Lorenzo
ONE YEAR LATER
My phone buzzes with an incoming call. I look at the screen and see that it's my father.
I pick up on the second ring, knowing better than to keep the boss waiting. "We have a visitor, meet me in the main room. Vittoria will be joining us too." He ends the call before I can respond.
I set down the report I've been reviewing and stand; I button my jacket, straighten my cuffs, and walk out of my office and into the hall.
Vittoria is my father's wife. When they first married, I was very skeptical of her.
She's younger than I am. Hell, she's not much older than my youngest sister, but I slowly realized that there was a lot more to Vittoria than meets the eye.
She may be young but she's extremely smart and she has learned to be a perfect wife for a boss of the famiglia.
What I hadn't expected was how my father would change when he married her.
Somewhere along the way, Cesare Mariano softened.
Not by much, but enough for those of us who know him to notice.
It's obvious to all of us children that he cares about Vittoria.
In fact, he loves her, and she loves him.
I never thought I'd see the day when my father fell for someone, but he fell hard for Vittoria.
Their son, Matteo, only made it worse, my brother is a few months old and my father acts like he hung the moon.
Having Vittoria join our family barely a year after our mother's death was hard on my sisters more than the rest. They assumed Vittoria was trying to replace our mother.
They hated her on sight and were disrespectful.
Both our father and Vittoria gave them space to grieve and time to come to terms with the death of our mother along with the fact that our father had a new wife, a wife who was barely older than them.
But when Vittoria's father assaulted her, my sisters and brothers realized there was a lot more to her than they'd originally thought.
Things changed after that; my sisters became protective of her, my brothers accepted her, and for the first time since she married our father, Vittoria stopped feeling like an outsider.
I like that for them. They need someone who isn't afraid to show affection to them and Vittoria offers them that along with friendship. They are safe to be who they are around her. We all respect and adore Vittoria and the way she cares for our father. She's a great mother to Matteo.
The main room is quiet when I walk in. My father is standing near the window, his jaw set, as he watches me walk toward him. I notice that Vittoria isn't here.
"What's going on?" I ask, trying to gauge his temper, but it's practically impossible, the man has an impenetrable poker face.
He glances at the door and then back to me. "One of the gate guards just called. Ronan Delaney is on his way in. He said it's important." A pause. "It's about yours and Dáire's union."
I hold my father's gaze for a moment. What about our engagement?
I don't ask anything else. There's nothing else he knows or he’d tell me. We're now waiting on Ronan to make his appearance.
Vittoria appears a few minutes later. Matteo's not with her, no doubt for safety precautions.
Very few have met Matteo and that's the way that my father likes it, especially at such a young age.
Vittoria crosses to my father's side without a word, her eyes moving briefly to mine.
I see the worry in them and my stomach clenches. What the fuck is going on?
Heavy footsteps sound and I turn to see Ronan Delaney strolling into the room.
I have known Ronan Delaney my entire life.
He and my father are very similar in the way they conduct themselves.
He runs his Clann the way my father runs the famiglia; with precision, with authority, and with an iron fist. He's always composed just as my father is.
However, he looks anything but that right now.
"I apologize for the intrusion, Cesare," he says. "But this couldn't wait."
"What's happened, Ronan?" my father asks.
Ronan runs a hand through his hair, his shoulders tense and his eyes filled with anger. "It seems my Dáire is pregnant," he says thickly, rage coating every word.
The room goes still and I grit my teeth as I realize what this means. Fuck. What the hell was she thinking?
My father turns to me, and I already know what's coming. "Pregnant?" he says, his voice dropping to an icy tone "Lorenzo, is this true?"
"It is not mine." The words come out flat and even, exactly the way they need to. "I haven't seen Dáire in months."
It's the truth. I have only seen Dáire Delaney a handful of times in the past year. I’ve been with her at all the Syndicate functions, at our engagement party, and any occasions where we were required to be together and perform as an engaged couple.
But during those few times, we barely said more than a few words to one another.
"Ronan?" My father hisses.
"It would seem," Ronan seethes, "that my daughter and Rurik have been seeing each other."
Rurik. Of course it's that fucking prick. I don't react. I remember what my father taught me, never show any emotion, don't let your enemy know what you're thinking and right now, Ronan is very much my enemy.
Rurik Morozov. God, that motherfucker. I remember our engagement party, how Dáire had disappeared for a while and now thinking back, Rurik was nowhere to be seen either.
"How long?" my father asks.
"From what I've gathered," Ronan says, jaw tight, "it's been going on for over a year. Since before the engagement was even announced."
My breath catches but I control it in the same instant, but not fast enough. I hear it happen. A single sharp intake.
Before the engagement. Before Ronan and my father sat across a table and agreed to our names. Before I stood in a meeting room with the other Syndicate families and accepted this as my duty. Before any of it was formal or sealed or spoken aloud.
Before everything.
Which means while negotiations were being conducted, while I was being told who I would marry and when, Dáire Delaney had already made a different decision.
She had already chosen. She was already somewhere with Rurik Morozov, already building something, and the engagement we announced to the entire Syndicate was never anything more than a structure she was enduring until she could find a way out of it.
I was a political cover. I was the name on a contract for a deal she had already refused to honor.
They made me the fool before I even knew I was playing.
I hold my face still. I hold my hands still. I look at the wall just past Ronan's shoulder and I breathe.
"And what do you propose we do about this situation?" my father asks. His voice is deceptively even. I recognize that evenness. It means he is angrier than he is showing.
Ronan straightens. "I believe the only honorable course is to dissolve the engagement between Lorenzo and Dáire. And to arrange a new union between Dáire and Rurik."
I process it, quickly, logically. It is the only solution that holds.
A pregnancy changes every arrangement on the table.
Dáire cannot marry me. The Syndicate doesn't accommodate that kind of complication and neither does the alliance structure.
The engagement dissolves, Dáire marries Rurik, the Morozov family absorbs the fallout.
It’s clean, it’s practical, and it costs me nothing, except for looking the fool and that’s the part I won’t forget.
"And what of the agreement between our families?" my father asks.
Ronan exhales slowly. "I propose we shift the arrangement. My younger daughter, Quinn, is of marriageable age now. Perhaps she could be a suitable match for Lorenzo?"
Quinn.
I know the name, and I have seen her at some of the Syndicate events over the years.
She's the younger Delaney daughter, eighteen, barely of age.
She's quiet, from what I remember. I can't seem to recall what she looks like.
Then again, does it really matter? I'm going to marry her no matter what.
Besides, everyone will know exactly what she is.
A replacement bride. One Delaney daughter for another.
The Syndicate needs the alliance. The alliance requires the marriage.
Quinn is eighteen and available. That's all there is to it.
My father turns to look at me. His jaw is set, and his lips pull into a thin line.
He's beyond pissed. Everyone will be talking about this for a long time and it makes not only us but the entire Syndicate look bad.
Dáire and Rurik have brought even more scrutiny to us.
Our enemies are always looking for ways to get to us and having those two fuck up something that was suppose to strengthen the ties between us shows just how fucked up this Syndicate is.
Do they not realize the full depth of what the Harringtons did?
"Lorenzo?" My father calls, his voice cold but my name comes out as a question. The truth is, I have no actual choice here but my agreement needs to be spoken aloud.
I take a breath, trying hard not to grit my teeth. "If that's what's best for the family and the Syndicate," I say evenly. "I'll agree to it."
My father's eyes glow with pride for a brief moment before they return to normal. I know that he thinks I'm handling this with exceptional composure just as he raised me to do.
I'm doing my damn job. I'm Cesare Mariano's firstborn and heir to the famiglia. I'll do whatever it takes for my family. La famiglia è tutto. Family is everything.
My father and Ronan start to discuss tomorrow's meeting, how they'll tell the other families, along with how the public announcement gets managed.
What spin the Syndicate can put on it to limit damage.
How Rurik and Dáire's wedding won't be a spectacle as it would have been had they not disgraced the families, but instead, they'll marry within the next month.
It'll be a quiet and quick wedding without any fuss.
My mind continues to whirl. Rurik, that motherfucker, knew damn well what he was doing.
He was silent, let the date and engagement go ahead, while he and Dáire were fucking around.
It's not that part that bothers me, it's the part where he could have made it known he wanted to marry her and that could have happened.
Instead, they went about it behind everyone's back and now look at where we are. Fucked.
He played stupid games and now he's going to find out what happens when you fuck around with a Mariano.
Finally Ronan Delaney turns to leave, but just as he reaches the door my father stops him.
"Ronan." His voice is ice cold once again. "I trust you'll be dealing with your daughter and Rurik appropriately?"
Ronan's eyes harden, no doubt hating being told what to do. "You can count on it, Cesare."
Thankfully he leaves and my father turns to me.
"Son," he starts, "I—"
"Don't." The word comes out flat. "I don't want to talk about it right now."
He holds my gaze and I see what he wants to say. I can see the weight of it behind his eyes, the apology he wants to give. But I don't want any of it.
"Very well," he says. "But know that I'm here when you're ready."
I give him a single nod and walk out of the room, glad to finally get the peace I've been wanting since I learned the news.
The corridor is empty as I step into it.
I take a deep breath and walk back to my office as I think about tomorrow's meeting.
I wonder what the other families will say, how they will react.
No doubt Ronan and Olezka will have some shitty story to spin about it to save face.
But for me, it's too late, the damage is done and I expect the same can be said for Quinn Delaney, who'll be known as the replacement bride.
I reach my office, push the door open and slip inside. The second the door closes, I'm able to breathe easier. I sit down at my desk and I look at the report I set down when my father called. The same report, the same desk, everything exactly as I left it forty minutes ago.
I pick up the report and keep working. I can't help but think about Dáire Delaney somewhere with Rurik Morozov.
I think about a year of meetings and functions and a formal engagement and all the careful Syndicate protocol wrapped around something that was already decided before any of it started.
I think about an eighteen-year-old girl I have never met who is now the solution.
Everyone is going to know that I was supposed to marry one woman and now I am being handed another like it makes no difference.
And perhaps it doesn't. Perhaps that is the honest reality of it.
The Syndicate needed a Delaney daughter of marriageable age and a Mariano heir to marry her, and those two things still exist, just in different configurations.
The alliance holds, the cog keeps turning, and I will marry Quinn Delaney because the Famiglia requires it.
Quinn will have my name, my protection, and my household, and none of it will be anything more than what it needs to be.
I already knew this before today. I committed to it before today.
The only thing that has changed is the name.
It doesn't matter who I marry, Dáire or Quinn, because it was never about me.