Captured: Claimed Book 3

by M James

  For a horrifying second, I’m sure that I’m going to throw up.

  I can’t be a mafia wife.

  It sounds ludicrous, like something out of a soapy movie, not my real life. Not anything that I could ever be a part of.

  “You have to be loyal to Vincent,” Gianna continues. “The picture of perfection in public, no matter what is happening behind closed doors. Vincent is not as much like his father as I would like. Ezio was mostly faithful, and if he wasn’t, I never saw or heard a hint of it. He made me a part of things, asked my opinions, appreciated my advice and input. Vincent will do none of those things with you, Rain. He expects you to be a pretty decoration, a trophy for him to parade out, and someone to stroke his ego when he needs it. It’s not a pleasant position to be in, I know.”

  You have no fucking idea, I think. But I don’t say anything. I just stay there, sitting ramrod straight, forcing myself not to react.

  “Don’t expect your idea of love from him,” Gianna says gently. “I know that’s hard. But your love can come from your children. Raise them the way you want to when he’s not paying attention, and if I know my son, he will very often not be paying attention. Pray that you have daughters. Never, ever talk to the police. You must always be the bulwark between him and anything that might use you to threaten him, whether you want to or not.” She looks at me and gently touches my hand. “I know this comes as a shock, Rain. I think Vincent should have told you sooner. But the truth is that you have no way out now. You know too much, even just what I’ve told you today. Learning to survive, and even thrive, in this new life is your only choice now.” She smiles. “You’re lucky. If you were marrying a lower-ranked man, the chances that you would have to carry on and support a family while he did time in prison would be much more likely. But Vincent is close to the very top. You will be pampered and spoiled all your life if you just make Vincent believe that you adore and worship him and appreciate all that he does. It doesn’t have to be the truth. Men are easy to lie to. It will make your life much easier if you do that. Give in to his whims, stroke his ego, and there will be no more bruises and split lips.”

  I stare at her, horrified. I don’t know what else I would have expected from her, but to be patted on the hand and told by my future mother-in-law to soothe my husband’s ego to avoid domestic violence feels like something out of an alternate reality. How did this become my life? I don’t know what to do or say, and all I can do is clear my throat and nod, smiling at her as Dena and Erin walk into the room.

  I can barely look at either of them, just as I could barely look at them during breakfast. Erin didn’t say anything about my face, and Dena didn’t either, of course. It made me feel more alone than ever as if neither of them really gave a shit, and as the wedding planning starts in earnest, I can barely focus on it.

  Which turns out to be fine, because no one really cares about my opinion. Dena and Erin ooh and ahh over every picture Gianna pulls out of decorations, color palettes, and flower arrangements. Meanwhile, I can barely focus on a word she’s saying. I’m still reeling from being told that my future husband is heir to an important position in the Italian mafia, and that there’s a code of behavior I’m expected to abide by as his wife—a code I never knew about before today, for a position I never knew I was going to have.

  Wife to a mob underboss.

  It can’t be real. But it is.

  “What do you think of these color palettes?” Gianna pushes a handful of swatches towards me. “You need to choose one, Rain.”

  I stare at them dumbly. There’s one that’s pale pink and silver and white, another that’s black and grey and white, mint and gold and cream, and then a dusty blue and gold and cream. I try to find it in myself to care somehow, try to make myself think of which color palette I would actually want for my wedding, and I can’t. All I want out of this wedding is to escape it somehow.

  “The blue and gold and cream,” I say finally, and Gianna nods approvingly. “That’s wonderful. Now pick a bridesmaid dress silhouette.” She pushes a collage of photos towards me, and I blink.

  “I haven’t picked bridesmaids, though.”

  “Of course you have.” She beams. “Erin and Dena and Sonya will be your bridal party. Vincent’s cousin must be in it, and your sister and Dena is your only close friend, Vincent tells me. So it’s obvious.” Gianna taps the collage with one long manicured nail. “So pick.”

  I want to burst into hysterical laughter. A woman I hate who is fucking the man I love, my sister who seems to hate me now, and my traitorous former friend. Sure. One hell of a bridal party. But really, it fits this joke of a wedding, marrying a man who is blackmailing me into staying with him, holding my father’s life over my head and now my sister’s safety too, and abusing me because he can, fucking my friend and making me agree to let her stay as his live-in mistress.

  I point to a lace silhouette, strapless and knee-length, with a sweetheart neckline. “That one.”

  “Perfect.” Gianna smiles. “Now, flowers.”

  I want to vomit.

  At some point, the wedding planning hell concludes, but it just becomes a new hell—going to the bridal salon to choose my gown. It’s only made worse when I realize that our security has to come along—which means that April and Zach will be in the main room with Gianna, Dena, and Erin.

  I had dreams, as a teenager, of Zach seeing me in a wedding dress.

  I just never thought I’d be marrying some other man.

  Untitled

  Chapter Twenty-One--Rain

  The entire appointment feels like a dream, or rather, a nightmare. I’m tempted to get drunk off of champagne from the minute we arrive, but I limit myself to one glass to help with my nerves. The poor woman helping me, Jenny, doesn’t seem to know what to do with me either, since I can’t seem to answer a single question about what kind of wedding dress I’d want to wear. Since my budget is unlimited, that doesn’t help narrow the pool down either.

  “Do you want classic or trendy?” she asks finally, her expression desperate.

  “Classic,” I manage, and the look of relief on her face is palpable.

  The truth is, I don’t care what I wear to walk down the aisle to marry Vincent. If I had my way, I’d wear yoga pants and sneakers, so I could run as far and fast in the opposite direction as possible. But since I can’t do that, I can’t seem to dredge up a single fuck.

  I do know I don’t want the first dress she shows me, which is a fairytale princess dream, all tulle edged in lace with 3D flowers floating over it with seed pearl centers, the kind of magical gown that I would have died to marry Zach in. Exactly the type of fairytale gown I imagined back then.

  I sure as hell am not walking out and letting him see me in it under these circumstances.

  “Something elegant and not too sexy,” I tell her finally. “My fiancé does a lot of important business deals; he’ll have associates at the wedding. He’ll want me in something classic and sleek that doesn’t show too much skin.”

  “I can work with that,” Jenny says, and I can see her deflate like a balloon as the tension goes out of her.

  The result is that I try on five dresses, walking out in each to twirl and show them to my audience of three—five if you count April and Zach. I glance at them once—April looks as if she could care less, and Zach has that practiced stony expression on his face, but I catch a fleeting glimpse of what looks like hurt in his eyes—he doesn’t want to see this either. He doesn’t want this very visceral reminder that I’m marrying another man, that soon I’ll belong to someone else so thoroughly that we can never get back to one another.

  The overwhelming opinion is that I should go with the fourth dress, a sleek white satin without embellishment, and a boatneck a la Meghan Markle, but off-the-shoulder instead of sleeveless. The skirt is full, nipped in at the waist and flaring out stiffly around me, and it is flattering, I have to admit. With a long veil, I look elegant and beautiful, even if it’s nothing like the misty fa
irytale dream I once envisioned.

  Which I’m grateful for. If there’s one thing I want from this wedding, it’s for it to be nothing like what I would have dreamed of with Zach.

  I feel like I’m zoned out for the rest of the appointment, as the dress is purchased and measurements for quick alterations are taken, and a veil is chosen. Before I know it, we’ve all been whisked back to the brownstone.

  The best thing about the entire afternoon is that I’m left alone after that long enough to take a nap. I fall asleep hard in an actual bed, after the last night spent on the floor, and when I wake groggy and still tired, it’s past the time Vincent should be home.

  I lurch awake immediately, my heart pounding with fear that he’ll be angry that I’ve slept in. I quickly get up and run a brush through my hair, smoothing out my clothes and rushing downstairs. But when I get down to the living room, he’s standing there talking to Erin, who is dressed up as if she’s ready to go out in a red silk slip dress and nude Louboutins, with ruby earrings on that I’ve never seen before.

  “Are you going out?” I ask, not even able to hide my shock. “Just the two of you?” Something about the idea of Erin completely alone with Vincent, out to dinner, doesn’t sit right with me. However, I can’t exactly put my finger on why, other than the simple fact that I don’t want her falling even more under his spell.

  Vincent frowns at me, his expression darkening. “What, don’t you trust your sister and me?” He raises an eyebrow. “If you hadn’t taken a nap all afternoon and been lazy, maybe you would have been up to make plans with us for dinner.”

  Erin tosses her head. “I don’t see why you care, Rain, if Vincent wants to take me out. Clearly, you didn’t want to go if you were upstairs sleeping. It’s none of your business.”

  “He’s my fiancé.” I stare at her. “I live here. You’re my sister. Of course, it’s my business—”

  “We’re just going out to dinner, jeez, Rain. What is wrong with you?” Erin rolls her eyes. “We’ll be back later.”

  Vincent shrugs. “You slept in. It’s no one’s fault but yours that you’re missing out.”

  He doesn’t even bother giving me a kiss as they leave, not that I want one. Still, it’s the utter dismissal of it, the way he takes Erin’s arm as if he truly doesn’t give a shit about me, the way she’s fawning over him and lapping it all up. Erin is my sister, and Vincent is about to be my husband. Yet, I have absolutely no control over the situation.

  I manage to hold it together just long enough for them to walk out of the front door, and then I collapse heavily on the couch, burying my face in my hands. A wave of anxiety washes over me, knowing that my sister is alone with Vincent, out in the big city looking like that, with a man who I can’t trust anymore, and I’m not there to keep an eye on her. My mother trusted me with her, and I’m failing. I’ve failed to protect myself, and now I’m failing to protect her. What if he’s trying to set her up with one of his mafia friends.

  I’m shaking so hard that I didn’t even feel Zach sit down next to me.

  “Rain…Rain!” He reaches out then, pulling one of my hands away from my face. “Rain, you’ve got to calm down before you hyperventilate. Breathe. Come on, you can do it. Just breathe.”

  I look at him, my face red, tear-streaked, and miserable, my hair falling loosely around my face. “I can’t…”

  He looks at me, long and hard, and then he stands up and walks to the living room door, closing it firmly. For a long second, he looks at me, and I can see the struggle in his face. I know he’s fighting something, making some decision, and for a moment, I think he might leave me there.

  But instead, almost as if he knows he shouldn’t be, he walks towards me and sits down on the couch next to me again.

  “This gives us some privacy at least,” he says slowly. “Rain, you’ve got to breathe. You’re crying so hard that you’re going to hurt yourself.” Zach pauses, and I can feel that struggle in him again. “I shouldn’t do this,” he murmurs. “You’re falling apart, I can see it, and I—” he goes quiet for a moment. “I can’t fucking stand it,” he says finally. “Sonya is out, Dena is at work, Erin and Vincent are gone. So talk to me, please, while we have a chance.”

  I shake my head, tears still falling from my eyes. “There’s so much…you wouldn’t look at me the same way if you knew…” I try to imagine telling him everything that’s happened, and it feels impossible. There’s so much space between the boy I loved and the man sitting beside me, so much time passed and filled with awful, terrible things that I don’t even know where to begin. I can feel the floodgates ready to open, to spill it all out, but I can’t make myself say the first words.

  And then Zach touches me.

  He touches my face, his fingertips trailing over my cheeks, and a rush of emotion washes over me, so intense that tears start spilling down my face again because I’ve wanted this for so long. Because his gentle touch brings back so much, and the longing and yearning that rises up in me like a tidal wave feels impossible to hold back.

  Zach slides a finger under my chin, careful not to touch the bruised scratches, and tilts it up so that my tear-filled eyes meet his, blue and intense and full of the same emotion that I feel coursing through me right now. “Rain,” he whispers. “God help me, I shouldn’t say anything that I’m about to. But whatever there was between us, or still is, I was your friend. And I could still be your friend now, if you’ll tell me what’s happened. Why you’re here with a man I know you don’t love, who would let you get hurt like this, who would be unfaithful to you.” He takes a deep breath, and I’m shaking so hard that I feel like I can’t ever stop, shivering like I’m cold.

  And then he says the words I’ve been hoping to hear.

  “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.”

  20

  Zach

  Fuck.

  I shouldn’t be doing this, sitting so close to Rain behind a closed door, touching her, saying these things to her. But seeing her cry like that, as if everything inside of her was pouring out, tore me apart inside. Every instinct I had told me to go to her, so I did. I couldn’t help it, just like I couldn’t help the conversation we had earlier today.

  We aren’t the same people we were all those years ago. But I know she needs to talk to someone, and it’s no longer about April’s orders and whether I should or shouldn’t get close to Rain for the FBI’s purposes. It’s about the girl I loved—that I still love—and the fact that she needs someone to listen, to help her bear what Vincent has done to her, and how I used to be the person who helped her shoulder all of that, all of the hardest parts of life. I helped her through embarrassment, and fear, through the nights when she was afraid she’d lose her home because she’d heard her mom up at night crying over bills. I comforted her when her father came home drunk again and again. I assured her that her life could be different, and it sure as hell as been, and not in the way I hoped for her.

  I want to help her fix it, even though I’m terrified that I can’t.

  “I’ve ended up just like my mother,” she whispers, sniffling. “Tied to a man and unable to leave him, even after he ruins her life.”

  “Look—” I hesitate. “No one could blame you for falling for Vincent, Rain. I’ve heard how the two of you met from Sonya. He bailed you out of some bad situations. And hell, I can’t help but be a little impressed when I see the cars and the jet and the penthouses. And when the person showing all of this off is someone who wants you and claims to be falling for you—anyone could fall for that. It doesn’t make you less of a good person doesn’t make me think less of you. And you’re trying to take care of your sister—” I hesitate before I accidentally tell her what I’ve seen, what I know that would break her heart more than anything else.

  Rain shakes her head, still crying. “My mom tried to warn me,” she whispers hopelessly. “But I wouldn’t listen to anyone. I was so enamored with him. And then he had this huge blowout birthday party, and my mom just w
ent off on him, said he was spoiling me, that he wasn’t good for me. Basically, all the things I’m trying to warn Erin about,” she adds with a bitter laugh. “But I got mad and told her to stop, and that I wasn’t going to talk to her if she was going to act that way. She flew home with Erin, and Vincent proposed to me that night. Of course, I said yes, and that’s when things started to go from bad to horrible.”

  “He got more controlling after that.” It’s not a question. I already know the answer. It’s a tale as old as time, but not a fairytale. Guy meets impressionable girl, guy sweeps girl off of her feet, guy puts a ring on it or knocks her up and locks her down, and then turns into a fucking asshole.

  “He’d encouraged me to apply to a writing program, got me a job at a fancy boutique of his, and I had money just pouring into my account. For the first time, I could help my family—I sent them money, my mom was getting out of debt—and so I just ignored it, talked myself out of the red flags I saw. And then I told him that I had gotten into the program…and everything started to change. He said he didn’t want me to go, that I didn’t need to be a writer, that it was a pipe dream, that he’d give me everything I could need or want, and he needed a wife who would help him pursue his dreams.” Rain goes very quiet. “God, saying it out loud, I sound like such a fucking idiot.”

  “You’re not an idiot,” I say quietly. “And you’re far from the only girl to get reeled in by a guy like Vincent.”

  Rain shivers. “It just spiraled from there. I ran off to a friend’s house for a couple of days—Marcus—and he talked me off of the cliff. I called Vincent, and he apologized, asked me to come home, said he just wanted me to have some time to adjust to my new life before I started school. He made me feel like it was going to be okay, that I’d really be able to go to school eventually, that he wasn’t trying to control me. So I came home. And then I found out he’d hired April to watch me.” She takes a deep breath. “My friends came over—Dena and Mallory—and Dena tried to get me to calm down, but Mallory was pretty upset. And then Vincent came home, and she told him off, and he refused to let me see her anymore. Kicked her out of the penthouse, ordered me to not speak to her.”