AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The blood rushes to my head and then leaves it almost as fast as we seal the deal with a handshake. Somewhere through my buzzing brain I can hear Carlo curse in Italian, then say something about how it won’t fucking matter because it’s fifty-fifty that I even make it out of that mansion alive anyway.
But I can’t even think that far ahead. Or that far behind, since my imagination is already charging ahead to where Amelia and I are married without having to run from her Family, spend our days hiding like rats.
She’s not going to believe this, I think excitedly as I leave Carlo and Anthony to put the plan into motion, get the rumors to circulate, round up their troops for what will hopefully be a short-lived war.
A war that wins our forever.
Now I’m pushing through the guards outside the bridal cottage, brushing aside bewildered bridesmaids, knocking confidently on the bride’s dressing room like I’m in charge now, this is my show, my territory, my damn woman.
Amelia yanks open the door, gasps when she sees me. I storm into the room, shut the door behind me, start talking fast and furious. She listens with wide-eyed wonder as I blurt out the good news, tell her I’ve got it all arranged, that we have a chance to be together without having to run, without having to hide, with her father’s blessing, the boss’s approval, that it’s all been arranged, arranged for us, arranged forme.
“Absolutely not,” Amelia says after gathering herself. “The answer is no.”
13
AMELIA
“What do you meanno?” Zedd tries to pull me into him but I back away, hugging myself and shaking my head. “Amelia, I’ve arranged it so that we—”
“No,” I say again, still shaking my head violently so that I don’t lose my resolve, don’t weaken from my position, don’t start to imagine a future that will never come because Zedd will be dead before he ever gets out of the Romero mansion. “You’ll never make it out alive after killing Ralph. You might sneak into the mansion while most of the Romero soldiers are out protecting Ralph at the funerals. But when Ralph gets back to the mansion, it means all his soldiers get back too. Even if Father and Carlo do ultimately win, it’ll be too late to save you, Zedd. I won’t allow that to happen. I just won’t. The answer is no.”
Zedd’s face darkens as I push his hands away from me once more. My head shakes like it can’t stop, like I need to force my body to stick with this decision even though my heart desperately wants to believe we actually have a chance at forever, that our love will somehow protect Zedd after he kills a mafia boss in a mansion infested with armed bodyguards, that this really is a fantasy, a fairy tale where the princess and the assassin get to be together against all odds.
“Of course I’ll make it out alive,” Zedd growls, a flash of anger in his eyes. “This is what I do for a living, Amelia. There’s a risk, of course. But I’ve got a chance, baby. Hell,we’vegot a chance. We have to take it.” He exhales, crosses his arms over his chest, narrows his eyes down at me in the same way Father does to send a message that this isn’t a negotiation. “I’m doing it, Amelia. That’s all there is to it.”
Now I narrow my eyes back at him, cross my own arms over my chest, stand as tall as I can in my wedding dress. “No,” I say with all the calm resolve I can find in my trembling body that’s still working through the shock of the day. “No. No. No. The answer isno.”
“Well, you know what? Nobody gives a shit about your answer, because it’s not a fucking question,” comes Zedd’s growl. His jaw tightens. He takes a step closer. “Your father and I have made an arrangement. If I kill Ralph Romero and get back alive, you and I will be married. That’s all there is to it, baby. You understand how arranged marriages work, don’t you, Princess? Yeah, you do. You were about to enter into one. So just a small change in plan. Just a different fucking husband now.” His eyes gleam with a manic possessiveness as he licks his lips and flashes a wild grin, his gaze flicking up and down my body. “You can stay in that wedding dress. The funerals are tomorrow, so it won’t be long before you’re going to be walking down the aisle, sayingI do, opening your pretty mouth for my wedding-day kiss, spreading your smooth legs for my wedding-night cock. You’re mine, Amelia. You’re fuckingmine, you hear? It's a done deal.”
My head spins with a sudden burst of indignant rage even as my pussy clenches and releases a bead of wetness into my wedding-white panties. “You’re no better than Father, no better than any of them. I’m just property to you. A possession. A fuck-hole to put your dick. A womb to produce your babies.”
Zedd flashes that wild grin again. “Now you’re getting it, Princess. Glad to see we’re both on the same page. Now stay here and wait for me. I’ll be back in twenty-four hours and then you’ll understand that this tantrum was all for nothing.”
He steps forward and grabs me by the back of the neck, pulls me roughly in for a brutal kiss that’s tinged with the violence boiling in his blood, thundering in his heart. A part of me knows he isn’t thinking clearly, is blinded by being so close to giving us a chance at our forever. But another part of me is still furious at his rudeness, indignant that he and Father made an arrangement without bothering to ask me.
Even though I’ve already said yes a thousand times.
Said yes with every sighing kiss, every groaning thrust, every aching release.
Yes, I love you.
Yes, I want you.
Yes, I will marry you.
“I won’t marry you even if youdomake it out alive,” I snarl as Zedd pulls away from the kiss. It almost breaks my heart to say it, but I have to stop Zedd from walking to his own death. I remember Father telling me how soldiers in combat become suicidally aggressive when there’s a woman involved, and I see it in Zedd now, see it in his overconfidence, his bravado, his irrational air of total invincibility that’s going to get him killed. “I won’t sayI do. I won’t kiss the groom. And I sure as hell won’t spread my legs for your dumb dick.”
Zedd stops, turns, glances at me with an air of confident invincibility that almost breaks me, almost makes me believe that our fate is guaranteed, that we’re destined for a happy ending. He smiles wickedly. “I don’t believe you,” he whispers with that infuriating confidence. “I think when I storm back into this bridal chamber twenty-four hours from now, your ex-fiancé’s blood on my hands, you’ll be waiting for me in that wedding dress, your lips red and painted for my kiss, pussy plump and primed for my cock. I know what you’re trying to do, Princess, and I love you for it. But I can’t turn away from our shot at forever. If it kills me, so be it. It’s worth the risk. We are worth the risk.Youare worth the risk. I love you, Amelia.”
For a moment I almost melt, almost rush to him for one last embrace, a maiden’s good-luck kiss before her knight rides out into battle. But the fear still tugs at my heart, and I wonder if I can pull that same trick to take the edge off Zedd’s bravado, turn the dial away from violence with my sex.
But Zedd is wise to my machinations now, and with a sly wink he’s out the door. I hear his footsteps thunder through the anteroom, and I’m panicking now, my heart almost exploding with anxiety, a desperate urgency that time’s running out again, that I need to do something or else I’ll never see Zedd alive again.
And suddenly everything clicks into place.
Well, not everything—just enough of a plan to spring me into action.
I rush to the door, pull it open, call for my maid. She hurries in and I slam the door closed, lean close to her and whisper my instructions.
