Chapter Six
Aria Bianchi
When Enzo returned, he was the same cold man I had seen in photographs and heard about in rumors my entire life. For just a moment, the conversation with Enzo had seemed almost normal. It made me feel like I was marrying an ordinary man.
But Enzo was not normal. He was a monster, and I would be a fool to forget that.
This detached silence between us became almost comfortable. Detachment was better than the alternative and preferable to all the questions he had been asking.
The word “consummation” had been used no less than two dozen times this evening, and as we sat in a conversation with another family friend who couldn’t help but bring up the chance for heirs, I felt a bead of sweat creep down the back of my neck.
“It will be so wonderful having more heirs to take over for Giovanni—so much less of a risk,” she said. “I hope you’re ready for a big family, Aria. We need it.”
She said it with a light-hearted nature the way someone would comment on the weather or my wardrobe choices.
Enzo nodded and wrapped an arm quickly around my waist. My logical side wanted to push him away, but the warmth his embrace offered—the comfort—had me sinking deeper into his grip. It made no sense. I shouldn’t have felt comforted by the same man who would soon take a part of me I wasn’t ready to offer.
But the weight of his arm still had that effect.
It still calmed my rising nerves.
“Are you ready, Aria?”
“For what?”
She laughed as if I was making a hysterical joke. “The consummation!” she squealed. “You have to be excited for your first time.”
I glanced around, wishing Livia or Evelina could be here with me.
But Dad had sent them home hours ago when the drinking had started. He said it was for their safety, but I knew the truth.
He didn’t want me to get any ideas.
He didn’t want me to tell them the truth and try to convince them to leave when I got cold feet.
“Speaking of the first time,” a man said, coming beside Enzo and patting him on the shoulder. “Your car is here to bring you both to the hotel.”
If my heart wasn’t already pounding in my chest, it certainly was now. It thumped so hard that I could hear my blood flowing through my ears. I tried to keep my limbs from trembling as the guests began moving out of the way and clearing a path for our exit.
No, this couldn’t be happening. Not already.
When I left this venue, I would be completely at the mercy of my new husband.
I would be living with a monster, and there would be nobody to save me from his corruption and cruelty.
Would he skin me alive next?
The voices of everyone surrounding me couldn’t break through the potent thoughts that ran through my mind. Was sacrificing myself worth this? I would give this man my body, soul, and every ounce of my spirit. I would have no choice if I wanted to get in and learn what I needed.
My feet moved on their own, reminding me of the dream I had most nights—the dream of my father’s betrayal. Like in that dream, I felt like I couldn’t control my legs or how I moved forward.
And when I finally managed to lift my gaze, I found him standing in our path.
Dad.
I couldn’t contain the shaking this time. It felt like an out-of-body experience, and I knew it was real this time. While I knew my dreams were renditions of the past, this was the opposite. There was no hope of pulling myself out of this reality.
The smile on Dad’s face was just as sinister as the look he had given me the night he had caught me before I could get away.
His look told me he had already won.
“Take care of her, Enzo,” Dad said, shaking Enzo’s hand.
He never once bothered shifting his gaze from me, and it pierced straight through my soul. He took a step forward with an open arm, and I instinctively stepped away. One step was all it took for his gaze to turn hard and brutal.
Oh God. He would take it out on Livia or Evelina if I didn't hug him. I knew he would.
I had to hold up appearances.
He stepped forward once more, and I opened my shaking arms for him.
But he didn’t make it that far.
Enzo stepped between us. “Does my wife look like she wants to hug you, Alonzo?”
His voice had been cold since our discussion this evening. It had been hard and uncaring. But this was more than that. This was the voice of the mafia underboss that everyone feared. There was a promise of death and pain beneath that tone.
He had never spoken to me like that, even after our discussion.
Dad stared at me as he stated the obvious, “She is my daughter .”
“And you gave her to me,” Enzo said, reaching behind him and grazing his fingers down my arm. It sent chills through my body, calming a bit of the shaking.
This wasn’t like the dream. Not anymore. Enzo was here this time, and even though I knew I shouldn’t count on this monster to protect me, he was standing between me and my father. He was asserting himself as my husband to keep him away from me.
I could get used to this.
But I would be stupid not to realize what was really at stake here. My father would never take it out on me. Not here.
“It’s okay, Enzo,” I whispered, stepping around him and offering my father the sincerest hug I could. Enzo allowed it, but he didn’t back up even a step.
Enzo stayed within easy reach as my father whispered in my ear, soft enough that nobody but me could hear the single word he spoke.
“Evelina.”
I understood the threat for what it was. Evelina would be the one to suffer if I messed up.
I wouldn’t.
I couldn’t .
I backed away and forced a smile as my father stepped out of my path, and Enzo guided me the rest of the way to a sleek white limousine. I hardly took in all the features on the inside and outside as we slid into the vehicle and took seats on opposite sides.
Enzo said nothing the entire drive.
I watched him as we approached a luxury hotel and pulled to a stop outside the doors. A man grabbed a pink bag from the trunk and placed it on a luggage trolly alongside a sleek black suitcase with Enzo’s name engraved on the front.
I hadn’t packed the bag for myself, and I didn’t want to think about what had been packed.
Enzo stepped out of the car and offered me a hand, and I took it without a thought.
Every motion was a blur, every step a great effort.
Before I knew it, we were walking into the luxurious penthouse suite together, and the attendant was turning and leaving the room.
For the first time, I was alone in a room with Enzo Rissi.
My husband.
I didn’t know what to expect, but he didn’t even look my way before entering the bathroom and leaving me alone in our room behind a closed door.
I took a moment to examine the room.
The burnt orange of the closed curtains matched the rug’s swirling designs. The small sitting room had other burnt orange accents, but the bed was white. The pillows looked heavenly, and under different circumstances, I may have sunken into them and allowed myself to sleep through the night.
Instead, I was going to have sex with Enzo Rissi.
How did anyone know if they were ready to lose their virginity? It had been something that wasn’t worth risking. I had never even had a serious boyfriend. It was another aspect of my life that my father controlled.
Did I have anything in my life that wasn’t controlled by him?
I brushed off that thought as the handle to the bathroom door clicked.
Enzo only spent a few moments alone in the bathroom, and when he came out, steam billowed behind him like a trail of ghosts that undoubtedly haunted him. My eyes locked on the muscled chest beneath a fine dusting of hair. Long designs of tattoos stretched across his chest and down his arms. A patchwork of different phrases and images with no clear similarities. It looked like he constantly went to the tattoo parlor without a larger image in mind. His mind appeared to jump from one idea to the next before ever considering weaving them together.
And below the patchwork of art and sculpted muscle… a towel.
Only a towel.
It felt different standing before Enzo Rissi in a towel rather than his staple suit or dress shirt.
He approached with the same hard look in his eyes. Business. Nothing more, nothing less. He didn’t offer even an ounce of compassion as he walked closer.
“Turn,” he said.
I stared at him, almost not fully comprehending what he said.
“Turn around, Aria. You still have your dress on.”
I didn’t allow my mind to linger on what he was about to do. What we were about to do. I mindlessly turned around. A gentle caress of breath misted the back of my neck, and goosebumps arose down my spine and upper arms.
I felt his fingers gently start to unbutton the row of tiny buttons, and I felt like I could finally take a deep breath.
“There,” he said as he moved in closer and wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me against his warm, still-damp chest. The masculine scent of his expensive soap cocooned me in a nest of lust that softened the realization of what was to come.
Still, I stiffened as he moved his lips to the side of my neck, a scorching sensation rising at the same time. My body reacted involuntarily, and the breath that left my lips came from a place that was more terrifying than the feeling itself. The heat that swelled in my belly as his strong hands gripped my hips was undeniable.
I closed my eyes, imagining myself somewhere else. If I let my body react, it might get me through this.
I had to get through this.
His lips moved down my neck, and I involuntarily tensed my body in anticipation for more.
His body moved away quickly, my eyes popped open and I turned around to face him with my head down, waiting for whatever was coming next. When nothing did, I lifted my head and found him standing a few inches away, watching me closely.
“Why did you stop?” I asked breathlessly.
His lips parted as he licked his bottom one and ran a hand through the damp hair that still dripped tiny specs of water down his back.
“I don’t fuck women who aren’t interested in it, Aria. Not even my wife.”
“I… I—”
“You’re terrified of me. I feel it in the way you tense your body around me. You closed your eyes when I kissed you. You don’t want this.”
“Do you?” I shot back.
He laughed. “Believe it or not, I’m not appalled at the thought of being intimate with a beautiful woman. It’s just sex.”
Something in my chest softened at his words. “We’re supposed to be consummating the marriage, so I thought…”
I allowed my words to trail off into a thick silence between us.
“You thought I’d force you to have sex with me?” His jaw ticked as if the words both disgusted and frustrated him. “You thought I was that much of a monster?”
“Yes.”
The lack of hesitation in my tone seemed to take him aback. He gazed down at me for a long moment without saying a word. How could he not know what I thought about him? He was a monster. Death and carnage followed him everywhere, and nobody could trust him because of it. He had done things that would make an ordinary person vomit.
The silence only thickened the longer we stood together, and I found myself speaking again.
“I didn’t have a choice but to marry you. I didn’t want to marry a monster, but it was the hand I was dealt. I’m sure you didn’t have much choice in marrying me either.”
Everything about his expression became unreadable as he took another step back toward the bed. He dropped the towel, and my eyes immediately darted away from him.
Not before I saw proof that this interaction hadn’t been platonic for him.
He slid beneath the covers on one side of the bed and tucked an arm under the back of his head as he lay back on a pillow.
“I am a monster. But you are my wife. Your family treats their women with a lack of regard and respect, but we do things differently. You will never be safer with anyone else.”