His to Hold: A Dark Mafia Arranged Marriage Romance

Chapter 1

Antonio

Something has changed. The house doesn’t look the same as it did the last time I was here. The décor is different. It’s fresher, brighter. In the corridor, the floorboards have been stripped back to reveal a natural, pale wood. The walls have been painted an off-white color. They were gray before. Or were they blue? I don’t know why I care. It shouldn’t matter to me that the place feels more welcoming now than it did before. A prickle of envy shouldn’t stab my chest at the thought of my errant wife putting our marriage behind her and finding peace when I haven’t moved on. I shouldn’t wish we’d made this home together. A man in my position can’t afford to be sentimental.

As I walk into the living room, I realize it’s been decorated, too. There are new pink and cream throws on the sofa. I don’t recognize the floral armchair by the fireplace. It’s not my style, but it fits the room perfectly. A white fleecy blanket is draped over the back of the chair, probably more for comfort than warmth since it’s the middle of summer. A tattered paperback lies on the seat. Cherished Bride. I almost laugh. Isabella always enjoyed a good love story. How sad for her that ours was not one.

The image of domesticity the room conjures up is a perfect reflection of the woman I married. Isabella loved to read. She was more of a stay-at-home type than me, but that was part of the appeal. Even before I considered her as a bride, I thought she’d make someone an excellent wife and mother. I can’t believe I was so wrong about her.

There’s nobody in the living room, so I head back out into the corridor and work my way through the house until I eventually find my younger brother, Leo, in the kitchen. Like me and our siblings, he’s taller than average, with dark brown hair and blue eyes. Usually a fan of dress pants and tailored shirts, Leo is wearing jeans and a Henley, its sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

Leaning back against the countertop, he has a cup of coffee in one hand and a Danish pastry in the other. He’s stuffing his face as if there isn’t a dead body lying at his feet.

“You’re getting crumbs on the corpse,” I tell him as I glance down at the man I entrusted with my treacherous wife’s care. His face is a mangled mess and his sandy blond hair is matted with congealed blood. Fuck! I’ve known Rico Mancini since high school, but I wouldn’t have recognized him if Leo hadn’t told me who’d been killed.

“Oh, no! Am I messing up the crime scene?” Leo’s tone drips with sarcasm. “Will the crumbs confuse the CSIs?”

My shoulders tense. My brother can be an irreverent fucker. He knows my issue is not with him contaminating a crime scene. Law enforcement will not be setting foot on this or any other property I own. Not unless they bring the fucking National Guard with them.

“A man is dead. Show some respect.”

“You sure this asshole deserves respect?” Leo gestures toward Rico with the hand that’s holding the pastry. Even more crumbs rain down on the body.

“He worked for the family for more than a decade. He was a loyal soldier.”

It’s more than can be said for a lot of the men who previously worked under my father. When I inherited the crown six years ago, I’d just turned twenty-five. Some of the old guard thought I was too young. They didn’t believe me capable of leading the family and tried to undermine my authority. A few even defected to our rivals. I dealt with every one of the traitors, of course, but it was a bloody and exhausting exercise. Rico’s family members were among the few who never wavered from their oath of loyalty to the Volantes.

“Was he?” Leo sets what remains of his pastry down on the marble countertop next to him. He drains the last of his coffee from the cup and puts it aside. “You don’t think he betrayed you? Your orders were for him to protect Isabella, but he must have done something to provoke her into violence. Or perhaps you imagined she developed psychopathic tendencies overnight and attacked him for fun?”

No, that is definitely not what I thought. Isabella might have set me up to get shot, but murder someone in cold blood? No, I don’t believe she’s capable of that. In fact, when Leo made his second call to me when I was on my way here, I was shocked to hear she’d killed a man. As Leo says, Rico must have made her lash out. Whatever he did, he obviously crossed a line, going against my orders to treat her well.

“Do you know what happened?”

Leo shakes his head. “Haven’t watched the footage yet. Best I can tell, Isabella whacked him a couple of times. She dialed 911 and my guys picked up the call.”

I’m glad I had Leo overseeing Isabella’s captivity. He can be a pain in the ass, but in protecting our family’s interests, he’s a total professional. He runs a tight ship and the team he has working for him is second to none.

If Isabella had somehow reached the cops, she’d be in a whole different world of trouble right now. While I might have persuaded the authorities to back off from investigating her, there’s no way I could make this right with Rico’s family. If they ever find out what she did, they’ll want her head on a silver platter. They won’t give a shit that she’s the boss’s wife.

I look down at my dead soldier again and grimace. Violence is part of my everyday life. It’s in my DNA. Yet something about this scene disturbs me. Perhaps it’s because Isabella did this. I can’t believe the woman I’ve known since she was just a child is capable of such savagery.

“What the hell did she hit him with?” It must have been something heavy to inflict that much damage.

Leo tilts his head toward the sink, which sits beneath the window that looks out onto the beach. There’s a long black handle sticking out of it.

“Who’d have thought it? The first time your wife picks up a skillet, she uses it to bash her guard’s face in.”

“Isabella’s an excellent cook,” I mutter needlessly.

Leo chuckles, but I don’t share his amusement. There is nothing remotely funny about this situation. My wife’s actions have caused a massive headache for me and may have put her in danger.

“Where is she now?”

“Bedroom. She freaked out when I got here, so I sent her to lie down.”

“Good.” It’s probably best to give Isabella a wide berth until she’s had a chance to calm down and I’ve decided what I’m going to do with her.

As Leo stares at me, waiting for further instruction, I scan the room. My eye snags on a painting on the wall by the pantry. The foreground is a cornfield and in the distance there’s a red barn. It’s not the sort of picture I’d expect to find in the kitchen of a beach house.

Leo follows my line of sight and snorts derisively. “Your wife’s got shit taste in art.”

“She’s made a lot of changes around the house,” I muse. I turn to scowl at my brother. “You were supposed to keep me apprised of what was going on with her.”

“I thought you meant shit like this.” Leo waves a hand at Rico. “I didn’t realize you wanted an update every time she bought a fucking vase.”

“Of course I wanted to know she was making herself at home. I mean, where did she even get this stuff?”

Though I gave her a generous monthly allowance for clothes and shit, she wasn’t supposed to go on shopping trips. I suppose she could have bought it all online.

“You’ll have to ask her,” Leo says, “or will you leave it to the rest of us to find out?”

He’s referring to the fact I asked my brothers to tell Isabella she was being sent here under guard as punishment. Recovering from a gunshot wound to the shoulder and a deeper injury to my pride, I wasn’t in a fit state to deal with her myself.

Before I have the chance to tell Leo he’s being an asshole for throwing that moment of weakness in my face, the front door bangs shut. Seconds later, my brothers, Alessandro and Matteo, walk into the room. I asked Leo to track them down and get them over here. Both are wearing black jeans and t-shirts. Leo must have warned them they’d have a mess to clean up because they’re not usually so casually dressed.

“Fuck!” Matteo releases a low whistle. “She really did a number on him. I didn’t know she had it in her.”

I ignore the remark and his obvious admiration for my wife’s actions. “Where’s Gio?”

Alessandro shrugs. “I called the house. Mamma said he’s not been home for a couple of days.”

Gio still lives with our mother and sister in the townhouse where we grew up. The rest of us have our own apartments in New York, but we also share a mansion in Connecticut and a cabin in Maine.

“And you couldn’t reach him on his cell?”

“Kept going straight to voicemail,” Alessandro replies.

It’s annoying as hell when my brother goes off grid, but I guess he’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.

“We don’t need Gio for this,” Matteo says.

He’s right. We can handle this without involving the entire family.

“So, what are we going to do with this asshole?” Matteo nudges Rico’s body with his foot.

I tut irritably. Do none of my brothers have any respect for the dead?

“We can’t just make him disappear.” His father and brother work for us. They know Rico’s been assigned to look after Isabella. “It’ll raise too many questions.”

“We could shoot Isabella, dump them both in the ocean, and tell everyone they ran off together.” Alessandro’s suggestion comes with a grin to show he’s joking, but I still clench my fists in annoyance.

“Nobody is shooting my wife.”

The smile on Alessandro’s face gets even wider. Ever since he married his beautiful Italian bride, Emilia, the smug bastard thinks he knows how I feel about Isabella. If he does, perhaps he could enlighten me, because I am definitely unsure of the emotions she inspires in me.

“So, what are you going to do with her?” Leo asks. “You can’t leave her here, not after this.”

I roll my eyes. He’s another newlywed who suddenly thinks he has some special insight.

“Let me worry about Isabella. Just focus on what we do with Rico.”

“I say we dump him in the city,” Matteo suggests. “At the back of some strip club. We’ll make it look like a mugging gone wrong.”

“Not many muggers carry a cast-iron skillet,” Leo points out.

I flash him a glare, but it bounces straight off him.

“By the time I’m finished, nobody will work out what killed him.” Matteo gets a bloodthirsty gleam in his eye.

“Good.” I know I can trust Matteo to handle this efficiently. “Sandro, I want you to help him. You can clean up here, Leo.”

“I was meant to spend the day with my wife,” he grumbles.

“You can take her to the fucking zoo some other time.” I still can’t believe Leo wanted a day off to go gawp at a bunch of caged animals. “Do we need to talk about who the boss of this family is?”

Leo’s jaw clenches. He’s not happy with me calling him out for his attitude, but he just shakes his head. He might enjoy pushing my buttons, but our sibling rivalry will never lead to him challenging me for my position. The bond I share with him, with all my brothers, is too strong for any of them to try to usurp me.

I glance down at Rico again and stifle a sigh. “Make sure this stays between us. Nobody else needs to know about Isabella’s involvement.”

My brothers all murmur their agreement. They know if the Mancini family demands justice, I’ll be faced with an impossible choice. The first option would be to silence them, but there’s a risk that in doing so, I’ll spark a rebellion in the ranks. Paolo and Gianni Mancini are well-liked. People won’t support me getting rid of them to protect the wife I’ve exiled.

My second option would be to hand Isabella over to the Mancinis, but that’s not something I could ever do. It would make me look weak and, besides, I can’t allow anyone to hurt her. While I’d happily wring her neck for what she’s done, I will kill any man who tries to harm her.

Leaving the people I trust most in the world to get on with the tasks I’ve set for them, I go in search of Isabella. As I head upstairs, a twinge of pain grips my right shoulder. It’s so intense, I actually gasp. I raise my hand and try to massage the ache away. The spot where I was injured hasn’t hurt for several months. My doctor and a top-notch physiotherapist saw to that. Why is it flaring up again on the day I’ll come face to face with Isabella? I guess it doesn’t take a psychologist to answer that.

I walk along the corridor to the primary suite, which is where I assume my wife sleeps. Aside from being the largest room, it has a great view of the ocean. It’s a luxury most prisoners wouldn’t be afforded.

When I open the door, I’m surprised to find Isabella isn’t lying on the bed, sobbing in distress. She’s standing with her back to the wall at the right side of the room. The king-sized bed lies between us.

She’s a mess. Blood splatters streak the front of her pale blue dress. Her long black hair is matted and her vivid green eyes glisten with unshed tears. Despite the state she’s in, my wife is still incredibly beautiful. She holds her chin up as she stares straight at me. If it wasn’t for the fact her lips are wobbling, I wouldn’t know she was afraid. Her chest rises and falls slowly. Then she blows out a breath.

“If you’re going to kill me, make it quick.”

Before I can assure my wayward bride I have no intention of hurting her, the strength she’d mustered deserts her. She takes a single step forward, stumbles, and crashes to the floor.

“Fuck!”

Did she hit her head? I go to check on her. Nothing’s bleeding, but she’s out cold. I think she fainted.

“Oh, Isabella,” I whisper as I brush the hair back from her pale, tear-streaked face. “What am I going to do with you?”