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“Lara, wait,” Loreto calls after me. But I don’t stop walking until I’ve turned a corner and am well down another hallway where our father can’t hear us. Then, I stop abruptly and spin around on my heels to face him, nearly causing my brother to bump into my chest.
“How could you,” I snarl at him with tears filling my eyes. “Whether or not he’s your best friend is irrelevant. I’ve heard terrible things about Christian Greco, and you just want to sell me off, just like our father?”
“Of course not,” Loreto says in a whisper. He takes a quick glance down the hall to make sure we’re alone before continuing in a quiet voice. “Lara, be reasonable. I’m trying to save you from the trouble you’re getting yourself into by continuing to go against our father. I knew you’d hate me for doing this, but you’re as good as dead if you don’t get married off to someone soon. At least I know Christian is a good man who won’t treat you poorly.”
“A good man?” I ask in astonishment. I can feel my eyes widening. “Haven’t you heard about all the grisly things he’s done? They’re legends at this point.”
“Christian’s a bit rough around the edges, yes,” Loreto says with a sigh. “But he won’t abuse you in any way, and he has the means to take care of you and keep you protected.”
“You mean keep me trapped,” I snap bitterly at him.
“I’m tryingto keep you safe, Lara.”
“Well, this is a pretty shitty way to go about it.” I bite my bottom lip in an effort to keep from crying as I feel my emotions spiral out of control. “I hate this life. I don’t want to be part of a mafia family or involved in illegal operations. I’m an adult, for fuck’s sake, not a caged bird.” Before my brother can say anything else, I step into my bedroom and slam the door, locking myself inside to try and catch my breath and gather my thoughts.
For the next few hours, my father posts one of his goons at my door to keep me from escaping tonight’s betrothal meeting. Fortunately for me, most of my dad’s men are incompetent and often leave their posts unattended when they feel like taking smoke breaks. When I hear his footsteps walk away, I realize that there isn’t much time left between now and the time Christian will be here. I need to do something before it’s too late. I quietly open my door and creep down the hall, listening until I hear my father talking in the study, the room where he likes to entertain his “business guests,” then I slip into the kitchen and then out the back door. My father only has a few men in his employ, but he’s not acaposo it’s not like he has guards stationed at every point of the perimeter around the clock, like some of the more powerfulborgatedo.
Unfortunately for me, though, he seems to have hired a few extra men with the explicit task of keeping an eye on me. I make it as far as the corner before I’m caught and escorted back into the apartment by one of his goons. I feel a mix of fury and fear racing through my veins as I’m dragged back to face my father in the study alone. The look in his narrowed eyes is violently mad. I almost wish that the jackass who caught me and brought me back here would at least stay in the room with me. More than that, I wish that Loreto was still here.
“Where did you think you were going, Lara?” he asks. His voice is measured and packed with disgust for me, the kind I’ve heard now for years.
“Out,” I say as I try to square my shoulders back. “I’m not sixteen anymore. I’m an adult and I can leave this apartment anytime I want to.”
I see his hand raise almost as if it is in slow motion, and I brace myself for the stinging impact it’ll have when it cracks against my cheek. But the impact doesn’t come, because just as my father goes to strike me, my brother and Christian appear in the doorway.
2
CHRISTIAN
When Loreto called me, I was already out at one of my restaurants. Owning several of the most elite and profitable restaurants in lower Manhattan comes with its perks; namely, being able to get a delicious meal at any hour of the day or night. Even though my restaurants are all fronts for my more questionable business dealings inside the mafia, they’re also my prized possessions. It’s an added perk that they’re highly profitable in their own right, and definitely an appeasement to my affinity for delicious and innovative foods, a trait I inherited from my mother. To be honest, the grit and gore of my underground dealings of extortion, embezzlement and weapons trafficking would get mundane if I didn’t get to indulge in a perfectly crafted pasta fagioli and some decadent mascarpone from time to time.
I was enjoying a moment to myself after just overseeing a hit, and wouldn’t have even picked up the phone, if Loreto’s text hadn’t sounded so urgent. “Don’t think that just because you’re my best friend, you can blow up my phone until I answer,” I say once picking up.
“Well, it worked,” he says. “You answered.”
It’s impossible to ignore the urgency in Loreto’s voice. “What’s happened?” I ask, cutting to the chase.
“Look, I wouldn’t ask for this favor unless it was a real, true emergency.”
“Loreto, spit it out already. The sound of panic doesn’t suit you.”
“It’s Lara. I need your help.”
The mention of his sister catches me off-guard, simply because I don’t know how I could be of help in any of the Ricci family drama. I’ve been best friends with Loreto since we were kids, but all I know about his family’s current situation is that his father is a hardass whose relationship with his kids is strained. Other than that, Valentino Ricci goes to great lengths to keep his personal family business private. “I’m not sure what kind of help I can be with—”
“I need you to marry my sister.”
“What?” I couldn’t be more shocked if I tried.
“Christian, please. Like I said, I wouldn’t ask unless it was an emergency,” Loreto pleads through the phone. “My father is serious about marrying her off to someonenow, and if he has his way it’ll be a guy with a hard hand. Lara knows it too, and I’m afraid she’d rather do something drastic than go through with an arranged marriage of my father’s choosing.”
“What makes you think she’d marry me, then?”
“I’ll talk to her. And my father will agree to it, because you have power and money.”
I feel like I should feel flattered by that remark, but I don’t. I mostly still feel confused.
“He’s getting dangerously close to crossing a line,” Loreto continues. “I’m afraid his anger is going to get the better of him, and I need to protect my sister.”
