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“Get to Jamie!” He shouted to Alison, trying to free himself from my hold.
I looked over and saw Jamie on the floor, her face bloody and her dress torn all the way to her waist. If there was still any doubt in my mind, at that moment, it cleared up. In Liam’s panicked and guilt-filled eyes, I saw that, after tonight, he’d never leave her side again.
???
“Enrico could have brought me.” Francesca protested again for what seemed the hundredth time. I couldn’t help the side glower from shooting daggers at her again. Liam had gone with Jamie to the hospital, leaving Francesca alone.
Well, not exactly alone. Amato soldiers had come with her all the way from Detroit to ensure her protection, but I wasn’t having it.
If anything, what happened to Jamie tonight had me on higher alert, so there was absolutely no chance I’d leave Francesca’s safety to anyone else. Not to mention men I didn’t know or trust.
“Not a fucking chance,” I grunted.
“They’d die for me.”
“I don’t doubt it, but they’re only useful if they’re alive, and I’m not about to have a new case of what happened to your cousin on my hands.” It was because her cousin Amelia had been killed on our territory that this fucking deal was set in the first place. I would personally see that it wouldn’t happen again. “Besides, who would your uncle appoint to marry me? One of your brothers?”
“Really?” She spat, not finding the faintest hint of amusement in my comment. To be fair, I didn’t, either. It came from a place I didn’t recognize inside me, a place that craved something that didn’t belong to me and made me resentful and even jealous.
I bit my tongue for the rest of the ride, orchestrating an outrageous plan to kidnap her and keep her all to myself. Then, suddenly, the damn solution hit me as I replayed that last remark like an echo in my mind.
I left her safely at the hotel before driving off at top speed, ready to set my infallible plan into action.
Marry me… she would marry me.
???
One week ago
“We’ve got another shipment delay, and with this one, our warehouse upstate will be close to running on fumes,” Max said from what seemed to be a hundred feet away, when in reality, he was sitting just across my desk.
“When’s it due?” I lazily replied, hiding the fact that everything else they’d said prior to that info on the delay had fallen on deaf ears.
I was too distracted to keep my head in the game. I had been for more time than I’d like to admit. After meeting Francesca at the shooting range close to our estate almost two months ago, it was hard to get her off my mind. It got even harder when I found out that the raven-haired temptress living rent-free in my dreams was the same woman about to marry my baby brother.
My brain short-circuited right there, leading me to appeal to The Commission about swapping places with Liam and marrying Francesca myself. They had agreed, of course, but Francesca was still in the dark about the new changes.
“The new date is set for next month. We’ll go dry before that, and it will fuck up distribution.” Gio, one of my high-ranking men, clarified as if I needed a fucking subtitle.
“What’s the hold up this time?”
There was a ten-carat diamond ring currently burning a hole through my pocket, waiting for me to fly over to Detroit this afternoon and give it to my future wife.
Francesca would hate the enormous rock, I was sure, but I couldn’t look cheap and show up with a small, barely-there diamond to propose. Well, propose was a loosely applied term when it came to our engagement.
“Some issues with transport. Pirates or some shit hijacking the vessels.”
“Just do your fucking jobs and fix it. Is the jet ready?” My mind was not here, it had landed in Detroit already, and I had to get this fucking trip over and done with so that I could get back to focusing on the business.
“Fueled and engine running waiting for us.”
“Good. Liam should be here any minute. We can deal with that when we come back.”
I was silent for most of the flight, replaying what I’d say in different versions.
Francesca wasn’t any happier than Liam was with the engagement, something inside told me her reaction would be much worse today than it was the first time around.
Somewhat of a residue of nervousness coursed through me, but as we pulled up to Amato Manor, it had all vanished.
