Chapter 1
Chapter One
1964 (7 years later), Newport, RI
A ntonio
“Your time is up.” Clad in a tuxedo tailored to fit my broad-shouldered frame, I lean against the brownstone church wall of St. Mary’s Cathedral. There’s no gun in my hand. I don't need one.
Benedict King knows me. He knows why I’m here. That I represent the don of the Beretta family. He probably also sees I have men stationed everywhere around the churchyard, mingling with the eight hundred guests streaming in for the society wedding of the season.
“Please, please .” The man holds up plump, shaking hands. Sweat drips from his hairline. “It's my daughter's wedding. Just let me walk down the aisle with her. Please allow me to get her married before you kill me.”
My upper lip curls at the mention of his precious daughter. “Who says I'm not here to kill her, too?” I ask casually.
Terror flares in the fat man's eyes. He blinks rapidly, his pupils tiny pricks of black in his pale blue eyes. He's in a white tux, as if he's the virgin being sold off in matrimony today, rather than his spoiled daughter.
“Don't touch Dahlia.” Spittle flies from his mouth.
“The moment you fucked the Berettas, your life, your wife’s life, and your daughter’s were forfeit. And I'm here to collect.”
A bead of sweat rolls down his forehead. “You can’t–”
“Benedict! Where have you been? The ceremony’s about to start!” Barbara King–or Babs, as the society column calls her–comes rushing around the corner then stops short when she sees me. One look at her husband, and she realizes things are not right. “Who are you? What's going on?”
I give her a shark tooth grin. “I’m the guy who’s come to kill you, Babs.”
She sways on her feet, color draining from her face.
“Catch her before she faints,” I tell her asswipe husband.
Benedict’s reflexes are slow, but he does manage to grab his wife’s elbow before she topples.
“Benedict,” she sobs. “What’s happening? What did you do?” She searches his face.
He stares back at her, his expression conveying his dismay. His regret. The horror of what’s about to happen. “The money I lost in the Shellingham deal, Babs. It was borrowed.” He glances at me.
Babs turns a slow, terrified gaze on me. “From the mafia ?” she croaks.
“That’s right, doll,” I say. “And the Yacht King missed his window to make it right with Don Beretta. So it’s not going to be the happily-ever-after you had planned for your beautiful Dahlia today.”
Just saying the girl’s name makes my upper lip curl with disgust. The girl I shouldn’t have touched all those years ago.
But this is the day I finally get my revenge.
Make the Yacht King and his precious debutante pay.
He doesn’t remember me. Why would he? I was just the guy he pinned as the blue-collar brute in a monkey suit at his daughter’s coming out ball. Probably one of a thousand guys whose lives he’s ruined.
“Wait! Isn’t there anything we can do?” Babs begs. “The yachts? Benedict, give him the inventory! It must be worth a fortune!”
I fold my arms across my chest to show I’m listening. I didn’t actually come here to kill them, not that I won’t if I have to. But dead bodies don’t make the don rich, so I’m really here to take everything the Yacht King owns.
Including his prize daughter.
Except she’s not for the don.
She’s for me.
Benedict darts a nervous look at his wife. “Y-yes. I can give you the inventory. Forty-five yachts in various stages of build.”
Forty-five yachts that have all been purchased already. The once-wealthy ship-builder is up to his ears in debt. But sure, the don would take the inventory and leave Benedict to answer to his other creditors.
That’s what he sent me here to do.
I want more, though.
I didn’t come here for a piece of his pie.
I came to take his whole world.
To demolish this worm of a man.
The don won’t be happy, but I’ll fix that later. I will run the business for him and give him the proceeds. Make him rich with a legitimate business. Besides, once I explain to him the significant advantages to having our own sea vessels out on the water for smuggling arms and other contraband, he will crown me Prince of the Beretta family.
I say nothing.
“Take the houses. The cars! Anything!” Babs begs. “Please, just tell us what to do, and we’ll do it.”
Ah. That’s exactly the opening I was looking for.
“I’ll take the business. King Yacht Company.”
Benedict looks like he’s going to be sick, but his wife exclaims, “Yes!” almost before the words are out of my mouth. I take a sheaf of folded papers from the inner pocket of my tuxedo jacket.
“Sign over everything you own to me,” I command.
“Do it!” Babs exclaims.
“Fine. Give me a pen,” Benedict snaps.
I wait until he’s signed every line before I deliver the final blow. “This almost takes care of your debt.”
Babs goes bug-eyed. “What else do you want?” Her voice is practically a screech.
“I’ll take your daughter.”
That statement makes them both freeze. They stare at me with obvious horror.
“Wh-what do-oo you mean our daughter?” Babs’ chin wobbles.
I spread my hands. “You planned a wedding. The event of the season. We’ll make it official. Your daughter marries me today to seal the deal. That way, it will all make sense. The business was turned over to your new son-in-law.”
“No!” Babs is horrified.
Benedict staggers to the right and clutches at his chest.
“I’ll keep her safe so long as you maintain your end of the bargain.”
Now Benedict understands me. There will be no going to the police. No trying to reverse this deal. No using his connections with Senator Reese or his limp-dick mayor son to bring down the Beretta crime family.
No, he must marry into La Famiglia if he wants to live and if he wants me to treat his daughter like the shining pearl he and Babs believe the spoiled socialite to be.
He gives a jerky nod. “Okay.”
“What?” Babs crumples, her knees giving way again. Her husband has to hold her up. “You can’t,” she croaks. “Benedict…the wedding.”
“ My wedding,” I say. “My wedding to the girl you once told me I wasn’t worthy of. Not even to lick the shit off her designer heels. ” I lift my brows at Benedict. I envisioned this moment every day I was in prison on trumped-up charges put there by this man. “Do you remember that?”
Benedict blinks in confusion, his mouth open.
No, he doesn’t remember. He’s fucked too many of those he considers lower class to count.
“At her coming out ball. Surely you recall. The blue-collar brute ?”
I watch as the flush of recognition then rage transforms his expression. “ You .”
I nod. “Me.”
He throws an arm wide. “ This ? That’s what this is about?”
I could not put more satisfaction into a smile. Yes. All of this. Seven years in the making. From becoming my uncle’s right-hand man after prison to orchestrating all of Benedict King’s failed investments and making sure he took the cash loan he could never pay back.
Yes, I’ve been directing the downfall of Benedict King since that night of the ball when his security guards beat me to a pulp and then dragged me to the police station with lies that no one should have believed.
And today is deliverance.
I now own Benedict King, his wife, and most importantly, that stuck-up virgin of his.
The one who is about to swear to love, honor, and obey me.
Dahlia
There’s a tiara on my head. I wanted a wreath of flowers. The kind with ribbons that fall down the back to mingle with soft curls, but my mother wouldn’t have it.
My hair’s in an up-do to display the diamond engagement earrings Jake gave me at our engagement party. I argued that the tiara actually detracts from the earrings, but in the end, I had no say in the matter.
It may be my wedding, but like every other moment in my life, it belongs to my parents.
Bea, my best friend–the one who I wanted to be my Maid of Honor, but my mother nixed–brushes a little more rouge on my cheeks.
“You look pale. You’re not going to puke, are you?”
I stare out the church window at the guests streaming in. Hundreds of people I don’t really know.
Of course, I’ve memorized all their names and stations. I know who is who and what they mean to both my family and the Reeses. I know I have to schmooze every single one of them today.
That’s my job.
This wedding isn’t about marriage at all. It’s a political event planned by the Reeses and my parents to boost Jake’s Mayoral career and get him to the governorship of New York City.
This will be my job for the rest of my life: looking beautiful, remembering names. Charming the right people.
“If I do, there won’t be much to puke. I haven’t eaten anything today.”
“Well, maybe that’s the problem,” Bea clucks. “I’ll go and get you something.”
The door to the room opens, and my mom pokes her head in. “It’s time. Come here, Dahlia. There’s been a change of plans.”
There’s a wild, hysterical look about my mom. For once, she’s not giving me the critical once-over to tell me everything that’s not perfect about me at the moment. Something must’ve gone wrong downstairs.
The priest didn’t arrive. Or Jake’s sister, my bitchy maid of honor, sprained her ankle or something. Whatever it is, at least she can’t pin it on me.
“Bea, leave us for a minute,” my mom commands.
“Of course, Mrs. King. I was about to go find something for Dahlia to eat.” Bea rolls her eyes at me as she passes behind my mom’s back and blows me a kiss.
I know something’s really wrong when my mom doesn’t tell Bea I can’t eat because my stomach will pooch in the wedding dress.
“Listen to me, Dahlia.” My mom grabs my bare shoulders and squeezes so hard I try to pull away. She shakes me.
“Mom, you’re going to leave marks!” I exclaim. I can’t imagine she’d want her precious daughter’s snowy-white shoulders to have red blotches when she walks down the aisle.
“Listen to me.”
Something about her tone startles me out of my irritability. I’ve never heard her speak this way. She’s always so controlled and ladylike. Even when she’s throwing daggers.
I go still. “What is it? Is it Daddy?”
My dad is overweight and stressed. Total heart attack material.
“No. Yes. Listen!”
My voice raises in pitch. “I’m listening, Mom. Tell me what’s going on .”
“You’re going to walk down that aisle, and you’re going to marry the man at the altar.”
I blink. Well, obviously.
Has my mother taken too much Valium?
“And?”
My mother shakes her head urgently.
Clearly, there’s something I’m not understanding.
Bea knocks on the door and pops her head in. “You two, it’s time! Everyone’s waiting.”
“You’ll marry the man at the altar,” my mom repeats, as if those words hold deep meaning.
“That’s the plan,” I say with false brightness. Jake Reese, my intended from the time I was thirteen years old.
A man I neither love nor even really admire. He’s a pompous ass who only cares about himself.
I flash a bewildered look at Bea, who holds my giant peach and white rose bouquet out to me.
She shrugs. “Show time.” She picks up the train of my gown, so I can walk ahead of her.
“Promise me,” my mom calls out behind us. “Promise me you’ll do it.”
What in the actual fuck is going on?
It doesn’t matter. I don’t have time to deal with her histrionics this afternoon.
“I’m doing it right now, Mom.” I don’t turn around. We arrived at the doors to the cathedral nave where the rest of the wedding party waits.
My mom takes the arm of one of the groomsmen. “All of our lives depend on it,” she hisses at me just before she enters.
“Jesus H. Christ. Did she get into the liquor cabinet?” Bea whispers.
I smother a laugh. Thank God for Bea, or I’d never make it through this day.
She takes the arm of her groomsman and walks down the aisle.
I don’t see Britt, my Maid of Honor. Maybe she already walked? I’m confused.
The flower girl heads down the aisle tossing her rose petals.
“Our turn.” My dad holds out his arm.
As I take it, I realize that he, too, looks terrible. I stop. “Dad? What’s going on?”
He’s sweating. Breathing hard. It looks like he’s about to keel over. “Did your mother talk to you?”
“Yes, but I don’t understand. What’s happening?”
“Just walk down that aisle and say your vows to the man on the other side, and we’ll all make it through this day.” He tugs me forward into the nave.
Eight hundred bodies stand as the violinists begin Wagner’s “Bridal Chorus”.
We’ll all make it through this day.
My feet move forward. The train of my gown swishes behind me. I can’t figure out what my dad is saying. None of this makes sense.
The guests turn expectantly my way. I hear murmurings, but they aren’t about how lovely I look. There’s a buzz of wondering whispers.
Who is she marrying? Where’s Jake? What’s going on?
I widen my pasted smile and look to the end of the aisle at my groom.
That’s when I realize that it’s not the future mayor of New York City standing at the altar waiting for me.
It’s someone else. Someone with dark hair watching me intently.
Now I understand what my parents meant. I’m marrying someone else today. And it’s life or death.
The air rips from my lungs as I grow closer.
My God.
It can’t be.
It’s him. The guy from the ball.