CHAPTER SEVENTEEN #2
I couldn’t have heard him right. No, that couldn’t be.
Adrian was a heartless monster. He would never marry me to save my reputation.
“You will?” Matteo’s voice cracked with disbelief.
“I will,” he repeated, turning to face me as I remained on the bed, cowering under the blanket with utter humiliation and now… shock. His gaze found mine across the room.
And for a moment, I saw past the arrogance, past the mockery, to something raw and vulnerable beneath.
“I’ll marry her,” Adrian said, his voice dropping low, a heated cadence that made my skin prickle. “But not because I defiled her. Not because of honor or obligation or any of your precious traditions.”
He took another sip of his whiskey before placing the glass down and taking a step toward me. I found myself unable to look away from the intensity in his gaze.
“I’ll marry her because I love her.”
The words hung in the air, impossible and absurd. Devastating.
Love?
No, this wasn’t love.
This couldn’t be love.
He’d ruined me, humiliated me, destroyed everything I’d been raised to become.
Adrian Salvatore didn’t love me.
This was manipulation, revenge, cruelty wrapped in pretty words.
I shook my head, hysteria bubbling in my chest. “You don’t love me,” I whispered, my voice barely audible.
I didn’t think anyone heard me, but Adrian did.
Adrian’s eyes softened, and for a moment, I almost believed him.
Matteo let out a harsh love. “You’re fucked in the head, Adrian. You know nothing about love,” he roared.
“Maybe I was fucked in the head. Maybe I was delusional.” Adrian didn’t look away from me, almost like he wanted me to believe his words. Pleading with me to see his truth. “Why does any of that matter? I love her. I made her mine. She is mine.”
“She stays,” Enzo announced, his voice firm. “The wedding will proceed as planned, but with a different groom.”
“How will we explain this to everyone?” My father threw his hands in the air. He turned away from me with disgust etched on his face. “This is utterly humiliating.”
“We’ll find a way,” my brother interrupted calmly. “What’s more important is that we protect Serafina’s reputation."
“Her honor is now mine,” Adrian growled, finally tearing his eyes from me and stalking to the center of the room, facing them.
Something shifted in him. The earlier arrogance and amusement?
They were replaced with something else, something darker that I couldn’t quite understand.
“Her life, her body, her heart… mine. And it’s my duty to protect her.
From this moment forward, no one will ever question her dignity.
Not any of you and no stranger would dare doubt my wife’s honor. ”
“This is madness,” Matteo spat. “She was supposed to be my bride.”
“Not anymore,” Adrian said quietly.
“I’m going to fucking kill—”
“Matteo,” Enzo warned, cutting off his heir before he could finish his sentence.
He faced his second son, eyes dark and cold. “It’s done. Adrian and Serafina will marry. No one will know what happened here. If word gets out, I will personally see to it myself that their head is delivered to you.”
Adrian nodded, seeming satisfied with his father’s response. “Now if you’ve all had enough, please leave and close the door behind you. Serafina needs privacy.”
Privacy? I almost laughed because it was utterly absurd. What privacy?
It was too late for that now.
Damon, my father and Enzo left.
Matteo didn’t.
He stayed rooted in the doorway, fists clenched, jaw tight and eyes so dark… so furious, I had never seen such pure unadulterated hate in my life before.
“Why?” he asked quietly, a cold whisper.
He was speaking to me.
My lips trembled. Did he hate me? Did he also think I was an abomination?
I betrayed him.
He hated me, he had to.
How could I even begin to apologize for such a treacherous mistake? “Matteo—”
Adrian moved, standing between us, his back blocking my view of his brother. “Don’t speak to her.”
Matteo ignored his brother, side-stepping around him.
Adrian moved fast, pushing at his brother’s chest until Matteo stumbled back. “And don’t fucking look at her.”
Matteo’s face contorted with rage. “She belonged to me,” he bellowed. “You’re a fucking piece of work, Adrian. You and your goddamn ego.”
Adrian cocked his head to the side, not looking the least bit intimidated by his brother’s wrath. “Do you know how her lips taste?”
Horror unfurled inside me, his words causing me to burn with humiliation.
Matteo growled low in his chest.
Adrian threw his head back and let out the coldest laugh I had ever heard. “Yeah, brother. You don’t. But I do. I know what her lips taste like and I know how sweet her pussy—”
Matteo let out a roar, lunging for Adrian.
My heart lurched into my throat when Adrian grabbed his brother’s arm before he could land a punch. I remembered how fast and deadly Adrian had been in that death arena.
And even now he moved with the same stealth, the same raw power.
Adrian pushed his brother into the wall, his forearm pressed against Matteo’s throat. “She was never yours to begin with and today, she’ll walk down the aisle to me and you’ll watch as I make her mine in front of God and witnesses.”
“Fuck you,” Matteo hissed, spitting in his brother’s face.
Adrian didn’t even flinch. He just laughed like a madman. “Yeah, that’s right. She’s going to be my wife. She’s going to be in my bed. And I’m going to fill her womb with my babies. My heirs.”
His words echoed with territorial possession, dark and definite. Absolute.
Adrian branded me as his in a way I never thought he could or would.
His earlier words reverberated in my ears.
“I’ll marry her because I love her.”
Did he really…? Love me?
Was it possible that he really did love me in his own fucked up way? Because why… Why else would he go to this length to have me?
“And you?” Adrian scoffed, still holding his brother by the throat. “You will have nothing. No legacy. How does that feel, big brother? Knowing that I took your legacy from you. Your obsession. Everything you had ever wanted is mine now. And Serafina chose me.”
Adrian finally let go, pushing away from Matteo. He cracked his neck, left and right, as if he was preparing for a fight. A war.
“You’ll regret this,” Matteo seethed, turning on his feet.
“None of us are free from the consequences of our choices,” Adrian jeered, almost tauntingly, which made his brother pause at the doorway, but he didn’t turn back around. “Not even you, Matteo.”
I heard a scoff. And then Matteo was gone.
Adrian closed the door and it was just us.
He walked toward the bed, and I sank deeper into the mattress, holding the blanket tighter. He put his hand out, as if to prove that he wouldn’t hurt me.
“I know you’re confused and this was utter chaos,” Adrian said slowly, carefully, like I was some kind of wounded animal.
“But I promise that I will make it better.” He sat on the edge of the bed, his hands coming up to cup my face. His thumb brushed over my tear-stained cheeks and I wanted to pull away, I wanted to scream at him, I wanted answers.
Yet I couldn’t find the words.
Dizziness swept over me at his closeness, and everything that had just unfolded left me tangled in confusion.
“I will fix this, Princess,” Adrian rasped in the most gentle way. He had never spoken to me like this before. Never. “All you have to do is walk down the aisle to me and I will take care of everything else.”
“Do you really love me?” I finally croaked, swallowing past the lump in my throat.
“You don’t believe me,” he said, matter of fact.
I shook my head. “H-how can you?”
“My heart is not as cold or as dead as you think. It beats, Serafina.”
“With love?”
His thumb traced the curve of my lower lip, the barest graze of skin. “Love. Obsession. Need. Yearning. Whatever you want to call it.”
I could only stare at him in stunned silence.
“Guilia and Beatrice will be here soon.” Adrian dropped his hands and rose from the bed. “They probably already know what has happened… You need to get ready for the wedding.”
My wedding…
A marriage to this savage, devastatingly beautiful man who has turned my life upside down in the last six weeks.
But…
He loved me.
He loved me.
He loved me.
I believed it.
I had to believe it.
Because I was walking down the aisle to him today.