’d be something to remind me I hadn’t answered yet. Yesterday, a guy called Christian had come to see if I needed any more information—which I didn’t—and now I’d been sent a package.
I just wanted to be a normal twenty-year-old: attend college and get drunk at random parties. But I couldn’t be that—I’d never been that.
“Open it,” I said with a wave of my hand, turning back to my open laptop. I had another assignment due in two days. I didn’t have time to think about anything else until it was finished. I didn’t have the capacity in my brain to think about the proposition.
No. That wasn’t true. I was lying to myself. All I’d been able to think about was the offer made to my parents. A wife. He needed a wife, and he’d chosen me.
Why? That was always the first question that popped into my mind, closely followed by how much would everything change? What about college? There was no way I was giving that up, not if I said yes. If I had one stipulation to this ridiculous thing, that would be it. I winced. Maybe I should have told Christian that yesterday.
I sighed. There were only four days until the wedding took place. Four days until I could be standing at the altar, giving up my entire life.
“Aida?” Noemi sat next to me on my bed. “Would it really be that bad if you said yes?”
I blinked. “I don’t know.” I huffed out a breath and closed my laptop, knowing I wouldn’t be able to concentrate. “What if he wants me to give up college?”
“Tell him you won’t.” She shrugged as if it was that easy. And maybe it was. Maybe I was overthinking the whole situation.
“But…” I threw my head back, staring up at the off-white ceiling. “What if it doesn’t work out?”
“What if it does?” Noemi replied, raising her brows. “What if you end up having an amazing life because you said yes? What if it meant you could achieve all of your dreams?” She paused. “Plus, Ma said she’d help me pay for my own apartment.”
I laughed. “Only you would think like that.”
“I’m only saying the truth.” She chuckled, but I could see the hope in her eyes. She wanted her own freedom. A place where Vida could have her own room. “Open it.” She thrust the box at me. “I want to know what he sent.”
“Fine.” I rolled my eyes and tore open the box to reveal another box. This one was smaller with the signature blue of the designer jewelry shop. My shaky fingers reached for it. “I’m scared to open it,” I confessed to Noemi.
The grin on her face spread wider. “Just open it already!”
Slowly, I flicked the clasp on the front of the box and pulled the top up. “Holy shit.” My breath left me in a whoosh, my eyes not quite believing what was right in front of me.
“Dayuuuuum.” Noemi pushed closer to me. “That’s one huge-ass ring.”
She wasn’t wrong. The dark-blue, shiny stone wasn’t anything I’d ever seen before, and surrounding it were more stones—what I was guessing were diamonds. I’d only ever seen rings like this in the movies or worn by obnoxiously rich people.
“There’s a not
e in here,” Noemi said, pulling a card out of the original box.
I placed the open ring box on the bed in front of us, unable to stop staring at it as I opened up the card. The front was plain, nothing to indicate what it was going to say inside. “I can’t believe he sent me a ring,” I whispered.
“Maybe he’s trying to buy your attention,” Noemi said, snickering. “He clearly doesn’t know you.”
Clearly, he didn’t. Because if he did, he would have known things like that didn’t impress me. If anything, they scared me away. We’d never spent money on things like that. Everything we had was what we needed, not wanted. We were frugal, not wasting a cent of our hard-earned money, but that was because we didn’t have access to the kind of money the Berettas did. We lived opposite lives at totally different ends of the spectrum.
“What does the card say?”
I bit down on my bottom lip as I opened it up, seeing what I assumed was Lorenzo’s scrawl on it, and read each word out loud. “Aida.” I paused, trying not to let my gaze read ahead. “I know you haven’t decided yet, but I wanted to send you something blue to wear on the day if you do say yes.”
“Well…” Noemi cleared her throat. “I’m not sure he gets the concept of something blue.”
“Yeah, me neither.” I closed the card and caught sight of something on the back of it. “He’s given me his number.” My breaths came faster as I said his number in my head. “Does that mean he wants me to call him?”
“Do it,” Noemi said, plucking my cell from next to my laptop. “Call him. Maybe it’ll make it easier to make the decision.” She handed me my cell. “It’s not like you have a lot of time left.”
She wasn’t wrong. The church had been booked by Lorenzo’s mom four days from now. And if I said yes, I’d have to go and buy a dress. Shit. I hadn’t even thought about a dress. I’d blocked it all out, but now it was becoming all the more real. It wasn’t just about me agreeing to become his wife. It was the production of the day. And then what about after? How would it all work?
I groaned and rubbed at my temples. “My brain is in overdrive.”
“Call him,” Noemi repeated as she stood.
“I—"
“Call him.” She nodded, keeping her attention on me for several seconds, then spun around and walked out of the room, leaving me with the huge ring and my cell.
I stared at it for way too long, hoping the numbers would disappear so I wouldn’t be able to call. But they didn’t. They stayed scrawled onto the back of the card, willing me to dial them. So, I did. I bit the bullet, put the numbers into a new contact, then clicked call.
My stomach rolled with nerves as it rang out, and after several clicks, a deep voice answered, “This is Lorenzo.”
“Lorenzo,” I whispered, holding the open ring box in my hand. “This is erm…” I cleared my throat. “It’s Aida.” Silence greeted me, and I wondered if maybe he hadn’t wanted me to call him. What if I’d jumped the gun? Crap. I turned the card over to see if there was a message with the numbers, but there wasn’t. “I…I got your package.”
“Do you like it?” he asked, his deep voice vibrating through the speaker.
“Well…” I bit down on my bottom lip, not sure whether I should be honest with him or tell him the truth. “It’s very big.” I heard a snicker from outside of my bedroom and narrowed my eyes on the half-closed door. Of course, Noemi was listening.
“But do you like it?” he repeated. Did I like it? I wasn’t sure. In another world, maybe I would have been ecstatic with the ring, but in the land I lived in, I couldn’t see myself ever wearing it. But that wasn’t what he’d asked. He’d asked if I liked it, and the truth was, I did. It was pretty.
“Have you tried it on?” he asked, his voice lower now.
“Not yet.”
“Try it on, Aida.”
I swallowed at the sound of him saying my name. It sounded so different coming from his mouth. “Okay.” I slowly reached for the ring, plucking it from the velvet pillow it was wedged in, then slipped it onto my left ring finger. “It fits.” It was so big it extended up to my knuckle. “I…” I closed my eyes, trying to make myself invisible as I asked, “Why me?”
“Why you?” I heard the creak of a chair, and I imagined him sitting up.
“Yeah, why me?” I opened my eyes and stared at the ring. “Why do you want to marry me?”
He cleared his throat, and I wondered if he was processing what to say. He didn’t come across as someone who thought before he spoke, but then I didn’t know him. Which was the whole point. Why would he choose to ask me to marry him when I was sure he had a line full of women ready to take this ring.
“Because my gut told me to.” I opened my mouth, not sure what to say, but he continued, “I don’t overthink things, Aida. When my gut tells me to do something, I do it.”
He made sense, but that didn’t mean I fully understood him.
“What is your gut telling you, Aida?”
I wasn’t sure I could take much more of him saying my name. The way the letters rolled off his tongue had warmth spreading through me and a deep need in my stomach to hear it over and over again.
“I…I’m not sure what it’s saying.” I huffed out a breath and leaned my head in my hand. “I just…there’s too much to think about.”
“Aida.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m going to ask you a question. Don’t think about it. Don’t pause. Just answer it with your gut.”
I pulled in a deep breath. “Okay.”
“Okay.” There was a pause and then, “Will you marry me?”
I didn’t think. I didn’t process the question and think about all of the what-ifs. I let my gut answer for me. “Yes.” I slammed my hand over my mouth, shocked at the single word that had come out. I’d been fretting over this entire situation from the moment Ma and Dad had told me, and all it had taken was one conversation with Lorenzo for me to finally come to a decision.
“I’ll see you at the altar, Aida.”
Holy shit.
I was getting married.
To Lorenzo Beretta.
I was going to be the wife of a Mafia boss.
LORENZO
The church was packed with people who had come from all over the world to see the next boss of the Beretta family get married. A mixture of old and new generations filled each of the pews, but still, there wasn’t enough room for everyone. People lined the edges of the church, several of the families not mixing with one another, but they were here as witnesses.
Witnesses to a new age.
An age of the modern reign.
A reign I intended to take full control of.
My gaze roved around the giant building, first landing on my ma’s smiling face and then on my uncle, who sat next to her. He was becoming a permanent fixture in the house—a fixture I didn’t like. He was trying to insert himself, offer advice that wasn’t wanted. And all I could do was sit back and take it. Until I was married, I wasn’t the boss. Only then could I tell him what I really thought.
Uncle Paolo’s lips curved up into a smile. I tilted my head in greeting, not willing to give him more than that. He thought I didn’t know who he was, but I did. My dad had prepared me for this day for what felt like my entire life, and that included detailed accounts of the Italian arm of the operation. Which included Uncle Paolo. I knew he wasn’t here for the good of the family because, if he was, he would have come to my dad’s funeral.
But he hadn’t.
He’d only come stateside when he could gain something—or that was what he thought.
As soon as I had the ring on my finger and Aida as a wife by my side, I could take over. And my first order of business was to find out exactly what Uncle Paolo was doing here.
My nostrils flared the longer we stared at each other, neither of us willing to look away or back down. He may have been the senior person right now, but he wouldn’t be for long. And as if I had willed it, the music started.
<
br /> I snapped my attention away from Uncle Paolo and onto the aisle that ran through the center of the church. People stood, their gazes veering to the doors as they opened.
And then she walked in.
I couldn’t help but quirk my lips at the simple off-white dress. The closer she got, the more I saw the lace detail, and I knew the women of the family wouldn’t have approved this. Tradition was to get married in white, but she was bucking it. I reasoned that she should have had some control. After all, this wasn’t a real marriage. It was a union made out of necessity, one she didn’t really have a choice in. So, I didn’t think too much about her breaking the tradition. I let it slip away, deciding I had bigger problems than the damn color of her dress.
She turned to face her dad when she was a couple of feet away, whispering something to him, and then she was standing opposite me, her small smile making me feel uneasy.
I had to do this. I had to marry her; otherwise, I wouldn’t be the boss. I repeated those words over and over in my mind, needing them to solidify why we were doing this.
The priest started talking, but I didn’t take in a single word, not when he spoke of the promises we would make each other, and not when he spoke to all the guests. It whizzed by in a flurry, and then he told me to repeat after him. My laser focus zoomed in on Aida. Her dark hair was curled, partly down and whispering on her shoulders. She was beautiful, that was undeniable, but she wasn’t for me. She’d never be for me. It didn’t stop me spewing the vows, promising her things I had no right to promise. Because I would break every single one of them. I knew that. People closest to me knew that. But I wondered if she did.
Did she truly know what she was getting herself into? Or had I depicted an image that would never be a reality?
It was too late now, though. Because as I slipped the black wedding ring onto her finger, and she to mine in return, the vows were sealed.
I was married. Married when I had no intention of seeing her as my wife.
Lorenzo Beretta Page 5