AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked. I was pretty sure that Marco wasn’t going to harm me, but I could never be one-hundred percent around him. Something told me that he would harm me despite Dom if he thought that was the best course of action.
“We are going to the wake,” he said.
I sat up straighter. “What? Why? I thought you said it wasn’t best for me to show my face around there.”
“I was wrong,” Marco said.
I felt my heart racing a little faster as I considered that I was about to be thrown into the lion's den.
“I’m not sure that you were.” I couldn’t get the sound of Matte’s mother’s sobs out of my mind. My family had caused that woman a great amount of pain. I didn’t want to add to it.
Marco turned to look at me as he sped towards our destination. “If you plan to be Dom’s wife, for real, you need to be by his side.”
“But the rest of the family…”
“Will have to learn to deal with your presence. We keep hiding you away, and we are going to cause more problems than we solve.”
I was about to remind him that just minutes ago he was one of the people who believed I needed to be hidden away. Something had changed Marco’ mind, and I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Because at the end of the day, if I was going to be Dom’s wife, I needed to be by his side, and that was exactly where I was going.
* * *
Walking through the wake, I tried not to get offended by the looks and whispers. I wanted to find Dom. Marco had dropped me off at the wake and left me on my own.
As I walked through the wake, I kept my chin high. I was the wife of the Don, and I wasn’t going to allow myself to be cowered. I tried to channel my mother as I walked through the place looking for my husband. For all of her flaws, Katarina Petrov never allowed anyone to make her feel lesser. That was not a trait that I had inherited, unfortunately.
The house seemed endless, and I wondered what Matte’s family did for the mafia.
After what felt like an eternity, I came across a circle of men who were surrounding a crying woman. Dom was one of them. I could see through a hole in the group that Dom was providing Matte’s mother comfort.
It warmed my heart to see it. Dom had a reputation, but sometimes I wondered if that reputation was unearned in some ways. Deep down, Dom was a good man. Of that I was sure.
“I swear to you that the Petrov’s will pay,” Dom said, as he comforted Matte’s mother. His words stopped me in my tracks.
Dom stood from his seat and addressed the entire group. “I say this to all of you. The Petrov’s will pay for the blood they have spilt. They are traitorous snakes, and the only way to get rid of them is to cut off their heads.”
His words felt like a knife in my gut, and I felt sweat beading at the back of my neck.
“What about the treaty?” one of the men asked. It was the same question in my mind.
“The Petrov’s broke the treaty when they spilled Blanchi blood,” Dom spit out. The anger in his eyes reminded me of the Dom who had taken me in the back of the car that day. He’d been unrelenting and cold.
“You don’t have any evidence that the Petrov’s have broken the treaty,” I said. I spoke before I could think, and as all eyes turned towards me, I cringed inwardly. This definitely wasn’t going to win me any sort of friends in the mafia.
“You all know my wife, Sasha,” Dom said.
There was a grumble across the group, and no one looked at me.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said to Matte’s mother. The words sounded hollow and silly, but I didn’t know what else to say.
The woman stopped sniffling immediately and looked at me with such hatred in her eyes that I couldn’t stop the deep inhale of breath that I took.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
I opened my mouth to tell her that I was here because I was Dom’s wife, but before I could respond a young woman came forward and took the woman by the arm. “How about we get you something to eat,” she said. She looked at Dom with hesitant eyes as she led Matte’s mother, who was cursing me and the entire Petrov family, under her breath.
“I thought you were at home,” Dom said. His voice hadn’t lost the hardness that he’d used when he spoke to me, and my cheeks flushed from it. I felt like a stupid little girl who was being scolded.
