Page 2 of His Bride

“Nice to meet you, Matty. I’m Diarmuid,” my brother says in his flirtatious voice. He picks up women easily, and I fucking hate that. For some reason, the thought of my brother with this girl makes me feel murderous. Fuck that noise. I punch him in the thigh. His eyes connect with mine, and I let him know that she’s mine. He just smirks at me. Motherfucker.

“Thepleasureis all mine,Matilde,” I tell her, my voice husky and filled with innuendo that, thankfully, no one but her picks up on. Her beautiful whiskey-colored eyes widen.

I’m not going to be just anyone to her. I’m going to be everything. She will depend on me for every damn thing she wants or needs. Food, water, clothing, and pleasure. Especially pleasure. I don’t give a fuck if she already belongs to someone else. They will die, and she will be mine. A plan begins to form in my mind as I go back to eating.

A very fucked up plan indeed.

TWO

MATILDE VITALI

THREE DAYS LATER

Despite being twenty-four,I still live at home, and I expect that I will until I get married; I made a promise to myself a long time ago that I wouldn’t marry a man in this life. I want normal. I want to live a life where getting shot isn’t exactly an option. Don’t get me wrong, I know that people from all walks of life have the opportunity to get shot, but the chance is a hundred percent greater when your whole life revolves around crime.

I overslept and am now late for my shift at The Harem, one of my family's many clubs. The Harem is a strip club in Manhattan. It’s a high-tech fancy schmancy place that boasts strippers of all shapes and sizes. I’m not a stripper, though. That’s where my dad drew the line. He’s allowing me to work but under strict guidelines. I bartend from three to three every day but Monday. We are dark on Mondays. I finished college in three years with a degree in fine arts, but Broadway roles are few and far between for chubby girls like me. I’ve had them, but I’m always a chorus girl or the sidekick. I’m leading lady material; I know I am. I just need to find the perfect role to showcase it. I’ve also thought about film and television, but attending thirty-plus monthly auditions is disheartening. I know I have to put in my dues, but I’m afraid it’s time to hang up my dreams. Thus, the boredom. I begged my dad and then my uncles for this opportunity. They all hated the idea of me working there. I knew they would. My cousin, Albie, met his wife, Autumn, there a few years ago. He made her quit the night they met. The rules my dad put in place for me are a small price to pay to stave off the boredom. I’m never to be at the club without my bodyguard, Terancio. He’s normally a hitman, but his wife requested that he take some time off from so much killing because she’s pregnant. It all worked out in the end. He protects me like he’s my big brother instead of the job. Terancio is waiting outside in the driveway when I finally make my appearance.

“You’re cutting it close, Matty,” he says, chuckling as I slide into the passenger seat of his SUV. “That uniform is something else.” I know he’s saying that more like a brother than anything else. He loves his wife so much; he’d never stray. Vitali men, both blood and those who pledge fealty to us, are honorable men, despite what they do for a living.

“I know. Sorry. I overslept,” I say, trying to pull the shorts down my thighs. Normally, I wear street clothes and change in the dressing room at the club, but since I’m running late, I definitely don’t have time for that. The Harem is an Arabian Nights themed club. My uniform is a violet, cropped, billowy, long-sleeved sheer top and really, really, really short billowy shorts in the same color. They leave nothing to the imagination. I look like a chubby, slutty Snow White pretending to be Princess Jasmine. At least I thought of pulling on a long cardigan, despite the July heat. I’m a bit self-conscious when I’m not at the club. At the club, I’m behind the bar all night, and the vibe in the club doesn’t really leave room for self-consciousness. If I’m being honest, I thrive on the praise and compliments I get from the customers. It’s not exactly healthy or sane, but it makes me feel good. At the club, Terancio waits outside the front door all night. He knows the bouncers, and they don’t mind the extra eyes on the place. Security takes the girl's safety very seriously.

“You won’t get fired. There’s no need to be so frazzled,” he says, pulling out of the driveway and onto the long drive out of the compound.

“I know, but Katie needs to be relieved.” The Harem is a twenty-four-hour club since Covid. Katie is the bartender from three am to three pm. It’s already four ten. I’ve never been late before.

“She’ll be fine. What kind of men are in a strip club at four in the afternoon?”

“Not the good kind,” I reply, laughing. On the drive, I apply my makeup. I overdo my normal smoky-eye look and can’t help comparing myself to a fancy hooker, which I’d never be. I’m all for women doing whatever they want to do or even have to do to survive, but I’m still a virgin. I have every intention of waiting until I get married. Even if I never do, I’ll still be as pure as the day I was born. We pull up to the club, and only a few cars are in the parking lot. I recognize most of them as regulars and smile. Vinnie “The Sledgehammer” Locosti is a retired capo for the DeSantis Crime Family. His retirement two years ago is probably the only thing that saved him from being wiped out with almost all the men in that organization eighteen months ago. He knows it too. That’s why he spends almost all day in The Harem. He drinks and watches over the girls. It’s not hard to see that he’s not handling it too well. “I might have to stay late if Katie is on in the morning. It might be Essence, though.

“I’ll be waiting out front like I always am, Matty.”

“Thank you, Terry!”

“You know I hate it when you call me that, don’t you?”

“Yep. That’s why I do it. See ya later,” I say as I hop out at the door of the club. I walk right in and immediately start apologizing to Katie. Her back-to-back phone calls were the only thing that woke me up. I slept through both of my alarms.

“No problem. It’s not like I can get mad at you. You’re a Vitali.”

“Please don’t think of it like that, Katie. I’m a team player, and I let you down. It won’t happen again.”

“Don’t worry about it, really. Here are the open tabs,” she says, shoving four pieces of paper into my hand. “The dude in the corner has been nursing the same beer for over an hour.” I look over the corner she indicated but don’t see anyone there. He must have left. “And Billy isn’t here tonight. He was a no show, so you know Al will fire him, but that means you’ll have to be your own barback. I just changed the kegs but didn’t get to the empty bottles. There are three parties tonight, so you might want to get those changed out before the rush.”

“Thanks, Katie,” I say, pinning the tabs back up on the small clothesline contraption under the bar. “I’ll do it now.” Katie leaves, and I look around quickly to see what all I need for my shift.. She did all the prep work, so I don’t have to do that. The trash is full, and four empty liquor bottles need to be thrown out and replaced. I pull the trash bag from the big metal can under the bar, tossing the empties into it before tying it up and carrying it out to the dumpster from the back of the club. The storage cold box is out there, too, so I’ll kill two birds with one stone. I toss the trash bag and pull my keys out of my pocket. I open the padlock on the box and step into it. It’s pretty big for being up against the wall of the club in a tight alley. It’s wide enough for the city garbage truck to get down.

I pull the Kentucky bourbon, Irish whiskey, rum, and Irish Cream bottles from the shelf and balance them in my arms while I get the padlock locked.

I try to turn around and find myself unable to. Some kind of dark cloth is thrown over my head, and I am spun around, at least I think I am. The action, whatever it is, is enough to make me drop the bottles in my hands. They shatter as they hit my feet. The stupid sandals I have on do nothing to protect me. What feels like thousands of cuts open on my skin. Though it hurts like a motherfucker, I refuse to make a noise and give this person the satisfaction of my pain.

“Ah, fuck,” a man’s voice says before my hands are bound with a soft fabric, and I’m lifted up into someone’s arms.

My senses are overwhelmed with the manly scent ofSauvageby Dior.

I feel a little pinprick in my arm, and then I feel nothing at all.

THREE

DORIAN

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