Chapter 1 #2
“Rosalie will be here soon, you want me to greet her, don’t you?
” I say this without looking in his direction.
My hands are balled into fists. I walk toward the door, not another word coming from my mouth and leave the room.
Leaving my brothers staring at me until the door closes behind me and I’m headed down the hallway past the library and into the foyer.
I can feel the anger built up inside of me. It dares to come out in a short huff as I stand just a few feet from the door.
I could leave right now if I really want.
I could pack a back and run away as far as I desire.
I have the money to do so. My own private bank account with money I’ve been stashing for just this very occasion.
The occasion of which I need to get the hell out of here because something rather insane is going on.
It’s not that it’s unheard of, arranged marriage being used to connect mafia and crime families together.
However, I had always thought that the deal with my older brother was that he didn’t really believe in it.
At the very least, that he would have come to me and spoken to me about it first. Clearly, I was wrong on that front.
I pace the elegant tile floor of the foyer five times over before I hear the sound of a car pulling up the driveway. The car doesn’t pull up past the front door to the garage but instead stops under the car-port.
I try to prepare myself for meeting Rosalie. It’s no good. I’m desperate for a drink and for a cigarette right about now. My fingers twitch. My throat is dry. How am I supposed to greet the woman whom my brother has decided is to be my wife?
I know how. Polite and proper. Not a single word of disagreement uttered between us or about us.
Still, I can’t imagine Rosalie would agree to this without something truly being in it for her.
The family uniting and power exchanged simply isn’t enough.
Not for her. I know enough about her to know that.
I watched the way she pretended that Soren was truly kidnapping and torturing her in the past when they needed to get Eivor to agree to a truce.
She’s willing to play the game, clearly, but is she really willing to play the long game?
It doesn’t matter. I’ll be face to face with her in mere moments.
Despite my heart pounding in my chest, I step over to the large double doors and open one side of them to invite the woman in.
Rosalie is standing at the top of the stairs, her blonde hair in a messy bun at the back of her neck, several waves of it framing her face, and that face of hers flushed pink from the cold.
“Rosalie,” I say as calmly as possible. It comes out stiff.
“Alessio. Good morning,” she says with a small smile. She steps in and immediately begins to take her coat off. Before the butler can help her with that and put her coat up, I step over and offer to help.
I need to get alone with her as soon as possible. We need to talk, and we need to talk without anyone else listening. That is a chore in and of itself.
“Let’s go to the library,” I suggest as I hang her coat up. She’s taking her wet boots off and pulling her gloves off as well.
“Slow down for a second, I just got here,” she insists. “I need something hot to drink. It’s freezing out.”
I sigh and look toward the butler who nods and disappears from the foyer toward the kitchen.
“You’re my wife-to-be, I have some questions I need to ask you,” I insist and motion her down the hallway.
She eyes me from head to toe. “I gathered that. I have some things I need to ask you too, but we have all day for that. I’d like to see my brother while he’s still here.”
I growl under my breath. “Fine, if you must.” I wave a hand. “He’s past the library in the board room.”
“You have a board room?” she asks me with a raised brow but starts to walk anyway.
“It’s an old office that was made into one several years ago when our father started to include us in his decisions,” I tell her, almost with a sneer. Unlike Carmine who seems to have decided to make our decisions for us.
“Eivor rarely let’s me in on his decisions, but this one he did,” Rosalie admits as we get to the door. I look at her incredulously.
“Is that so?”
She locks eyes with me. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t a choice.”
I open the door for her despite my irritation and watch as she walks in, but I don’t go with her.
“Soren, can we talk?” I hear her ask just before the door closes with me on the other side. I could stay and try to listen to their conversation through the door, but I have no interest in that.
The frustration is boiling up now beyond a level I’m able to maintain. I head for the back of the house with long strides and the second I’m through the double doors leading out into the yard I pull out a cigarette and light it up.
I’ve promised that I’d quit about a dozen times now, but I’ve never made it very far. There are worse vices to have, and…I have those too. This is just the easiest one to sate.
I light the thin clove-scented cigarette and take a slow inhale, feeling the smoke fill my lungs and the nicotine hit my blood stream almost instantly. Whether or not it actually does, doesn’t matter. It feels like an immediate relief regardless.
A cloud billows from my mouth around my head and face in the cold late-winter air. I don’t mind the chill that causes goosebumps on my arms, nor do I mind the wind that ruffles my long hair.
I stare out at the line of trees near the back of our home.
The Dresvanni Estate. It’s been in our name since our great-great grandfather, Stephan Dresvanni.
He built it with his own two hands…and a dozen others who he either paid or extorted for their work.
The details are quite blurry, but I know Stephan was a cruel man who died long before I was born.
My father wasn’t an uncruel man, but the anger and violence did seem to temper with each generation. What would have ended in death with Stephan, ended in a beating with my father. Some things at least.
“It’s freezing out here, Alessio,” Tiberi’s voice comes from behind me.
“It’s boiling in there, so it evens out,” I reply as I take another drag.
Tiberi steps beside me and drapes a coat over my shoulders. He’s the tallest of us all, but he only stands a couple inches taller than me.
“You should know that I didn’t agree with Carmine’s decision,” he tells me.
I look at him with a tilt of my head. “Did you voice this or simply keep it in your head?” I ask him, a hint of accusation in my voice. I take another drag and let it cloud the space between us. I toss the end of the cigarette to the ground and ground it out with the toe of my shoe.
“I said I didn’t agree, not that I don’t. After some thought, I think it could be good for this family to combine with the Fiorellis. Officially. The town, and our allies, will see it as a move to continue peacefully rather than violently,” Tiberi explains. Always the strategist.
“Peacefully… What about their plan to overthrow several of our allies anyway?” I ask him as I shove my hands into my pockets. I brush my thumbs over the edges of the pockets where the fabric is raised. My initials embroidered into the denim with golden thread.
“We need to broaden our control, that is inevitable. We cannot remain strictly allies with everyone. If we wish to become more powerful, we need to take over the power of those who look down at us from above,” Tiberi tells me and waves his hand upward.
I furrow my brows. “We need to take over those more powerful than us, sure, I get that in theory, but what part of that can’t be done by just having an agreement with the Fiorellis?” I narrow my eyes.
“You know why,” he sighs.
I scoff. “Fine, you’re right. I do. Eivor wants control.
Carmine and Soren are already together; he can’t force them to get married, but he can force Rosalie.
It’s not about us needing to be together for the sake of our families, but for his sake.
For his greedy need to be the lord of everything and everyone. ”
Tiberi nods slowly. “That may be true, but if we want the added fire and social power of the Fiorellis, it’s what we have to do.”
I shake my head. “It’s what I have to do. Not you. You’re free to do as you please.” I turn around and start back inside. I let the coat slip off my shoulders and fall to the cold hard ground. Tiberi brought it out, he can bring it back inside.
When I get to the library, with all its towering oaken bookcases filled to the brim with history, romance, and war novels, Rosalie is already there.
She’s sitting on a window seat, on the velvet-lined cushion with the wintry sun peaking out from behind partially opened curtains.
It illuminates her strawberry blonde hair and I have to admit that she’s beautiful.
Her nose is small and upturned in a cute way, and her jawline is both soft and sharp.
She isn’t looking at me, so I take a moment to admire her for another moment.
The dark red and black sweater she’s wearing only accentuates her gentle narrow curves, and her thighs appear plumper with the way she has her legs crossed.
If it weren’t for the fact that women aren’t even remotely my interest, I might not be so terribly off put by marrying her. I could even see myself growing to love her perhaps. If I were a different man.
“Are you just going to stare at me or are we going to talk?” Rosalie finally says and turns her head to meet my eyes.
I clear my throat and step closer to her. “What is it you want to talk about?” I ask.
“You’re the one who was in such a rush before. You start,” she insists. She turns to face me more, and I step closer to stand in front of her, but I don’t sit down. I need to maintain the upper hand, and towering over her is one way to do that.
“You said you wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t by choice?” I ask her, more so remind her. “You agreed to marry me for your family?”
She tilts her head to the side and some of her hair falls down over her shoulder. I follow it with my eyes. It’s particularly distracting for some reason. As though my mind is trying to focus on literally anything but the present moment and what we need to talk about. What we need to do.
“I didn’t like the idea at first, I have to admit,” Rosalie tells me. “But…I don’t want this to turn into a war. Eivor wants us to be married and he’ll calm down if we do.”
My lips turn up at the edges. “So, it’s not about marrying me then. It’s about sating your uncle’s fantasy.”
She blinks at me. “Fantasy?”
“Oh, please. I see the way he looks at you. It’s clear he’ll do whatever he needs to do to control you in some manner. He wants control of all of us.”
“Eivor is a bad man,” she agrees. “But he’s not just my uncle, he’s the Don of the Fiorellis. As long as he’s around, my life is in danger.”
“So, why not just kill him?” I ask her with a raise of my brow. I step closer to her, looking down at her with narrowed eyes. “It’s what I wanted to do in the first place. “
“What you still want to do, clearly,” she says quietly. “I don’t want him dead, Alessio. I want him taken out of power, sure, but that’s not an option. The best option right now is to marry into your family where I’ll be safe.”
“It’s about your own safety; I suppose I can understand that. But you must understand that my safety is at risk marrying into your family,” I say as I wave a hand to the side.
“You’re a man,” she reminds me. “My safety is at risk ten times more no matter what I choose. You always have the option of overpowering those who try to control you. I don’t.”
I smirk at her. “Are you saying you’re weak and helpless? Darling, that’s not the woman I saw a few weeks ago.”
She glares at me. “Never. If I really didn’t want to be here, I’d find a way out. I know how to work a gun, believe me, I have.”
“You’re underestimating yourself then?” I crouch down to look at her. “Or do you really want to marry me that badly? Do you think I’ll fuck you good on our wedding night?” My voice lowers.
Rosalie’s face goes pink and her hands ball into fists.
“Fuck you. I would marry whichever brother Eivor wanted.” She scoots further back on the seat to get away from me.
“It’s not about you. It’s about what my best option is, and right now that’s marrying into your family so my uncle will chill the fuck out.
” Her voice becomes jaded and dark in a way I’ve never heard it before.
She glares at me with daggers for eyes and I can’t help but feel a tingle of excitement throughout my body.
“I guess we better start planning our wedding then, Wife,” I sneer back at her.
Her jawline tightens, and mine does too. We simply look at each other, refusing to break eye contact like we’re trying to see who can hold it the longest. Who will waver. Who will pull away.
She does. Her eyes shifting to the side, but I realize that it’s because someone else has walked into the room when I see their lanky form in the reflective pools of her eyes.
“Are you two busy?” Cassian asks us.
I sigh and turn around to face him. “Why?” I ask in return.
“Eivor wants you to go to the courtyard to work on planning your wedding,” he tells us. “Since, apparently that’s where it will be.”
My hands tighten in fists. “What courtyard?”
“At our estate,” Rosalie cuts in. “He asked me where I’d prefer to have the wedding, and I said our courtyard. It’s got beautiful details, even in the winter. I figured it’s better than a church.”
I swallow hard. “I wasn’t included in this decision,” I say.
“Take it up with him,” Rosalie insists and stands up from the window seat. I watch her as she walks around Cassian, who doesn’t look incredibly pleased either, and disappears out of the door.
“She’s going to be a handful, isn’t she?” he says as he looks behind his shoulder.
I exhale with a slight huff, already wishing I had another cigarette.
“You could say that.”