Mafia Princess: An Arranged Marriage Mafia Romance (Valenti Family Ties Book 1)

by Selena

  “King,” I say, going to him and pushing the door closed behind him. “Let me look at that.”

  To my surprise, he jerks away when I try to touch him. “What did you do?” he asks, his voice harsh and cold.

  “Me?” I recoil, my mind racing through possibilities.

  “I asked you to talk to your father,” he grits out. “What did you tell him, Eliza?”

  “What are you talking about?” I ask. “I did call him. We talked about the honeymoon and the apartment, and he said you were meeting at Jean-Jean…”

  King stares into my eyes with so much hatred it makes me shrink inside. “And then his men fucking shot me,” he says. “I had to fucking kill someone today, Eliza. Do you know what that feels like? Do you think I like doing this shit? No, but I do it because I’m your fucking husband, and that’s what’s expected of me. It’s my fucking job. And it’s your job to be my wife, not get me fucking killed.”

  I nod mutely, not daring to speak. His fury makes me tremble all the way to my core. He vibrates with it, with rage and danger, a force I can’t begin to fight. I know he’s in pain, and the sooner he’s out of it, the sooner he’ll be thinking clearly.

  Before I have a chance to figure out a response, he pushes past me and limps into the bedroom. I hear him cursing, and maybe I should be afraid, but I’ve done this shit too many times. I sigh and head into the room after him.

  “Let me look at your injuries,” I say.

  “Oh, now you fucking care?” he snaps, kicking his shoes off and pushing them under the edge of the bed.

  “I know you’re in pain,” I say. “So just let me look.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” he grits out. With that, he goes into the bathroom and closes the door in my face.

  Yeah, well, fuck him, too.

  I wish I could walk away, but some part of me knows I can’t. I’m bound to this stubborn asshole forever. I try the door, but it’s locked.

  “Come on, King. I didn’t tell my dad to put a hit on you,” I say. “I told him you were fine on the honeymoon, and that everything was good with us.”

  He’s quiet for a minute, though I can hear him rummaging in the drawers. “Why would you say that?” he asks at last.

  “Because that’s what we said we were going to tell people,” I remind him. “I know there’s no way out of this, King. I know we have to be married and have a baby. So, tell me what happened, and I can help you.”

  “I don’t need help,” he says. “It’s just a scratch.”

  I roll my eyes. Men and their pride.

  “Fine,” I say. “I’ll make coffee.”

  I turn and walk away, knowing he’ll have to give in sooner or later. That, or his pride will kill him when he bleeds to death.

  Then would I be free?

  I’m ashamed at the thought, but I follow it, anyway. It hasn’t been long enough for me to play grieving widow. Dad would just marry me off to someone else, and that someone might not be as understanding as King. I got lucky with him. I should have shown him that this week instead of clinging to this stupid idea of my independence when he’s not even trying to stop me from having that. Old habits die hard, I guess. I spent my whole life thinking marriage was a trap. That doesn’t go away overnight.

  That, or what happened in Bora Bora seems too good to be true, so good it can’t be real. I was sure he’d change his mind once we got home, and I had to make sure he didn’t. And now all I’ve made sure of is that he thinks I hate him enough to get him killed.

  Good one, Eliza.

  When I finish making coffee, I go back into the bedroom. King is sitting on the edge of the bed in a pair of boxer shorts. He’s taped a bandage on his shoulder, but blood is already soaking through. He’s looking down at his thigh, where a nasty hole is leaking blood.

  “Decaf,” I tell him, handing over the cup of coffee with just a dash of cream.

  “What’s the point of decaf coffee?” he grumbles, but he takes the cup. He sets it aside without taking a drink, so I sip mine to reassure him. I feel like shit that he honestly thinks I’d poison him.

  “The point is, I don’t want to give you anything that’s going to make you bleed more,” I say, setting my cup down and sitting beside him. I touch his bicep below the wound in his shoulder. “You know that’s not going to stop bleeding until you stitch it up.”

  He shrugs. “It might take longer, but eventually it’ll heal.”

  “You don’t know how to sew it up, do you?”

  “I’m righthanded,” he says, flexing the hand on the side of his wounded shoulder.

  I roll my eyes. “So stop being a stubborn ass and let me help you.”

  King studies me for a minute, until I’m squirming with discomfort and wishing I hadn’t said anything about his arm at all.

  “Why would you do that?” he asks after what feels like an eternity.

  I sigh. “Because you’re hurt, and I’m a very nice person.”

  King looks at me for another long moment, like he’s trying to figure me out. “You’re going to drop some poison into my blood while you stitch me up, aren’t you?”

  “Don’t give me ideas,” I say lightly.

  I pick up his cup, though, taking a drink from that one in case he thinks I only poisoned his. Then I wash up and grab my surgical kit. I want to tell him the truth, but he’s so angry. And I don’t know what he does when he’s angry. There’s ammunition in the truth—that I can’t stand to see anyone hurting, that I’m softer than anyone in this business should be, that I respect him and all the men who do the jobs that have to be done every day.

  King watches dubiously while I open my bag and spread out my instruments. “Why do you have that?”

  “Oh, I used to stitch up my dad and his guys all the time,” I say with a shrug. “I mean, we have a doctor on the payroll. I’m not that good. But I can do little stuff.” While I talk, I set a towel on the bed and settle onto my knees beside him. When I pull off the bandage on his shoulder, he doesn’t react outwardly. But when I start to clean the wound with alcohol, I see the muscle in his jaw tense as he clenches his teeth. He’s human, after all.

  “That’s why you offered, isn’t it?” he asks, staring straight ahead with a stone face. “You know it hurts like a son of a bitch.”

  “I don’t hate you,” I say. “I thought you knew that.”

  “Since when?” he asks through gritted teeth.

  “Since our honeymoon,” I say. “I know it wasn’t the honeymoon most people have, but it wasn’t all bad, was it?”

  He lets out a little snort of breath.

  “Okay, maybe it was all bad for you,” I say. “But I thought you knew that I didn’t hate you after that. You were really cool about the whole thing.”

  This time, I get a whole grunt in response.

  “Maybe cool is the wrong word,” I concede. “My point is, even though you weren’t happy about it, you helped me when I needed it. So let me help you now.”

  He looks away. “I didn’t help you,” he mutters.

  “You’re wrong,” I say. “You might not know it, but I do. And I’m sorry I haven’t shown it this week. I just… I was sure you’d try to make me into something I’m not. I know what mafia wives have to put up with. So I was making sure you knew I wasn’t giving up my friends or my life. But I’ll do more around here. I live here, too.”

  “I don’t expect you to be the maid,” he says, watching me run the thread through his skin.

  “I know,” I say. “But I can hire one.”

  “I thought you didn’t know how.”

  “I’m sure I can figure it out,” I say, tying off the ends of the thread and sitting back. “All fixed up.”

  “Yeah,” he says, still glowering at the window. “Thanks.”

  So, I may be able to bandage a wound, but I can’t fix what’s wrong with his head. And that’s okay. I don’t expect him to fix me, either. I smile at that thought. There’s way too fucking much wrong with me to fix.<
br />
  “What are you smiling at?” he asks after a second.

  I dart a quick glance at him. I didn’t know he was looking.

  “Nothing,” I say, shaking my head as I reach for the bandages to cover the gnarly stitching. “I was just thinking I could fix you, but I don’t think anyone could do that.”

  “You’re probably right about that,” he says after a pause.

  “And that’s okay,” I say. “I won’t try to fix you if you don’t try to fix me. Deal?”

  He hesitates again, grinding his teeth back and forth. Finally he nods. “Deal,” he says, but he doesn’t sound very happy about it.

  “This one’s going to hurt more for a minute, but it won’t last as long,” I say, reaching for the needle-nosed plyers. “Lay down.”

  He swings his legs up onto the bed and crosses his arms over his chest. I straddle his shins and lean down over the bullet that’s still lodged in his quad.

  “Maybe we don’t need to fix each other,” I say as I work. “We can just learn to live with the broken pieces.”

  He sucks in a breath when I hit the end of the bullet. We share a minute of silence as I carefully dig to get a grip on it. “I remember the first time I did this,” I say with a little laugh. “I must have been, like, eight. I woke up in the middle of the night, and I heard all this screaming and yelling, so I went to see what it was all about. Daddy was hauling my uncle in, and he was cussing like… Like no eight-year-old should hear.” I break off, shaking my head.

  King doesn’t speak, so I go on.

  “He was shot in the back of his leg, below the knee. A few other guys were there, too, but they couldn’t get the bullet out because Uncle Bert kept kicking every time they started digging for it. But then Daddy saw I was up, and that I’d seen all the blood already, and heard all the cussing, and I hadn’t run screaming. And I had tiny fingers that could get in the bullet hole and get the bullet when no one else could.” I laugh softly and deposit the bullet onto my tray. “My mom was so pissed when she found out.”

  It’s been so long since I thought about that night. Sewing up injuries just became part of my life at some point soon after that, when Mom split.

  King doesn’t say anything, but I know he’s listening. He’s watching me with… Something new in his eyes. Respect, maybe. I realize that’s like the longest conversation I’ve had with my husband about the way I was raised. I don’t really know anything about his life, either. Suddenly, I feel weird about having shared that memory, as impersonal as it is.

  I get the needle ready to sew up the tiny opening from the bullet. “Just a few more stitches,” I say. “You can keep that bullet as a souvenir. I hear it’s memorable—the first time being shot.”

  I glance up at him, and see his eyes are glassy with pain. He’s been amazingly still considering the pain he’s in. The injuries are pretty minor, but they’ve gotta hurt like hell itself. I respect him for his stoic response. Once, I told him that he had to earn my respect, but I didn’t think much about him respecting me. I assumed no mafia man really respects his wife, but King’s not like most of the men I know. I’m proud to have earned his respect tonight, and more than happy to give him mine. It’s hard not to respect a guy who barely winces after being shot.

  He jerks when I poke the needle into him, but he doesn’t say anything. When I dart a glance at him, he’s laid his head back on the pillow, eyes closed, nostrils flared.

  “Want me to shut up?” I ask, putting in another stitch.

  “No,” he grits out. “Keep talking.”

  I want to ask him about his life, but he probably doesn’t want to talk right now, so I try to think of something else to say. “My friend Bianca thinks you’re hot,” I say, remembering her teasing this morning at the salon.

  That thought brings me to the conversation I had with Dad on the phone while I was there, which leads me back to King’s accusation.

  “I know you think this was a setup, but that’s because someone wanted you to think that,” I say. “Someone who wants us to stay at war. If it was my dad, he would have gotten me out before anything went down. Trust me, King. He would think of me.”

  I have no doubt about that. He’s always thinking of me, even in this marriage that seemed like a curse. I may not have seen it at first, but now I do. Now I know he gave me what I needed, that he was thinking of not just an alliance with the Valentis, but of my happiness. He didn’t want me to be left a widow at twenty-five, so he gave me someone young. He didn’t want me to be in the heart of danger at all times, didn’t want my husband to be in the most dangerous positions, so he gave me a soldier. He didn’t want me to marry someone callous and unfeeling, so he gave me someone new to the Life.

  So, who would want to shoot at the Valentis besides my father?

  Well, that answer is too easy. Everyone.

  “Our families made an alliance, but that doesn’t mean the other families are all going to be peaceful forever,” I say. “And for all we know, someone thought both Anthony and Al were in there. They could have meant those bullets for both our families.”

  King nods, his brow knitting into a frown.

  “It could have been random, someone who just saw Al going in and took the opportunity.”

  “It wasn’t random,” King says. “They were wearing ski masks. They had silencers. It was premeditated.”

  I nod and carefully place a bandage over his wound. “Does anyone want you dead? If we can rule that out, we’ll know they came for Al.”

  King pauses, his eyes searching mine. “Did you tell your dad that I know about the abuse?”

  “No,” I say, scowling at him. “Why would I tell him that?”

  He looks at the window again. “I thought… Maybe he’d come after me if I knew.”

  I sit back on my heels. “What? Why?”

  He gives me a long look, until the realization sets in.

  “I told you it wasn’t him,” I snap. “My father would never do that to me. He loves me. I know what people say about him, and when it comes to women, maybe it’s true. But what’s he supposed to do, be celibate for the rest of his life because his wife won’t talk to him? And maybe he had his little things on the side before that, but it’s not like they were happy, anyway. It was arranged, just like this. My mom never loved him, never wanted him.”

  We stare at each other for a long minute, and I realize I’ve said way too much. He doesn’t need to know all that about my family.

  “Like you,” he says quietly. “That’s why you think I’m going to fuck around. Because you don’t want me, the same way your mom didn’t want your dad. And that’s what he did.”

  I raise my chin and glare at him. “He’s a good dad, King. As good as he could be, under the circumstances. He had plenty of girlfriends, yeah, but he’d never, ever lay a finger on me.”

  “Okay,” he says.

  For a minute, we sit there in silence, our wills battling each other. I need him to know that I’d never lie about that, that my father is a good man, even if he’s also a violent monster with a temper when it comes to his job. But never to me. To me, he was the stressed out, overworked dad who had so many obligations that he had to choose between leaving me with more nannies in the evenings or taking me along. I wanted to be with him, and he loved me, so he made the choice that maybe wasn’t ideal, but it’s the one that made me happy.

  He chose to take me along, hence the poker games and emergency meetings to talk strategy, the bullet removals at two in the morning, and the certainty that he would never, ever leave me behind if our families were going to war. He wouldn’t send guys to do a job in broad daylight. He’d never have his men cover their faces with masks, either. King may not be convinced, but I can say with complete confidence that this was not my father’s doing.

  “You can get cleaned up now,” I say. “But try not to get it wet for a few days.”

  “I guess it’s good you fixed me up,” King says, swinging his legs off the bed. “I’d prob
ably have gotten blood on the sheets.”

  The image catches in my mind, the comments people made about our wedding night. I’m the one who’s supposed to bleed on the sheets. Maybe he’s thinking the same thing, because he quickly stands and heads for the bathroom to clean up while I put my things away.

  He stops in the doorway of the bathroom, turning back. “Eliza?” he says.

  “Hmm,” I say, not looking at him as I set aside the bloody instruments that need disinfecting.

  “Thank you.”

  I shrug. “It’s nothing.”

  Our eyes meet, and his dark gaze is so intense it makes me squirm. “It’s something.”

  This time, I’m the one who looks away. Sometimes it feels like those espresso eyes pierce straight into my soul.

  He hesitates a moment, then steps into the bathroom and closes the door. I’m glad he’s gone, that he doesn’t see me close my eyes to collect myself, doesn’t guess at the shivery, fluttery feeling turning my insides all around.

  It’s been a long day, and an even longer evening, and I decide to just go to bed and be done with it. A while later, King comes out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. I close my eyes and pretend to sleep, but tonight I peek through my lashes. King’s not especially modest, but he doesn’t parade around naked in front of me, either. I’ve only ever seen him naked once, and I’m ready for more.

  His hair is wet and his body clean, little droplets of water clinging to his skin where he washed, lit up by the golden light filtering into the bedroom from the open bathroom door. He glances at me as if to check if I’m sleeping before he drops the towel and turns to the dresser. He has a scar on his side, above his hip, and if I had to guess, I’d say it’s less than a year old. It looks like another bullet wound, though he didn’t correct me when I said today was his first. It makes me wonder because I thought he was new to the Life. I watch the curve of his ass, how nicely muscled his butt is, the strong, lean muscles of his thighs. When he turns away from the dresser, I can just see the shape of his cock hanging down, and it makes butterflies explode inside my belly.