Chapter Five
Enzo Rissi
The catholic priest stood at my back as I watched down the aisle for my bride-to-be.
Her sisters had been waiting in the front row, talking in hushed tones for the last half hour.
My aunt and uncle sat on their side of the aisle, smiling up at me with pride lighting their expressions. I was doing this for them; it was the least I could do after everything Uncle Giovanni had given me despite being the illegitimate heir.
With my half-brother being the only legitimate son and working for Alonzo as his consigliere, I was the last option.
The music shifted to the song everyone recognized, and the priest demanded everyone stand. I clasped both hands together in front of me, inspecting the nail on my thumb for a moment.
This was strictly semantics. The marriage meant nothing to either of us.
A flash of white drew my attention forward, and every thought fled from my mind at the sight of her.
The sight of my wife.
The brown hair that had hung limply down her back during our first meeting was arranged in an elegant updo that resembled a crown of braids and curled strands across her head. She wore a veil, though not in the traditional sense. Instead of hanging over her face, it cascaded down her dress and tumbled into the frills that trailed behind her.
I couldn’t peel my eyes away.
I never thought of her as my type. I had always been partial to fiery redheads and big tits. Aria only checked one of those boxes, but…
As far as wives went, she would do nicely.
When she reached the altar, I extended a hand. Alonzo cleared his throat, and I noticed his heavy presence at his daughter’s side for the first time. I tensed as I looked at the man who held my gaze with a sinister smirk. An ache formed in my chest, and it took everything in my power not to rub the tension away.
Aria took the two steps easily and stopped before me.
Alonzo didn’t even bother shaking my hand as he turned his back and stormed away.
I could pull my gun right now and end his reign. I could shoot him in the back of the head for everything he did to my mother and father. For the pain his reign caused my entire family.
I could do it.
But the cost wasn’t worth it.
Instead, I glanced down at where my bride stood.
She looked so damn small .
Not just physically, though she did stand about six inches beneath my towering frame. She looked helpless. Her shoulders hunched forward as if there was nothing that she could do to get out of this situation. She looked trapped in a world much more extensive than her.
Beyond that, her furrowed brows and wide eyes had her looking terrified .
It took every ounce of willpower to keep from calling off this entire damn wedding when she lifted her gaze and finally met my eyes. She tried so hard to hide the fear and the pain. I could see the attempt at neutrality with the tense smile she offered, but it did nothing to hide what I could see in those sad eyes.
I clenched my jaw as the priest began going through his spiel about unifying our souls and all the shit that my uncle had put in his script. I didn’t bother listening as I fought my instincts and stayed in place.
This wasn’t right, but it was what had to be done.
No matter how much I wanted to call it off, we were both stuck in this, and there was nothing we could do—not now that we were here. Plus, she agreed to this the same way as I had. She didn’t need my protection when she could make her own decisions.
Hell, there was no reason I needed to protect her.
It didn’t matter how hot she was or how big her tits looked in her wedding dress. It didn’t change that she had come from a monster. She was my enemy.
Aria meant nothing to me.
I just had to keep reminding myself of that.
“I do,” Aria whispered.
I shook myself from my thoughts as I listened to the priest address me directly this time.
“Do you, Enzo Rissi, take Aria Bianchi as your lawful wife? Do you accept her through your richest and your poorest moments? Will you help her through sickness and health and cherish her on the hardest days and the easiest ones? As long as you both shall live?”
I nodded. “I do.”
“Here are your rings…”
He went on through another long excerpt about the significance of the steel of the bands and the love we would share. The life. The happiness.
He either didn’t know the arrangement or the priest was a damn good actor.
I slid Aria’s chosen ring onto her finger, and she slid the thicker band on mine.
“You may kiss the bride,” he finally said.
I reached forward and wrapped a hand around the nape of her neck and another around her waist. I pulled her against my body, and when she gasped, I devoured her mouth.
The electricity flowing between us was immediate. Her lips hesitated momentarily, but they softened and parted beneath mine. One of her hands gripped my hip, and the other bunched in the fabric of my shirt, and everything around us fell away—the crowd, the flashing of cameras, the priest who took a few inconspicuous steps away. All of it.
I could only focus on Aria’s sweet scent and soft lips, and as she went to pull back, I tugged her closer, dipping her backward.
She wrapped an arm around the back of my neck to hold herself upright, and I gave myself a few more seconds.
And then I mustered up more strength than I ever would have thought necessary to pull away from Aria Bianchi-Rissi’s lips.
My wife’s delicious mouth.
I was screwed.
* * * *
My first cocktail was stiff enough that I felt it burning through my blood after only a few minutes, and I instinctively pulled Aria’s chair closer to mine as she sipped on her lighter cocktail. She didn’t say much all night, and she continued the trend as she sat at our main table and greeted each guest with a forced smile.
Nobody else seemed to notice, but I did.
I couldn’t figure her out. Not entirely. I couldn’t peel apart the complexities that made up her every expression and mood change.
“I’m telling you, man,” one of my cousins said, slamming a whole bottle of Brandy on the table between us. “Taking a swig of this is good luck for any wedding night. You don’t want to struggle in the performance department, do you?”
“I don’t think I’ll have a problem with that.” I grinned as I glanced down at Aria.
Her expression appeared passive, if not a bit tense. She said nothing as she grabbed the five-hundred-dollar bottle of liquor and took two large gulps. Three. Four.
She grimaced and placed it back on the table before picking up her half-finished cocktail and taking another small sip.
“Dude,” my cousin drawled. “That was awesome.”
Aria didn’t show any reaction. “Liquid courage.”
He looked between us and laughed belligerently before walking away.
For the first time in the last hour, nobody waited in line behind him to wish us well or offer their congratulations, and I exhaled a long breath. “Finally.”
Aria made a sound of acknowledgment. “Does everyone know the reason we’re marrying?”
“Most of the family does. If not outright, everyone suspects. It doesn’t matter. They all knew I wasn’t planning to marry for love anyway.”
That seemed to catch her attention. “What do you mean?”
“What I said. I don’t do relationships.”
She looked me over with an assessing expression. “Why?”
I didn’t plan for her to push this topic. “I’m not interested in mindlessly loving someone who could turn around and betray me.”
“You don’t come across as uninterested. You come across as adamant. If you weren’t planning on marrying for love, did you always plan to be in an arranged marriage?”
I leaned back in my seat, faking indifference. “You’re reading into shit that doesn’t matter. Sit back and enjoy your drink.”
I didn’t mean for my voice to come across as hard and distant. Maybe even a little commanding. She flinched and narrowed her eyes as she stared at me. She opened her mouth, but she seemed to think better of it before she shook her head and did as I ordered.
And damn it, a part of me hated that she didn’t rise up to challenge me like she had wanted to.
“Did you plan on marrying for love?” I asked.
“Don’t we all?” She stopped and corrected herself. “Everyone other than you, of course.”
“Not in this business, we don’t.”
“Why do you assume I planned on staying in this business?” she asked, tilting her head.
“You’re here, aren’t you?”
She didn’t reply immediately, and the hesitation had me looking deeper into her expression. Sadness and regret lay there, but she shook them off and shrugged. “I guess I am.”
“Why?”
“Why what?” she asked.
“Why are you here if you didn’t plan on staying in this business?”
Again, hesitation. “Enzo, I think there are a lot of off-limit topics about our pasts. Your commitment issues. My career aspirations. I’m sure we’ll add more to the list.”
I could have left it at that. I didn’t need to know anything about her, and I never planned on sharing more about myself than what she could see on the surface. Aria wasn’t going to be my friend or companion. She’d be the woman responsible for holding our families together, and that was it.
But I couldn’t help myself.
With her this close, I could never help myself from spewing utter bullshit. Adding alcohol into the mix… well, that wasn’t my brightest idea.
“You did plan on leaving. What were you going to do?”
She only shook her head and leaned back, shifting her attention to where people danced to the slower instrumental music from live musicians that played on the patio. “It doesn’t matter,” she said on an exhale. She lifted her glass. “We’re here now. Cheers to that.”
“Tell me something real about you, Aria. Something that’s not off limits.”
She considered my question and pursed her lips. “I have a photographic memory.”
I blinked.
“That’s not possible.”
She nodded and pointed to her head. “Everything I have ever seen or heard is right up here, ripe for the picking. My younger sister Noemi learned how to code before she got really good with computers, and she’d have me memorize her long lines of code to recite back.”
“Noemi?” I asked, my attention catching on the name for some reason.
“Yeah. She’s the second oldest.”
I had never met her siblings, but I knew their names. Evelina and Livia were the youngest, and Noemi…
My eyes widened with realization.
“Don’t look at me like that. She’s still my sister.”
But she wasn’t just Aria’s sister. She was on our kill list. There were reports from everywhere about her involvement with the Russians. Alonzo claimed she was kidnapped, but we had seen her walking freely at the side of Anton Petrov, the Russian mob boss responsible for my parents’ deaths.
Alonzo had been responsible for apprehending my parents’ killer, and he had given no further information. He claimed it was a hitman from Anton Petrov himself, but other people reported a betrayal among the Russian’s inner circle. A betrayal that led to their deaths.
Aria watched me, waiting for a response I wouldn’t give.
The conflict had nothing to do with her, especially since her sister was on our “capture and kill” list.
“It’s about time to go to the reception hall,” I said, pushing back from my chair and giving no further explanation.
It was too easy to forget who she was while I spoke to her.
Forgetting that she was my enemy—that she had no true loyalty to me—was dangerous.
I couldn’t let myself fall into that trap.