The Runaway Bride (The Novella Collection #3)

Prologue

Nico

As I stand with my hands clasped behind my back, I glance down into the ravine and observe the vehicle that my so-called betrothed was driving.

The moment it had crashed, the car must have burst into flames.

If she had been lucky, she would have died before that took place.

Turning to look at Bruno, I give a nod for him to order the cleanup and coverup of this mess.

Varina's father will have to answer the questions of how she got away, and who helped her, because someone had to have done so.

She was not a forward-thinking woman, she was timid and rather pathetic if truth be told.

“I’ll sort it, Boss,”

Bruno turns and throws orders to the soldiers that are waiting quietly in the background.

Tiny, as I call him, who is another of my men, is only five foot eight to my six foot two, has his back to me but watching every movement for danger.

He is my personal bodyguard, and that is something I don’t feel I need, but I have to have one, regardless.

For now, I’m going to be happy to continue turning the businesses around.

Bringing us all into the modern century, instead of holding onto the old ways which are strangling everyone with the legalities, authorities and families.

I’ve seen since I was a child that men wanted to love and honor their wives, do right by their children, yet they’ve had to give them up to the family in one way or another.

That is stopping with me.

I can make changes, and big changes, but the thing I will not alter is their allegiance to the famiglia and the arranged marriages.

It would be nice to stop the marriages, but it is one of the ways we can bring families together and keep harmony across the mafia world.

Over the last three generations of leaders in the United States, the old ways of the mafia have gradually been thrown away.

We are not Italian full-bloods anymore, and we don’t see ourselves that way either.

We are Americans, and most of us have no family left in Italy.

Most are with us in the United States at this point in time.

Parents are mainly gone, grandparents too.

Bruno, my trusted childhood friend, has no family except for me.

We grew up together, learning the ways, eating, fighting and fucking our way through our teen years, and most of our twenties.

We may not be blood, but we are brothers nonetheless, and I trust him above all others.

Thinking back to the first meeting I held as Don, I shocked and surprised most of the fold with my direct order to stop teaching the old ways.

We were wiping the slate clean and although we are the mafia and will always have one foot on the wrong side of the law, I will keep us as clean as we can be.

Traveling back to the manor, I consider how all this has happened, how a young woman has gotten away to end as she has.

Varina was a beautiful woman, but she was timid as a mouse, and it’s that very thing that has me thinking there is more to her accident and death than we know at this point in time.

Not turning up at the church, and disappearing when she was supposedly getting ready, her mother leaving her for a while to compose herself before wearing the white gown that she had chosen herself.

She was at the point of joining two families, but now the deal will not continue and I will watch her parents closely from now on.

Something is definitely off with them, but as yet I have nothing to be able to drag them into the basement for.

Six months later we have disposed of the maid who assisted Varina’s escape.

She met the same fate as Varina, as it was easy to run her off the road after she thought she’d escaped.

Death by accident on a dark, wet night was the verdict, and one that covered our involvement.

Time will show what is happening and who is involved with Varina’s accident.

Now I have to find another arranged marriage deal, but with a betrothed that will not be a doormat.

I don’t want or need another Varina; I need a wife who has some fire in her veins.