by Selena
Everything in the Life is black and white. It’s simple because it’s all business. Nothing is personal. You play by the rules, or you pay. You have the money when the tax man comes, or you get hurt. You give a little taste of what’s to come if they don’t pay, or you learn how quickly you become expendable. You don’t think about his ma in the hospital, and you don’t hear him screaming. You think about what will let you live one more day, and you know it’s easier to feel nothing than to feel pain.
six
Eliza
“Do you know who he is?” Bianca asks excitedly over brunch the following Sunday.
“No,” I admit, misery weighing down every word I speak. “Just a name. I’m supposed to meet him this afternoon. I’ve never even heard of him.”
That’s not surprising. I don’t know anyone in the Valenti family because they’re all self-serving assholes who don’t do anything without evil motives. I know all I need to know—stay away.
“Maybe it won’t be so bad,” Bianca says with a sly smile. “Maybe he’ll be cute. I mean, I’d fuck Al Valenti.”
“Well, it’s not Al. Who, let me remind you, is three times our age.”
“And hot as fuck,” she says decisively. “Not to mention he’d know what he was doing. We’re virgins, E. I know I don’t need no high school boy who’s only out to get his. I need a man with some experience, who knows how to keep his old lady happy.”
“I don’t need a man at all,” I say, draining my mimosa and tipping the glass toward our live-in cook, who also serves the meals when it’s just family or a few friends. “Why do we have to get married so young, anyway? I like my life how it is. I don’t need a change.”
“Because they’re afraid you’ll let some guy float the love canal before tying the knot. We’re lucky they wait until we’re eighteen now. In the old days…” Bianca wiggles her eyebrows.
I push my plate away and slump back. “I guess at least I wasn’t engaged from birth. That shit still happens, even if they wait until we’re eighteen to marry us off.”
“You knew this day was coming,” Bianca points out, munching away on a piece of cantaloupe with a glimmer of smugness in her eyes. Fucking frenemies. She’s probably laughing on the inside, hoping I’m miserable for the rest of my life.
“It’s coming for you, too,” I remind her, accepting my third mimosa of the morning with a nod of gratitude. “You’re seventeen.”
“I just pray I don’t get some creepy old dude who can’t get it up,” she says, wrinkling her pretty nose.
“Dear god, I’d pay to get some creepy old dude who can’t get it up.”
“You’re crazy,” Bianca says with a wild laugh. “Don’t you want to have sex? Besides, they only give you to someone like that if you’re done for, and they want you out of the way.”
“Fine by me,” I say. “Out of sight, out of mind. I could live my own life.”
“Not me,” Bianca says. “I want to be right in the middle of things, not shipped off to some old guy’s mansion in Montauk where nothing ever happens. I’d die of boredom.”
“Want to trade places?” I ask. “You can have my engagement.”
“No way,” she squeals. For all her big talk, she wouldn’t trade with me even if she could. Men may have brainwashed women into thinking marriage is something they want for the past few centuries, but our eyes are open. Marriage is the end for women. Not the end goal, but the end of any other goals.
*
“Are you ready?” Sylvia asks, peeking her head into my room.
“What, am I supposed to put on a ballgown and descend the stairs in slow motion so my future owner can get a look at the goods he’s getting in this transaction?” I ask, rolling my eyes.
Sylvia tuts and comes into the room, tugging at the hem of my sundress. It’s the same one I wore to church and then brunch. I’m not about to change even an outfit for this guy. It’s bad enough that I have to marry him. I don’t have to change who I am for him.
“Never hurts to make a first impression,” she says, standing back and looking me over.
“I’ll make a first impression either way,” I say. “I’m not looking to make a good one.”
She shakes her head and sighs. When Mom left, Dad tried hiring a nanny to watch out for me while he was gone, which was always. Too bad he couldn’t keep his hands off her—or any of the ones that followed. I spent more than half my life watching a parade of young women full of promise come into our home to teach and guide me, only to leave it a few months later with tear-stained faces and broken hearts.
After all that? I’d still rather be one of them than a wife. They left him cradling their wounded egos, with stories to tell their friends. Mom fled like a refugee in the night with stories of her former life she could never tell a soul.
“Look at you, all grown up and ready to start your new life,” Sylvia says, looking like she might actually cry. She’s toughed it out a lot longer than most of the others, lasting a few years now. She tries to be both my sister and my mother, which makes me a little sad for her. It also ensures I don’t confide in her like a sister or respect her like a mother, though I do like her. Dad stopped paying her when I turned eighteen, but she sticks around for the other benefits—the posh lifestyle and, I assume, the dick.
Yes, I know more about my dad’s sex life than the average girl wants to, but he’s never hidden things from me, which I appreciate. Bianca’s always grossed out at the thought of her parents getting busy, but it’s so obvious in my house that there’s no squeamishness around it. It’s an unspoken but well-known fact that my dad gets all the pussy he wants. I grew up sitting on his knee while he played poker, for fuck’s sake. I know way more about the Life and all it entails than I probably should.
“Can we just get this over with?” I ask, sighing as Sylvia rummages in my handbag. She produces a tiny bottle of breath spray and brandishes it at me.
“How much did you have to drink at lunch?” she asks in a scolding tone.
“Not nearly enough,” I mutter, but I open my mouth and let her make my breath minty-fresh nonetheless. She leads me out of the room and down the hall. And even though I got a good buzz going so I wouldn’t be nervous, I can suddenly hear every beat of my heart echoing like the thud of a drum leading soldiers into a doomed battle where they’re outnumbered three to one.
“Wait,” I say, grabbing Sylvia’s hand. My mind is skittering over the possibilities. Who did Al Valenti pick for me? Probably someone hideous inside and out, someone who will punish me for all the lives my family has taken. Suddenly, my mind flashes to the tattooed giant they call Il Diavolo, someone so brutal the devil himself would be terrified, and my knees go weak. “Did you meet him?”
Sylvia gives me a conspiratorial smile. “He’s a looker,” she whispers, squeezing my hand.
“Who is he?”
“I don’t know. Some new guy.”
“A soldier?” I ask incredulously. They picked a nobody for the daughter of the legendary Anthony Pomponio?
I’m too offended to come up with a response. It’s not Sylvia’s fault. I know she thinks it’s an honor to get to be anyone’s wife, but a soldier?
Before I can ask more, I hear my father’s voice from the study below. I can’t make out what he’s saying, but I focus on trying while I wobble down the steps. I drank too much to cope with this situation, but oh god, it really wasn’t enough. The desire to stop by the wet bar grips me, and before I know what I’m going, I’m heading in to grab a shot or ten before I have to meet this asshole. I need something to calm the urge to tell the guy he’ll never marry the likes of me.
“Just to settle my nerves,” I assure Sylvia as I snag a bottle of Patron and pour myself a shot.
Ten minutes later, my father arrives in the doorway, a scowl on his face. “What are you doing in here?” he demands, his bushy brows lowered in a glower.
“Isn’t he supposed to come sweeping in here to court me?” I ask, throwing my arms wide. I
stumble a bit, bumping into the leather sofa and collapsing back onto it.
“Get her some coffee,” he snaps at Sylvia. “I’ll bring him in here. But you’re not getting out of this, Liza. It’s already been decided. Nothing you do now will change that. And I won’t have you making a fool of our family.”
“Yes, Daddy,” I say sweetly.
A minute later, he’s back, a tall figure towering behind him like a shadow stretched out on pavement in the late afternoon, larger than life. But the man who steps in behind him isn’t boisterous like someone you’d use that term to describe. Instead, he’s stiff and formal, a frown knitting his fine brow. His sculpted jaw is clenched, and his angular features are set in angry lines. The moment my eyes meet his dark chocolate gaze, everything in my body reacts. I must have had too much to drink because suddenly my belly does a little flip like I might be sick, and my heart starts racing, and my blood seems to tremble in my veins.
One look in his dark, cold eyes, and I can tell I’ve made a terrible mistake. I should not have taken those tequila shots. I should not have expected Al’s ugly-ass uncle to come to collect. No, this guy is so much worse. He’s not some old guy who can be manipulated into doing my bidding with insincere flattery about how hot and young he still is. This guy is still hot and young. Too fucking hot, and way too fucking young. He’s not going to be dying of too much cream sauce anytime in the next fifty years.
Suddenly, I can’t breathe. My marriage won’t be over before I’m twenty-five. It will never be over. This isn’t a sacrifice for the family. It’s a life sentence. I can feel the shackles around my ribs tightening with each breath I try to draw as he holds me pinned with his gaze, the cold cruelty in his expression boring into me as if he already hates me more than I hate him. He is a Valenti, after all. My family has killed as many of them as they have us. And now I’m at his mercy. He’s probably already thinking up what sadistic tortures he’ll inflict upon me for the rest of my life.
Oh god. I’m doomed.
He strides to the sofa and stands over me like he’s lording his height over me, just looking down at me expectantly. When I don’t jump up to bow at his feet and tell him how happy I am that I’m being sold off like a head of cattle to an absolute no one, he frowns even harder. Then, the dude sticks out his hand like we’re in a fucking business meeting.
“I’m King,” he says. “You must be Eliza.”
Damn it. Even his voice is sexy, rich and smooth like butter.
But despite his looks and his voice, he’s too uptight to be sexy. I mean, the guy is seriously trying to shake my hand like some stuffy old guy from a Jane Austen novel.
Yeah, fuck this. I’m not doomed. I’m not going to give in that easily. I don’t lie down and roll over for anyone, even my future husband. In fact, it’s even more important that I show him I won’t be controlled. If he were old, maybe I could stand it for a few years. But if I’m going to spend the rest of my life with this prick, I’m going to have to lay down the law real quick. Starting with the fact that I don’t respect anyone who hasn’t earned it.
Ignoring his hand, I cock an eyebrow and meet his gaze with a challenge in my eyes. “You’re supposed to be able to handle me?” I ask. “You can’t be any older than I am.”
He takes his hand back, looking momentarily speechless, like he doesn’t know what to say.
“Eliza,” Dad barks. “Stand up and meet your fiancé.”
“Oh, right,” I say, struggling to rise from the overly soft couch. “Sorry, Daddy. I’ll be on my best behavior.”
King offers a hand again, this time to help me up, but I ignore it again. I heave myself up and find myself staring straight at his chest. Damn, this guy is tall, easily six foot four and clad in an Armani suit. I thought he was just some grunt like Tommy. He must be important to afford that kind of wardrobe—or at least rich.
For a second, I check out the way he fills out that suit from his broad shoulders to the sculpted muscles I can see hinted at beneath his white shirt. When at last I raise my eyes to his, he’s scowling even fiercer.
“Let’s give these two a moment to get acquainted,” Sylvia says, edging toward the door. “I’ll have sandwiches sent up.”
“Good idea,” Dad says. “I’ll be right here.”
I almost laugh. No way is Daddy leaving his little girl alone with a Valenti. Maybe there’s still hope for me yet. I may have cried and begged at the bistro, but there are other ways to get what I want. I have no power here, so I have to rely on the power of manipulation. But hey, a girl has to work with what she’s got.
King is still glaring daggers at me, not stepping back. He’s so close I could reach out and touch him if I wanted, see if those muscles are as hard as they look.
“Are you drunk?” he asks, an edge of incredulousness in his voice.
“Are you judging me?” I shoot back.
He just stares at me a long moment, the muscle in his jaw working like he’s holding back from saying what he wants. Good. He should be intimidated. If not by me, then by my father. I have to hand it to the guy, he’s got balls, coming in here alone while our families have been at war for a decade. It could have been a trap. Still, he’s smart enough not to insult Daddy’s little girl in front of him.
“It’s nice meeting you,” he says flatly. “Let me know if you’d like to get together again before the wedding to discuss specifics. Otherwise, I trust that you’re more than capable of making the arrangements.”
Now I’m the one left speechless. I gape at him, caught between indignation and anger. He seems as uninterested in me as I am in him. Much to my annoyance, I find myself feeling resentful, even a bit insulted, by his indifference.
“Haven’t you come to woo me?” I ask, a mocking edge to my voice.
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” he says. “If you need my approval on any wedding decisions, you can email me, and I’ll sign off on it.”
“Email you?” I repeat incredulously. “Approval?”
“Unless you’d like to meet again before that,” he says, leveling me with a look my father can’t see from his position behind him. King is challenging me.
Well, two can play that game.
“No need,” I say, lifting my chin. “We’ve got an event coordinator.”
“Then it’s settled,” King says. “I’ll see you at the altar.”
Without another word, he turns and strides over to shake my father’s hand. “Your daughter is as lovely as I’d heard,” he says. “I’m honored to have the opportunity to bring our families together with this union.”
I want to scream and hurl the bottle of tequila at his head, but my father already looks like a pressure cooker about to blow its gasket, so I settle for sloshing more alcohol into the two shot glasses I retrieved earlier. As soon as King is gone, Dad strides over to the bar and rips the shot glass from my hand.
“You will not disrespect our family like that again, do you understand me?” he roars, his face twisted in rage. The legendary Pomponio temper is nothing to mess with. Dad doesn’t have a short fuse, but when his fuse is lit… I scurry off the chair and around the bar, putting the solid oak between us.
“I’m sorry,” I wail. “It’s just that he’s so horrible, Daddy! He’s going to kill me! He’s going to make me pay for the war between our families. I can’t marry him, Daddy! I just can’t! I’ll die!”
My father’s nostrils flare, and he heaves a series of heavy breaths as he stares at me, his face returning to something closer to its normal color. He used to always fall for my tantrums, but I think he’s catching on. Maybe he’s right. Maybe it is time I moved on to a new family, a new man who doesn’t know my tricks quite so well.
“The wedding is happening,” he says. “And that’s final. Do you understand me?”
I nod, swallowing down the lump in my throat. I might have been faking the hysterics, but that man really was terrible. And I really do fear what the future holds, what punishments he’ll consider f
itting to pay for the crimes of my family. As much as I hate it, I know there’s no escaping fate.
I’ve always known this is my duty to the family, the price of being a Pomponio. I’m proud of my name, and proud of where I come from. Part of that heritage means marrying for political reasons. I’ll just have to make the best of it. Maybe King has one of the more dangerous jobs, one that will make me a widow before I’m twenty-five, anyway. If not, I’ll just have to put my foot down from the start, show him I’m not some obedient, subservient little house slave. I’ve always been a rebellious daughter. Now I’ll just be a rebellious wife instead. I’m going from being my father’s property to my husband’s, after all. Does it really matter which man is trying to control me?
Dad takes my silence for obedience and lets out a heavy breath. “Sylvia can help you plan. I would also like you to involve the daughters of the other families in some way. One from each family as a bridesmaid along with some of our girls. With all five families together, we look stronger than ever.”
I don’t have to ask who they’re showing unity to. I know there are other organizations in the city. Besides, Dad will want to show the other families that we’re now good with the Valentis. It protects us from their allies and makes us look stronger than ever.
“Do I have to invite Lizzie Salvatore?” I ask, dreading the thought of the trashy little New Jersey princess being one of my bridesmaids. Yes, she’s fun to party with because she’s been doing it since she was thirteen and she knows all the party spots. But she’ll probably cut her dress to right below her ass, get falling-down drunk, and conveniently forget to wear underwear. I might not care for my groom much, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want a nice wedding. Every girl deserves that, even if she has to marry a monster.
“All the families,” Dad repeats. “You’ve got six weeks. You’ll use the place in the Hamptons. And I expect you to call your future husband and make an apology. A man doesn’t want to marry a drunk.”