6. Lucie
SIX
lucie
Honestly, I’m not sure who I want to kill first. Viv, Dad, or Mom, who’s fussing around the wedding dress like she’s a hive of angry freaking bees.
I flop on the sofa in the bridal store she took me to.
One day? One day?
Whoever this fat, old Irish-Italian man is, he’s pathetic.
I think I might want to kill him, too.
Dad went on and on about his connections to an Italian family that only has power because of its past reputation, but I tuned it all out.
“Lucia, pay attention.”
I lift an eyebrow at Mom.
“Whatever. I don’t care.”
“Look, Lucie, your sister took off. And she’s not responding to our messages or calls. The people we’ve sent to find her have come up empty. She doesn’t want to be found. She’s gone .” Anger flares.
Now I’m interested. Mom’s never angry.
Nothing shifts her facade of serenity.
“And your father needs you to play ball. It’s important to us and it should be to you. So pick a dress.”
“I don’t want to get married. I was promised that. As long as I behaved, I was promised no arranged anything. So was Viviana.”
Mom presses her lips together and stalks off with a champagne glass in one hand as she savagely paws through the gowns.
I get it, she isn’t into off-the-rack buying, even in an exclusive Manhattan place like this.
We’re on Fifth Avenue, and all these dresses cost more than a car.
Frilly and expensive as heck.
“Your sister’s the firstborn. She gets a lot more privileges than you, precisely because we knew it could come to this. One day.”
Viv got to go to college, a very private, very expensive one.
I didn’t. And I thought as long as I stayed in my lane, kept my rule breaking to a minimum—easy enough because my parents only cared if we ever did something to bring them shame—I’d get out of my home as soon as the candles were out on my twenty-fifth birthday cake.
And Viviana… she was so damn close, she mostly forgot about her being the prize for a man if Dad deemed it so.
Next year, she could have just said no.
Although if she did, I’d be in this exact position.
“I know, Mom. But I’m the one who’s supposed to be able to get out.”
“In four years? Maybe. If Viviana had married Marcello Buttani like everyone thought.”
Her big boyfriend.
Son of a crime lord.
The two families would have ruled New York, crushed competition, and taken other territories.
But they fought, she dumped him, and broke her own heart when he married the daughter of a richer but less powerful family.
Oh, the drama .
Then again, at least she wasn’t out being fingered by strangers after almost being shot.
“This one,” Mom says, holding out a gown.
“Try it on.”
I take the dress, and the assistant helps me into it.
The thing’s silk and lace with a big, ridiculous skirt.
It’s the kind of fairy-tale dress I hate, but like I said, what the hell ever.
When I stomp out of the dressing room, Mom has that softened, Valium-tinged look.
Either that or too much champagne, possibly both.
She’s impossibly old school with her coping drugs of choice.
But still she smiles.
“That’ll do. I already picked out your engagement dress. It’s a masked dance, apparently.”
A shiver of desire rolls through me.
When Frank’s fingers drove me into the most mind-bending oblivion I’d ever known, I was wearing a mask.
When he thrust his?—
I stop to breathe and as the shop girl boxes the dress, Mom celebrates with more champagne.
After that, we go shopping for more things.
I’m not a big shopper.
But Mom loves it and wants me to have everything I need to make me as happy and agreeable as possible.
She buys me shoes, handbags, some other dresses for my new life, and then comes the last straw.
Lingerie.
“Mother,” I spit out, “I have underwear.”
“You’re getting married. You need wedding night clothes for when he…” She swallows.
“Trust me, pretty and sexy helps. And I’ll leave you some Valium.”
“Mom, I know what sex is.”
Her eyes bug out.
“Sex ed at school, Mother.”
But I let her buy it, and when our driver Mikey picks us up after the lunch I wasn’t able to eat because of the knot in my stomach, I’m more than ready for the long ride home.
“Miss?” Enzo, one of Dad’s capos, says to me once we get home.
“This way.”
I’m led into the sitting room, which is somehow worse than Dad’s office.
“Sit down, Lucie,” Dad says, waving his hand at the empty sofa across from him.
For a moment, I hesitate, but then I sink into the sofa.
“You’re aware that you’re picking up your traitorous sister’s slack. But understand that I need this.”
“For how long?”
“Pardon?”
“For how long do I have to be part of this sham marriage?” I ask.
“There is no ‘early out’ in the contract terms.”
I grit my teeth.
I figured that, but…
damn. I close my eyes for a quick moment and breathe in.
The door to his study is open, the sitting room adjacent to it.
I take in a deep breath and I swear I can smell Frank’s masculine scent, the leather, the cigarettes.
My body tingles in response.
A shiver flutters over my skin when my mind trips back to his mouth on mine, his pierced tongue moving to my nipples, then down low so I felt it when he?—
“Lucia!”
My cheeks flame, and I turn into a fireball of embarrassment.
“Dad?”
“Did you hear me? It’s real, and we need the bloodied sheets to show it’s a legitimate wedding. There won’t be a church ceremony, and we need to show the other bosses you’re a virgin.”
He stares at me like he expects me to defy him, but all I do is nod.
“Barbarism and one whole leap back for equality and rights. Got it.”
“This is family business, not fucking women’s lib.”
I love him, but sometimes I don’t think I like my father at all.
There’s an air of desperation in his tone and I can relate, so I push myself to try for better terms. “Two years, Dad. That’s all I can give.”
He doesn’t say anything and then nods, shoulders slumping.
“So I’ll do it. Help the family, help you, and then I walk away in two years.”
“Whatever you think is best. Now go and prepare yourself because you’re going to marry very soon.” He pauses, then clears his throat.
“While we’ll start with the engagement party as planned, we will surprise the guests with the wedding at the end. His decision.”
“Are you serious?” I gasp.
“So soon? I haven’t even met the guy and I’m supposed to just marry him?”
“Yes. So prepare yourself however you need to,” Dad says gruffly before turning away from me.
As I leave the room, my heart clenches as tight as my gut.
I’m totally screwed.
Sold off in a business transaction that will effectively end my life because Dad didn’t confirm the out I desperately want.
I have no guarantee that I’ll be allowed to leave this pig of a man in two years.
But Dad can’t make me stay, right?
I said two years. He’ll have to negotiate that with the man he’s forcing me to marry.
After the wedding, I’ll decide the best course, and if this new, fat, and old husband from a family I don’t know…
a name Dad hasn’t even told me…
if he refuses, then I have two years to plan my disappearance .
I go to my room and collapse on my bed, tears stinging my eyes.
And until that time, I’ll just dream about what I want my life to be and who I want it with.
My masked stranger.
My chest tightens as I smooth down the satin of the engagement dress with shaking fingers.
I tossed and turned all night, and this morning, the fate of everything now out of reach, I finally admit the thing I’ve always denied.
I’m nothing but a commodity.
Maybe I had a slimmer-than-slim chance to get out if Viv married this man or had done so with Marcello.
But even so, I’m worth something to Dad.
I’m currency in his mafia bank, to roll out and marry if he chooses.
Which he freaking has and now the door’s slammed shut.
There’s no two-year term.
There’s nothing for me.
“On the bright-ish side,” I mutter as I fix the burnished gold mask that matches my dress, “maybe he’s so old he’ll keel over by the end of the night.”
Someone raps on my door and before I can speak, my father bursts in.
I think this is his first time in here, though he makes it seem like a regular occurrence.
I swallow down the anger and dislike, focusing on the fact that I love him.
“Lucia, I need you to behave. This man, Callahan, he’s not what you’re used to.”
Does he even know what I’m used to?
But I don’t speak. I just tap my toe on the floor and wait.
Dad moves around my room, picks up an old bear, and curls his lip, tossing it to the ground.
“You’ll need to get this childish shit out of here. He’ll be up here for your wedding night. It’s tradition since you still live with us, and we’ll need proof of the consummation.” He looks around the space.
“A man doesn’t want to be turned off by this stuff.”
I almost point out there are a lot of sick men who are turned on by it.
But I don’t even want to have that image in my head.
“I will, Dad.”
“And obey him. He made that clear.” Dad straightens his tie, his mask sitting on top of his head like he doesn’t really know what to do with it, or if he should wear it at all.
“Whose idea was it to wear masks?” I ask.
“Callahan’s. Not mine,” he snaps.
Masks, apparently, are in.
Everyone always trying to hide who they really are, what their true intentions may be.
Like a mask can act as some kind of self-protection.
I mean, what the hell?
What is my asshole of an arranged soon-to-be husband trying to cover up by making everyone wear freaking masks?
I try and reel in my snark so it doesn’t come out when it shouldn’t.
Like now. Or when I meet the old dude I’m marrying.
“Callahan?” I repeat.
“Callahan Murphy. He doesn’t use the Amalfitano name. Maybe he does on some deals… I don’t know. But my point is, don’t piss him off, Lucie. Don’t upset him. He’s brutal, dangerous, and he doesn’t play by the rules. I don’t know how he treats women; he might beat them if they disobey, so behave.”
I blink rapidly, my heart clenching painfully.
“You’re selling me off to a wife-beater. Thanks so much, Dad.”
Dad ignores my caustic words.
“A powerful man, a ruthless one. Not once since I met him has he played the game, but he has respect, connections, and more importantly, things I want. A lot of things. So behave. Be good. A good wife, capisce ?”
“Yes, understood. ”
He leaves, and I think about climbing out my window, but I’m three stories up.
I’m stuck, like it or not.
So I square my shoulders like I’m walking to my eternal doom and head down to the great room where we’re holding my engagement party-slash-surprise wedding to a fucking vicious brute.
The music reaches me, followed by the murmur of voices.
I peer inside but can’t bring myself to walk through the doors, so I take a left and head into the library.
I can at least steal a drink to numb the shit plaguing me.
How much booze is enough to go through with this kind of sham?
I glance at the bottles on the bar.
Shit. No Jack Daniel’s.
I don’t even care that much for it, but it’s familiar.
Instead, I swipe a bottle of scotch and pour it into a glass.
There are small glass bottles of Coke.
I use the opener and I’m about to top it up when I realize I’m not alone.
“At least it’s scotch this time. But that’s two fifty a bottle, so probably best not to poison it with Coke.”
I know that voice, and my entire body revs and purrs, my pussy starting to ache and tingle with memory as I pour it into my glass.
Only then do I turn.
“Told you I’d find you. And here we are, in masks again. I figured you’d like that touch of reliving our first night together,” Frank says, his gaze dark and intense as it skims over the length of my body.
“Did you want to come closer so I can feel that sweet, tight cunt again?”
The vulgar words make me quiver.
He’s leaning against the door, tall and lean in a black suit that’s probably beyond expensive.
I know Dad favors Armani or BOSS.
This… it looks made to fit.
Custom. He renders me brain-dead, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth as my body pleads with me to let him do exactly what he just asked.
“You should go,” I say.
“You have no idea who my father is.”
“Fuck. ”
It’s soft.
He straightens up and slowly approaches.
“I don’t?—”
“That was an expletive,” Frank murmurs, “Joy-not-Joy. Learn the difference. It could be important.”
He takes my drink, sips it, and his fine nose wrinkles.
I look up at him as he puts the drink down.
“You smell fucking good. Almost as good as your tight little pussy tastes. Fuck, I’d love to spread you open and feast on you right here.”
My jaw drops.
No one in their life has ever spoken to me like this, and now I’m fever hot.
He trails a finger along my lips, rubbing some of my lipstick off.
“That’s better, little vixen.” He comes in closer, mouth hovering so close to mine, his breath warm.
The scent of him—cigarettes and sin, leather, honey, and smoke—makes my pulse rocket out of control.
“Now you look kissed. That, or like you just gave a blow job.”
His eyes are a wicked blue, indigo, so deep I could easily lose myself in them and never want to find my way out.
Then my stomach hollows out, lust rushing in.
What is wrong with me?
How does a crude man I don’t even know do this to me?
On the night I’m getting married, no less.
And how did he ever find me?
He pulls me close and kisses me, parting my lips with his pierced tongue, taking my mouth slow and deep, and God help me, I kiss him back, running my tongue over the stud in his.
My toes curl in my pointy shoes.
Horror hits hard and I stumble back, out of his strong arms. “You have to go. I’m getting married.”
For a moment, his enigmatic demeanor slips, but then it’s back.
And so feral.
“Are you?” he asks lightly .
I nod. “And he’s a brute—ruthless, old, powerful, and cruel.”
“What is it they say?” He takes my hand, accent slipping into a lilt that’s dangerously erotic and it’s— “Four out of five ain’t bad.”
“Oh my God,” I gasp, recognition slamming me in the chest like a cement block.
“You must be Lucia. I’m Callahan Murphy. Your husband-to-be. But calling me God will do.”