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“What are you having?” I asked him as I moved to the bar in the corner.
“It’s a little early—”
“You’re marrying my only sister, without warning. Without asking, after being disrespectful and willfully irritating. Yet here I am, offering you a drink. Are you refusing that drink?” I asked him as I poured myself a brandy.
“Brandy is good,” he replied, holding out his hand. I handed him a glass before moving to sit in the chair as he took the other one.
Sitting in silence, I drank staring up at the portrait, realizing it was going to change. Not because of him… But because of me. It was only my father, my mother, and their children in that image. Soon, it would need to change to me, Ivy, and our children. And on and on it would go. I never thought about it before. It never occurred to me that I’d needed to change until now, that the structure of my family would change. Dona sat here often… I wondered if that was what she was seeing.
I wasn’t sure how long we sat quietly. I didn’t mind the silence, but apparently, he couldn’t take it anymore.
“Despite everything else, I will take care of her,” he said sternly, breaking my concentration. I looked over to him, somewhat surprised by his statement.
“Of course, you will,” I replied and he seemed surprised by mine. “You don’t have a choice. Your life, your country, anything else you care about depends on how well you treat her. I would have thought you weighed all the risks before making it known that you wanted to marry the daughter and sister of the most power mafia in the history of the world.”
“Hubris seems to be a family trait,” he snickered, lifting his glass to me before drinking.
“One your family must also share.” I glanced up at the painting. “Of all my family members, I’m least eloquent. I don’t have a speech or wisdom to share with you… And even if I did, I’d rather not speak with you at all. The sight of you upsets me. You marrying my sister upsets me and that has nothing to do with who you are… But who my sister is to me.”
I paused, drinking and he didn’t say word, thankfully.
“Do you have sister?” I asked him.
“Half-sister but apparently she doesn’t count.” He grinned. I didn’t find anything funny in the least.
“Then you don’t understand what we are feeling,” I spoke for Wyatt, too because I knew he’d be broken even more so by this.
He shook his head. “In all honestly, no. I understand she won’t be in the city. But it’s not as if she’s disappearing for all time. It’s not like she won’t be able to call or video chat—”
“She has always been here,” I cut him off before anymore stupidity came from him and drove me to shatter my glass over his head. “In the middle of Wyatt and I…is Donatella. She has always been our referee, our judge, our support, in everything big or small. To me she has been my biggest threat
but also my greatest ally. Because she has always been strong I’ve had to be strong. She pushes us even when we do not want to be pushed…or at least she did. Now she’s going to be on the other side of the world dealing with whatever mess I’m sure you’re needing help to fix. She isn’t going to be there for us. But you. For the first time, we’ll be on the sidelines, and the sidelines are not a fun place to be when you’ve always been center stage.”
That’s why she needs to go. He was doing to me what Ivy had done to her. I didn’t understand it then but now did.
Damn it.
“I don’t want to talk for much longer. Just know, whatever happens in my life, in Wyatt’s life, we will always stop whatever we are doing to be at her side if she calls. Hurt her in any shape, in any form or way… And even I do not know how far I will go and how depraved I will be when I get my hands on you. I tried. I tried to think about what I would do to the man who hurt my baby sister and all I see is red. Not anger red. Not blood red. But fire red. As if I know, somewhere in the back of my mind, whatever I would do, would be so horrific, atrocious, and unspeakable it would damn me to hell for eternity. All I can see, when I think of Donatella being hurt by you in any way, are those red flames.” Finishing my drink, I stood up and he stayed sitting. “That’s all I wanted tell you.”
Turning from him and heading towards the door when he had the balls to say, “We haven’t begun negotiations.”
“Excuse me?” I turned back to him.
He rose from his chair confidently, not at all what I was expecting from him and yet I was not surprised by it. He was foolishly confident even when he didn’t have the upper-hand. It must have been a mental condition princes were born with.
“You were the one who said that I’m marrying the daughter and sister of the most powerful mafia in history of the world, did you not?” he smirked, finishing off his drink. I didn’t reply even as he stepped in front me. “Your sister is marrying the crown prince of a rising economic giant; a nation of thirty-seven million, bordering four other nations and the Mediterranean Sea. You’ve done an excellent job of being the dutiful, protective brother, now I’d like to hear from the Don of that almighty mafia.”
“They’re one and the same. So, I’d suggest you choose your next words carefully,” I said, looking him in the eye. “I don’t negotiate, I simply take.”
“What confidence,” he replied, the amusement in his face gone, “considering that’s how I took your sister.”
I felt my hand twitch. I could see it almost in slow motion, how easily it would be to pull out my knife and slit his neck right open. Reason won over instinct, and I replied with words, not blood, saying, “Big words for a prince who only an hour ago was pleading for his life.”
“You’re mistaken,” he glared at me. “I don’t plead for my life. My life is guaranteed. I’ll explain, seeing as you’ve never been in this position before.”
“What that position is that?”
“Weakness.”
