Chapter 21 Viviana
VIVIANA
The past month has passed in a daze. My days have been chock-full of wedding planning. I hoped that the more money I spent, the angrier he would become. Not such luck. He went along with every decadent wish, which pissed me off even more.
My nights have been restless. Tossing and turning and cussing him out.
Cursing him for making me fall in love with him.
Cursing him for twisting our beautiful love into a power play, his deception raging hell inside of me.
Every breath I expel carries misery as if it has lodged in my being, and I carry it like a shadow I can’t shake off.
If he thinks I will ever let him fool me a second time, he doesn’t know me at all.
I can’t do anything to stop this marriage.
Fine.
I’ll marry him and make him regret every day for the rest of his life wanting me, playing with my feelings and butchering my heart.
I will marry the enemy.
So be it.
I’ve buried the residual love for him so deep inside my chest that he won’t ever be able to spark it to life again.
The only positive thing is that I will live in New York—blissful anonymity. Plus, no one in my family will ever discover the truth.
I am looking forward to teaching. I’ve got a summer position at a preschool, and I hope to continue teaching kids there starting this fall with Evie. His betrayal trumps hers. I have a sister I would do anything for too. So, after I processed the hurt, I realized it was my fault.
I was the one in a secret relationship with her brother.
I was the one who let herself be fooled.
If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine.
It’s the night before my wedding, and as I stare out the window of the hotel across from where the ceremony will take place, I touch the glass to anchor myself.
A few tears slide down my cheeks. Alone. In pain.
I’ve smiled with a shattered heart and a broken spirit for so long that I doubt I will laugh again without feeling this weight pressing inside my ribcage, making it hard to breathe.
My phone vibrates in my hand. Startled, I drop it. It clanks on the floor just like my heart in the pit of my stomach.
I don’t have to retrieve it to know who it is. Every day, he has called me, and although I initially wanted to block him, the desire to punish him overrode my first instinct. We have only talked when needed. I didn’t anticipate his involvement in the wedding planning. The asshole. The hypocrite.
If given the opportunity to go back in time, I would shackle myself to my dorm room desk rather than travel to New York and go to that party. But I guess you can’t escape fate, wondering what I did wrong for mine to treat me so cruelly.
I’ve caught tidbits of talk about him. It’s been a big deal in my family to marry him, the boss of the Irish American Mob and someone who’s so damn rich and powerful it’s matching the Syndicate.
He doesn’t need anyone to be a damn force on his own.
I’ve heard of his cruelty. He killed everyone around him to reach the top. No one dares to cross him, but the one tidbit that enraged me like nothing else—he never planned to marry. Lucky me.
If I weren’t so furious, I would have asked him. Why me? He could have chosen any woman he wanted, but no, he decided to fuck me over, my life, my heart.
The curiosity gets the better of me, and I pick up my phone, sighing the moment I see his text. I saved him as KoD—fitting because he is a king in the underworld, and his deception game is spot-on, the biggest casualty being me.
One more night and then we’ll unite for life.
As if that’s not enough, he left an indelible mark on my soul, and nothing short of death will tear us apart.
I huff, giving up on praying for a wonder.
For time to still. For him to change his mind.
But I am not that naive as to believe my wish will come true.
For better or for worse, wife.
The asshole.
I reply.
You’ll regret it.
I could never regret having you.
I can picture him telling me that matter-of-factly. It’s how his brain works. I was a goal he had to achieve, secondary or primary, it’s irrelevant.
My sister informed me whose godfather he really is. Aris is Calla and Enzo’s son. They rule over the West Coast, and she controls the Council. Formerly known as Luciana, the lethal sniper who almost turned my sister into a widow.
Those few weeks of uncertainty about whether Cato would survive were pure hell for Chiara, and now I will be part of her extended family, including the woman who caused my sister her greatest grief.
Welcome to the Mob, I guess.
Tristan knows that the bad blood between the Syndicate and them won’t disappear, yet he still dragged me into this mess. My marriage will bind me to side with Tristan in a war. Egotistical asshole.
He might believe he can balance holding the West Coast and the East Coast in check, but he doesn’t have that power. No one can.
You should go to sleep.
I read his text, fuming. He can’t possibly know I am not in bed. I feel my brows furrow and then he calls me.
One ring. Two rings. My hurt wavers with my hatred, but something else claims the win. My loneliness.
God, this asshole made me feel like I belonged.
I accept his call, hating myself for my weakness. Hating this love I can’t smother. I just fight it, fight myself, and keep losing. I won’t give up though, continuing to battle him and the entire world if needed to protect myself from another heartbreak.
Only our heavy breathing breaks through the static before anger wins, and I snap. “Quite desperate, aren’t we?”
“Quite belligerent, aren’t we?”
“I’m not in bed. Maybe I am fucking someone else on my last night of freedom,” I snicker.
Antagonizing him gives me incredible satisfaction.
I would never actually do that, understanding the repercussions.
His darkness, which I’ve felt from the very beginning, is real, not a figment of my imagination.
He would end him, and I couldn’t live with that sin.
I am also a realist. Nothing would ease the pain of his betrayal.
The silence on the other end makes me stand straighter.
“Mo run, we both know you’re too good to do that,” his deep voice ends on a soft tone.
“Stop calling me that.”
“Why? Does it make you remember that you belong to me? How I made you mine?” he drawls out, maddening me.
“Poor you, living off memories.” I tsk in a fit of dramatics.
“So we won’t consummate our wedding night?”
“In your fucking dreams,” I spit, hating how level he sounds while I am on the brink of an emotional breakdown.
A sound of satisfaction rumbles in his throat. “Although we took care of that on our first night together.”
The asshole.
The jerk.
The bastard.
I hate him.
“How are you spending your last night of peace?” I ask, infusing a fake cheer.
“Right, you’ve threatened me with war. Looking forward to that.”
I swallow the lump of emotion. “It’s your fault… I…”
I dreamed about our marriage, opposite of the norm in the Mafia, but reality had other plans. If I don’t get to live my dream, neither will his life with me be a happy one.
Misery awaits us.
“You asked what I’m doing. I am looking at my life,” he says hoarsely, softness threading through his voice, awakening those pesky butterflies in my belly.
I instinctively look at the hotel across the street. I see him on the balcony, gazing at me.
For a few moments, nothing else exists but his gravitational pull drawing me to him like the damn black hole he is, sucking me in with no regard that he’s snubbing my light.
I scowl. “Me, your life? No, I am just a pawn on your chessboard.”
“You’re the queen.”
“Even worse, because you sacrifice it to save yourself, the king.”
“The king is nothing without his queen,” he says resolutely, no trace of dishonesty.
I am about to hang up, but as if he senses it, he rushes to add, “I’ll win you back, mo run. I know I messed up. I know I’ve hurt you, but I will do any-fucking-thing to make you see that in my black and white life, you’re my splash of color. The only thing that matters to me.”
I wave him away. “Don’t waste your poetics on me. I trusted you once. I won’t make the same mistake again.”
“Tell me your price.”
If I request the key to his empire, he would hand it over. But I can’t be bought.
He’s already gifted me a black Centurion, and I’ve spent ten million dollars. Six for this damn wedding and four for preschool projects across the less privileged parts of the city. The card still works. Apparently, there’s no limit to how much I can spend.
An idea hits me, making me both giddy and weary. I jerk my chin at him, smirking. “A baby.”
He drags a hand down his face. “Smart woman. See why there could have been no one else for me but you?”
All I hear is that even if he says he’d do anything to win me back, he won’t give me a child—the only thing I truly desire.
“Sure, I am so damn smart I’ve let you fool me. Rest assured, I don’t want your spawn,” I declare, conveying irritation and feigning annoyance.
I can’t allow a second of weakness, or he’ll bulldoze right through my defense.
“My spawn?” he chuckles.
“Yeah,” I say, flicking my hair back in a pose of indifference. “You were right. You stem from a long line of evil. We should break the cycle of wickedness.”
My heart pounds a wild rhythm, the guilt knocking me off balance. My pain doesn’t give me the right to cross a boundary or be cruel.
I am about to apologize when he says, “At least, neither of us enters this marriage with false expectations.”
He hangs up, and I yank the curtains shut, so he won’t see the tears falling down my face.
Climbing into bed, I stare at the ceiling until my eyelids grow heavy.
In a few hours, I’ll marry the infamous King of New York. The polished and influential businessman, the monster, the sinner, the devil in disguise.
I’ll be his.
He’ll be mine.
Till death do us part—undecided if I want our life together to be long or short.