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The man smirks, his mouth twisting up on one side in his handsome face. He’s every bit as gorgeous as I’d thought initially, with thick dark hair cut short and expertly styled, sharp features, and a tall, powerful body wrapped in a perfectly tailored suit. If it weren’t for the blood, he’d look like any one of the men that I saw in the bars that Ana took me to earlier tonight.
Was that really tonight? It seems like ages ago that I was innocently wandering through Manhattan’s hotspots with my best friend. It doesn’t even feel as if it happened in the same week, let alone just a few hours before this.
He’s still watching me carefully with those intense green eyes, every bit as commanding as the men I saw earlier, the ones that made me so uncomfortable, who reminded me of alpha predators surveying their turf.
Waiting to claim their prey.
I’m not entirely certain that’s not what I am to him.
“I’ll begin with the first question,” he says coolly. “I’m Luca Romano.”
Romano.The name rings a distant bell. Closing my eyes, I think back, trying to remember where I might have heard that name before.
Faintly, I remember a tall and handsome man coming to our house for dinner. I can just barely recall my father introducing him to us, and I can hear my father’s voice in my head telling us that this was his best friend, a man namedsomething…Romano.
There had been someone else there too—his son. A boy older than me, already almost a teenager when they’d come to visit. I can’t remember his name now, I can’t even remember the first name of my father’s friend, but—
My gaze snaps up to the man—to Luca Romano—as the breath leaves my body.
“Your father knew mine,” I whisper, my head swimming all over again. I feel dizzy. “Your father was my father’s best friend. I remember him coming to our house—” I stare at Luca. I want to say that I can’t believe it, but I can. It makes sense now—or at least a little of it does. “You were with him.”
“I was. I was at your father’s funeral, too. I remember seeing you there on both occasions.” Luca replies. He watches me from his spot near the window, as if I’m a frightened animal that might run if he moves too quickly.
“But why—” It still doesn’t entirely make sense to me. “Just because our fathers knew each other doesn’t explain why you were there tonight. It doesn’t explain how you knew where I was—how you knowme. I don’t even remember being told your name before tonight.”
Luca smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. There’s something else in his face, an expression that I can’t quite read. “I know you because our fathers made a promise eight years ago, Sofia. A promise that now, on account of the Bratva, I have to keep. A promise that keeps you here, with me.”
“What?” I must have heard him wrong. “I’m not staying here.”
He lets out a long sigh. “Yes, Sofia, you are. You may as well begin to think of this penthouse as your home. It will be, very soon.”
“I don’t understand.”
Luca takes a step towards me, and then another. I can see the tension in his body, the muscles working in his jaw, and I’m suddenly very aware of how large a man he is. He towers over me by several inches, and I can see the muscles beneath the sleeves of his shirt flex as he crosses his arms over his chest, staring down at me with the imperious look of a man who has already made a decision.
“By the end of the week, Sofia, you will be my wife.”
Sofia
“Are you fuckingkidding me?”
The words explode from my mouth before I can stop them as I back away, intent on edging around him towards the door. “I’m not going to marry you! I don’t evenknowyou! Why on earth would you think—”
“I know this is a shock,” Luca says smoothly, cutting me off. “But it isn’t a question, Sofia. I’m not asking you to marry me. I’m telling you that youwillmarry me. You don’t have a choice in the matter.”
I stare at him, uncomprehending. “Look, like I said before, I appreciate you rescuing me. Those men were awful, and I’m really grateful that you got me out of there. But right now all I want to do is go back to my apartment, let my best friend know that I’m still alive, and then report the fuckinghuman trafficking ringthat’s being run out of a hotel in downtown Manhattan!”
Luca takes a deep breath, and I can see the irritation beginning to spread over his features. “Sofia. You can’t leave. Those weren’t just anymen, they were Bratva. Enemies of your father, and mine, and the man that I work for. My enemies, and yours. They won’t stop, and they won’t leave you alone. There is no going back to your old life.”
I hear what he’s saying, but it doesn’t sink in. I can’t believe it—Iwon’t.This morning I was just a student at Juilliard, a violinist, an orphan. I wasn’t anyone important, or anyone of note, beyond my spot as first chair in my class.
“I don’t have enemies,” I say, my voice beginning to shake a little. “If they were my father’s enemies, fine, but my father isdead, Luca! He’s been dead foreight years! This has nothing to do with me!”
For a second, I almost see a flicker of sympathy in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Sofia. This wasn’t my choice either,” he admits. “But it has everything to do with you, and me. And they aren’t going to stop just because you don’t want to be a part of this. You were born into it, just like I was.”
I pause, considering. “So you don’twantto marry me?”
That unreadable expression passes over his face again. “I didn’t want to,” he says, and his use of the past tense doesn’t escape me. “But the choice is made, Sofia. Wewillbe married.”
