Chapter 7
LUNA
That smell.
God, it’s heavenly. And it won’t stop. My stomach growls in angry protest as I make what feels like my millionth pace across the room Priest left me in.
Is this how he tortures his enemies? With the promise of delicious food? It certainly seems that way.
“Some mobster,” I grumble angrily, “tormenting me with lasagna.”
It would be ridiculous if it weren’t true. I truly have no idea what the hell is going on. In the last twenty-four hours, I’ve flown across the country, discovered my father is dying from cancer, and was abducted by a maniac mobster who intends to marry me.
Tomorrow.
What the actual fuck? Have I wandered onto the set of a Lifetime movie without realizing it? Is this all just one big nightmare, and I’ll wake back up in my cozy bed in my apartment in Iowa with a sigh of relief?
The clatter of silverware beyond the door tells me that it’s neither of those options. That this is all too real and I am currently standing barefoot in Priest’s penthouse, hair a tangled mess, lips covered in our mingled blood, and no way out of a looming marriage from hell.
If what Priest told me is the truth, if I don’t marry him, my cousin Amedeo is going to kill my father, and then he’s going to come after me. And I was a fool to believe I could outrun the stain of this world. It will follow me forever.
I find myself at the door, testing it to see if it’s locked.
The knob moves freely. I hold my breath, thinking that maybe I can get the hell out of here before he catches me.
But when I open the bedroom door, all that changes.
Because at the end of the hall, I can see the dining room, where candles are burning on a massive table and there’s a huge, covered casserole dish.
Undoubtedly the source of the delicious, mouthwatering aroma.
There’s a bottle of wine too, uncorked and ready to pour.
Crystal stemware is placed by the plates.
It looks inviting and homey and as if it were curated specifically for a glossy magazine. The kind that makes you feel woefully insufficient when you’re lucky if you’re dining on paper plates instead of eating greasy takeout with your bare hands.
I’m moving like a sleepwalker, or maybe more like someone who hasn’t eaten since the yogurt parfait I grabbed at the airport this morning when I got off the flight from Iowa. I feel dazed. Confused. Who kidnaps someone and then serves them a candlelit dinner?
“ Bella . You’ve decided to join me for dinner after all.”
The amused masculine drawl has me turning to find Priest sauntering my way, arrogant, tall, and hot as hell. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows now, showing off what I’m instantly convinced was the inspiration for the phrase forearm porn , complete with black ink snaking upward.
Shit. I was supposed to be finding a way out of here, and instead, I’ve been drooling over the place settings and this man’s muscular arms. Get it together, Luna.
He flashes me a small smile I can’t define. “I was just telling Maria that you were in need of some rest after your journey here.”
I gape at him. Rest after my journey here, like I’ve arrived at his penthouse of my own free will? And wait. He has someone else here? A woman? Someone who might help me out of this nightmare?
“Maria?” I echo.
“Ah, don’t look so hopeful, sweetheart. Zia Maria is like a mother to me. Wonderfully loyal. Have I mentioned that she makes the best lasagna in the whole fucking world?”
I’m staring at him blankly.
“She does,” he says as if we’re having a conversation.
We’re not having a conversation. I don’t even know if I’m capable of coherent speech at this moment. The enormous dining table is made of solid marble—white with gray striations running through. It’s stunning and must have cost a fortune.
“I always tell her so, don’t I, Zia ?” he asks warmly as she trundles around the corner.
She’s shorter than I am, round-faced and smiling, her dark hair wound in a tidy bun at her nape. “Of course you do, Matteo my boy. But you must watch your language. I’ll not have my food on a wicked tongue.”
She wags her finger at him, frowning.
I watch the exchange unfolding, not sure which has shocked me more, the undeniable tenderness for the older woman reflected on Priest’s face or Maria’s brazen scolding of one of the most feared men in the Andriani family.
“Now I’ll have another woman to look after me,” Priest is saying, sending a glance in my direction that I somehow feel like a caress. “Maybe between the two of you, there’s hope for me yet.”
“This is the one?” Maria asks in an aside I easily overhear.
“Forgive me,” he says, playing the role of the consummate gentleman all too well. “I should have introduced the two most important women in my life properly. Luna Revello, my soon-to-be-wife, this is Maria Andriani, my aunt and the woman who feeds me.”
Maria beams with pride as she bustles to me, folding me in a big hug. I hug her back, weirdly grateful for the comfort. She’s soft everywhere, but her embrace is tight and strong, and for a second, I’m so reminded of my own mother that my throat goes tight.
But then the hug is over, and I’m recalling all the things Priest just said.
“Welcome to the family, Luna,” Maria says, then cups my cheeks. “What a lovely bride you’ll make. Promise me that you’ll treat my Matteo well.”
Matteo. Hearing someone call him by his real name feels so much more intimate.
I don’t want to think of him this way. Matteo is a charming, handsome man who dotes on his elderly aunt and lights candles on the dinner table.
Priest is the vicious mobster who held a Glock to my temple earlier and told me I had no choice but to obey him.
I can’t reconcile the two. It’s as if they’re different men.
But Maria is looking at me expectantly, and I’m guessing she doesn’t know her beloved nephew kidnapped me and is holding me here against my will. Well, sort of against my will at this point. He did unlock the door after dumping a whole shitload of alarming information on me.
So, I force a smile I don’t feel. “I promise I’ll treat him as well as he deserves to be treated.”
There. It’s the most I can manage. I don’t miss the way Priest is looking at me—or the inky eyebrow that flies up at my words.
But Maria is pleased by my response. “You’ll do.” She gives my cheeks another pat and then turns back to Priest. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Matteo. Be careful.”
I wonder if she’s referring to me or to the life he lives.
I don’t ask, just watch her give him a motherly embrace.
He leans down dutifully for a kiss on each cheek, and then she’s off, a silent guard waiting in the shadows to offer her escort.
I think it’s the same man who was our driver earlier, but it’s difficult to tell.
Then they’re gone, and it’s just Priest and me.
Alone.
And my heart is pounding because I don’t know what to do with Matteo, and I’m not sure which man he is in this moment.
“Sit, topolina ,” he says, an order instead of an invitation.
I know which one. Priest is back, unsmiling and forbidding, the hauntingly beautiful angles of his face carved from granite.
“I told you not to call me topolina .” We’re having the same battle we’ve had before, but I don’t care.
He gives me a thin smile. “Sit before I make you sit, topolina .”
He’s not wearing his Glock. At least, not that I can see. My eyes flit to the table where the silverware is carefully laid, gleaming. There’s a knife. A dull one, but still. We’re alone and there’s a knife.
“Planning to gut me with a butter knife, darling wife?” he asks.
“Don’t call me that either.”
“Why not?” He closes the distance between us. “It’s what you’ll be soon enough. There’s no other way for you, Luna. You see that now, don’t you?”
I shake my head. “There has to be another way.”
“Not unless you want to die.” He takes my hand in his and brings it to his lips, kissing my knuckles, the hot, velvety glide on my skin sending a shiver through me that has more to do with my body’s reaction to him than with the ominous pronouncement he’s just made.
“Maybe someone could talk some sense into Amedeo. He and I haven’t always been the closest, but if he understands what’s at stake, then?—”
“No,” he interrupts me, his denial curt and icy.
I bristle at his high-handedness, yanking my hand away. “You don’t have the right to tell me what I can and can’t do. Amedeo is my cousin, my family.”
“He’s also someone who will shoot you at the first opportunity and see that your pretty little body is dumped into the concrete foundation of his company’s next jobsite, where no one will ever find you.”
A shiver goes through me, because I’ve heard rumors about what happens to enemies of the Revellos who abruptly disappear, and it’s exactly what Priest is saying. Still, I don’t like to think Amedeo would do something like that to his own flesh and blood.
“If not Amedeo, then I need to speak with my father,” I tell him.
Because I need to know if what Priest is telling me is true. Not that I can trust my father. God, I don’t think I can trust anyone at this point. It’s me against the world.
“Tomorrow,” Priest agrees, surprising me. “After the wedding.”
And just like that, he’s infuriating me again. “I’m not marrying you—” I cut myself off before saying it all, pausing. “Not without seeing my father first,” I amend.
“You’ll see him after, and not a moment before,” he insists, jaw hard, voice harsh. “We have a contract, and I intend to see that it’s honored.”
Here is the man who threatened me, who held the barrel of his gun to my head without flinching. Here is the merciless sinner, the heartless assassin for the Andriani family. And, I remind myself, a man whose family was responsible for my brother’s death.
I can’t forget that.
“You expect me to trust your word,” I counter, far from finished. “The word of a man whose family has the blood of my brother on their hands.”
“We had nothing to do with Leo,” he says.