Defiant Vows

Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

VIVIANA

No.

Oh, hell-to-the-no .

I want to scream the words, but I’ve lost the ability to speak. My knees tremble. My chest feels like there’s a ball of granite constricting my ribcage, preventing any air from entering or exiting my lungs.

“Tonight?” my father questions, his voice a distant echo in my mind.

Luciano gives a curt nod, smoothing his hand over his gray and blue tie. “Yes. You failed to keep my first bride alive. Why would I give you the chance to make the same mistake with her sister?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see my mother flinch. She makes a choked sob-like sound that I feel in the pit of my stomach. Out of everyone in my family, she has cried the most over Elenora’s death.

I step forward to come to my parents’ defense, bristling at Luciano’s tactless remark. They didn’t do anything wrong. Elenora’s death was out of their control.

Before I can open my mouth, he turns away. He doesn’t spare me a second glance, but that doesn’t stop him from commanding the entire room with his mere presence. No one—not even his own father—dares to question him further.

I’m dizzy, the weight of the last thirty seconds crashing over me.

Bride. Priest. Tonight.

Is this some kind of sick joke?

They want me to marry Luciano Venturi. Heir to the Cosa Nostra and my sister’s ex-fiancé.

Nausea creeps up my throat, and I sway on my feet, steadying myself on the back of an oversized armchair by the room’s entrance.

I haven’t seen him in years. Seven, to be exact.

I was thirteen and hiding with Elenora behind a pillar at one of the famiglia’s extravagant Christmas galas. She was angry because our parents ordered her to keep me out of trouble, but, at eighteen, Elenora thought she should be mingling with the adults across the room. I laughed at the prospect, until I noticed several very adult men ogling the feminine curves she’d acquired in the last few months.

I remember the moment Luciano walked in. Elenora’s spine went ramrod straight, and I peeked around her to snag a look at a young man striding confidently to the don’s side. At twenty four, he was all muscle and sharp edges, dangerous arrogance packed into a dark suit.

Men and women parted to let him pass, like a shark spearing through a school of fish. He’d already earned a reputation far more fearsome than his father. It’d even reached my little corner of the Cosa Nostra.

Something like awe sparkled in Elenora’s eyes, but I didn’t understand it then. She whispered the words that etched themselves into my memory. All these years later, I can still hear them. Papà wants me to marry him. One day, I’ll be the wife of the most powerful man in New York.

I pitied her, even as she spent the next four years crafting herself into the perfect wife for a mafia don. I watched her devotion with aversion, but she thrived under the pressure. Elenora was born to stand beside a man like Luciano.

And now she’s dead.

She’s dead, and I’ll likely join her if I don’t agree to this stranger’s demands.

That’s how they solve things in the Cosa Nostra. By killing the men and women that don’t fall in line. One look at the three mafiosi in the room tells me my fate has already been decided.

“I’m sorry,” I choke out, unable to decide whether to pinpoint my anger at the Venturis or my own parents. Eventually, my gaze lands on my father. “I think I missed the part where you discussed this with me. ”

Something like unease crosses his features. He rubs the back of his neck, appearing ten years older than he is. “A union has been contracted between our families for the last three years, Vivi. Your sister’s death does not change that.”

I blink away my disbelief. “Yes, actually, it does , considering Elenora was the one engaged to this man!”

It’s a struggle to keep my voice under control as my hysteria heightens.

My father releases a tired, ragged sound. “For heaven’s sake, keep your voice down. This is a good thing, daughter. We are lucky that you are not already tied to another engagement and can fulfill our end of the contract.”

“No.” I cross my arms tight against my chest, cheeks flushing. “I won’t do it. Don’t you think that when Elenora went up in flames it was God’s way of smiting a union between our families?”

Another sob escapes my mother’s trembling lips. She covers her mouth and ducks behind my father’s shoulder to hide her tears. Immediate regret lances my heart as the room goes quiet.

Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.

The Venturis stand back, watching the altercation between me and my father with interest, as if they can hardly believe that he’s allowing me to shout at him. I can sense Allegra’s disgust and inwardly hope that she steps in to put a stop to this arrangement because of it. Surely she doesn’t want her eldest son married to a woman like me.

My father’s face hardens, and a shiver ripples down my spine. I haven’t seen that look on my father’s face since…

Since he sent me to Italy.

Growing up, I was always my father’s weakness. Not because he particularly liked me very much. In fact, he preferred Elenora’s willingness to mold into the perfect mafia princess. His failings stemmed from an inability to tame me. Whenever I wanted something throughout childhood, I wouldn’t bend until he gave in. I exhausted him. Until the day I went too far.

He doesn’t speak, but his eyes harden, and I know that I’m losing our battle.

“Please, papà!” I resort to begging, but he lifts his hand to cut me off.

“ Enough, Viviana!” His voice rattles the office walls, vibrating in my bones.

I flinch. Tears sting the surface of my eyes, but I resist the urge to lower them in deference. I’m prepared to grovel. To make empty promises about reforming my behavior and being the perfect daughter, if only he’ll save me from this farce of a marriage.

I open my mouth to begin, hands shaking in balled fists, when Luciano steps between us. He turns to face my father, his broad back eclipsing him from view.

“Pietro,” he addresses my father with unwavering authority. “May I speak with my fiancé privately?”

My fiancé. Not ‘your daughter.’ As if he already owns me and is merely asking my father out of courtesy.

I frown. Say no, say no, say no–

“Of course,” my father agrees. The damn traitor.

My eyes bulge as the sound of shuffling footsteps fills the room, and I realize that, in a matter of seconds, I’ll be alone with this man. I step away from Luciano’s hulking figure to scurry after my parents.

“I- I hardly think it’s appropriate for me to be alone with a man!” I blurt out in protest, grasping blindly at straws. Invisible, non-existent straws. “ Mamà? Something might happen. He could try to–”

“Nonsense, Viviana,” my mother interjects, just as I reach out to clutch to her bicep in desperation. I can’t remember the last time I looked to this woman for comfort and safety, but it still stings when she shakes me off. “Stay here and, please, be a good girl.”

Her blood-shot eyes hold a clear warning. There’s no love in her gaze. No worry or regret. It makes me wonder if she wishes that I had been the daughter to die in a freak car crash. My family would have mourned, of course, but at least my death would’ve spared them this unpleasant circumstance.

My steps falter as she shuts the door in my face, fanning displaced air across my cheeks. I clamp my eyes shut and take a moment to absorb my parents’ betrayal. I inhale deeply and count to five before exhaling, acutely aware of Luciano Venturi’s presence mere paces away.

The back of my neck tingles, as if every instinct warns me against turning my back to this man. With one last deep breath, I swallow the lump in my throat and face him.

He’s terrifying.

Maybe if I’d spent the last three years in New York instead of Italy, I wouldn’t be so shell-shocked by the sight of the Sicilian mafia heir. I would’ve had the chance to acquaint myself with my sister’s fiancé at parties and fancy dinners. Instead, I chose to acquaint myself with Michelangelo in Florence.

Now, standing mere feet away from Luciano, I realize how much he resembles a Michelangelo masterpiece. He possesses near-perfect proportions, with broad shoulders that taper into a cut waist. His black suit stretches tight against his back, undoubtedly obscuring ridge after ridge of hard-worn muscle. His hands relax at his sides, veins bulging as they creep up his knuckles and disappear beneath his jacket sleeves. He shifts on his feet, twisting his body into a perfect display of contrapposto.

In another universe, I’d consider him handsome—albeit, a little old for me. He’s the type that my closest friends and I would ogle from afar, only to duck our heads in embarrassment if ever caught staring.

In this universe, I can’t stand the sight of him. My sister’s fiancé of three years, marching into my father’s office on the night of her funeral and declaring that he’ll marry me instead. This must be a nightmare.

Or I’m on the most fucked up episode of Punk’d. Ever.

Cold, apathetic slate eyes jolt me from my careful observation, and my heart clings to the back of my ribcage, cowering.

“Well? You wanted to speak to me?” I challenge, cocking a brow. “To properly propose to me, I hope?”

I don’t know where I found this courage– this audacity. It’s not like I have experience speaking to those in power. In fact, my parents sent me to Florence to keep me away from the most important people in New York.

Luciano leans a hip against my father’s desk and crosses his arms against his chest, the movement startlingly graceful. His eyes, varying shades of graphite, scan me with uninhibited distaste.

“You want me to propose to you?”

The words are a low purr that makes my toes curl inside my mismatched socks. I pinch my lips together and shrug, mustering more bravado. “It would certainly be the polite thing to do.”

His brows draw together, two little lines forming between them. Beneath the layer of scruff on his jaw, a muscle twitches.

“Fine,” he concedes, his voice tight. “If that’s what it’ll take to make you behave.”

God, how many times have I heard those words?

He stands to his full height again and pushes his hands into his pockets. For a moment, I think he’s going to pull out a ring. When he doesn’t, I decide he’s simply assumed one of his favorite power-poses. Perfectly balanced. Casual. Hands close to whatever weapons he undoubtedly likes to keep strapped to his waistband.

He holds my gaze for one long moment, and something in those cool eyes gives me the sense that he dislikes this union almost as much as I do. Almost.

My fingernails dig into my palms, sharp enough to draw blood, but I school my face into a mask of indifference. Expectant.

“Well?” I prompt.

Again, that muscle in his jaw twitches. Then he hits me with the most uninspired, unromantic proposal of all time:

“Marry me.”

It’s a demand. As cold and impersonal as… Well, someone being forced to marry a complete stranger.

I scrunch my nose. “That was pitiful. At least say my name and make it a question.”

The scowl on his angular face deepens, and he shifts his weight to one foot. I can tell I’m grating on his nerves.

Good. Maybe it’ll convince him to rescind the marriage contract.

A deep, exasperated sigh, and then…

“Viviana–” My name sounds like sin on his lips, caressing me from afar like an experienced lover’s touch. I hate it. “Will you marry me?”

“No.”

Confusion flashes in his gaze, quickly replaced by annoyance. He takes a step forward, his carefully curated demeanor cracking at the edges. “Why make me ask if you were only going to refuse?”

I tilt my chin up and inwardly curse my average height. Elenora is– was– tall, at least three inches taller than my five-five self. She could’ve stared Luciano Venturi down with much more ferocity.

“I know I haven’t been in New York for three years, but last I heard, it’s polite to ask a woman before forcing her to marry you.” I don’t bother sugar-coating my disdain. My situation can’t get much worse, after all.

He chuckles, but the sound lacks any semblance of humor. It’s hollow. “I don’t need to ask for something that is already mine.”

I bristle, even as some traitorous part of me warms at his claiming words. Mine.

“I’m not yours. You were engaged to Elenora!” I hiss, and emotion wells in my throat at the thought of my sister’s ruined plans. “You should be mourning her, not proposing to her sister! What kind of man does that after the love of his life—”

This time, when he laughs, my blood runs cold.

“I never loved your sister, and she never loved me.” His words are surprisingly softer than before, riddled with bitterness. “To Elenora and I, this marriage contract was a necessary duty for the good of the Cosa Nostra. As soon as she took her last breath, that duty fell to you.”

He speaks with sobering matter-of-factness, but my mind still races. I can’t help but wonder about the truthfulness of his words. I didn’t speak to Elenora much after moving to Florence, but I always assumed that she lived in bliss, knowing that she would be loved by and married to the Venturi heir. Could she have truly felt nothing for him beyond a sense of duty?

I shake my head and force myself to focus on one problem at a time. “Why me? Surely there are plenty of women eager to, uh, perform their duty with you.”

He narrows his eyes at me as if he can’t quite believe my ignorance, but something in my face must be betray my ineptitude, for he immediately ducks his head and hisses a string of low, unintelligible Italian curses.

Raking a hand through the thick dark crown atop his head, he sighs. “Do you truly have no idea?”

“I think it’s pretty clear that my parents don’t tell me anything. Wouldn’t you agree?” I counter, shooting him a too-sweet smile.

Perhaps if I’d stayed in New York, I would have more knowledge about the goings-on of this world. Yet, even before Florence, I tried to avoid all things mafia . Going to Italy gave me the final shove to shed the yolk of my ties to the underworld. Until a week ago.

“Your father has spent the last fifteen years making a fool of himself and embarrassing the Cosa Nostra. Even Elenora knew of his incompetence.” Luciano’s glare could make glaciers melt.

Incompetence? My fingers curl into fists at the insult directed at my father. Granted, the man doesn't deserve my support right now, but I feel an urge to defend him nonetheless.

Luciano continues before I find the words. “He’s amassed a substantial debt. The kind of debt that earns most men—and their families—a bullet to the head.”

Bile lurches up my throat, my heart thundering to a halt in its cage. In this world, debt is a death sentence. A debt of fifteen years…

I loose a shuddering breath and force a bitter smile on my lips as understanding settles over me.

“The kind of debt that is only forgiven through this marriage?” I croak, although I already know the answer.

Luciano nods once, a subtle dip of his chiseled chin that puts the final nail in the coffin of my resistance. “Your family’s strong ties to the Chicago Outfit made Elenora, and now you, an ideal candidate for an arranged marriage. We’ve long sought a way to unite the East Coast with the Midwest.”

My mother was born a Fiorentino, the niece of the Chicago Outfit’s boss. She wed my father at the age of twenty-one and joined the Cosa Nostra as a result, but we visited Chicago several times throughout my childhood to visit her parents—her uncle .

I share blood with the Chicago Outfit don , and now I’ve been sentenced to marry Elenora’s fiancé because of it.

“If I marry you, my father’s debts are forgiven?” I clarify, stomach twisting into painful knots.

“The contract states that his debts will be forgiven upon the birth of an heir.”

The words knock the wind from my lungs, but I somehow remain standing. An heir. A baby. My heart lurches into my throat, blocking my airway. I won’t break. Not yet. Not in front of him.

My mouth is dry as I level one final glare in his direction. “And if I refuse?”

“Then you are condemning your father to a very slow, very painful death.”