Chapter-29🌜My mark.
Zane's POV
I don't look back at him. I can't right now. I just can't understand why I can't.
Why is it even bothering me, when I knew he doesn't like me much. When I knew this was just business. I am not new to business contracts, nor arranged marriages.
Marriages done for mutual profit are quite common in my family. Like my parents'. It was done as an alliance between two mafia families-Visconti and Belladonna.
One night our former Don and my grandmother were brutally murdered, and the very next morning, power came into my dad's hands. From Alessandro the heir to the nineteen year old, untouchable Don.
No one knows till this date who shot him that night. But as a result, our family clearly suffered. I have already been taught that a sudden shift in power is never accepted that easily in our society. There's always a price.
The consequences were ferocious.
Belladonnas started struggling financially and lost all the control they had over Sicily. Our funds were evaporating and so was the Belladonna name from the underworld.
Welcome my maternal grandfather, Silas Visconti. Highly respected in our world and the biggest name in Sicily of that time. My nonno and him were childhood friends, both heirs to ruthless families. So when he found out, his closest friend died and now his family is struggling-he offered some help.
But at the price of a wedding with her daughter. My father, of course accepted him and after twenty six years-here we are.
Now he is doing the deal with his own son. The deal in question is in between two men though, the first in my entire bloodline to see that.
I don't even realise that the rings have already been produced and he had started blessing them, "Heavenly Father, bless these rings, that they who wear them may abide in your peace and remain faithful to the covenant they have made this day".
I do believe in God as any catholic christian would. But I don't know if this one wish will ever be true. "Zane, place this ring on William's finger."
My eyes drift back to my groom, and then the officiant's voice is a distant hum, a formality that doesn't matter.
I bring my hand forward to take his in mine. This time to my surprise, he brings his own forward without even asking. And then all that matters is the hand I'm holding.
I take the ring from the cushion-a heavy, architectural band of eighteen-karat yellow gold. It's warm, glowing against the golden undertones of his skin as I bring his hand up.
He's looking at me, but he's not seeing me. His eyes are blown wide, his pulse thrumming like a trapped bird against my thumb.
"In my family," I say, my voice dropping to a low, intimate rasp, "we don't just give a band of gold. We give a piece of ourselves." Just audible to him, and no one else.
I slide the ring slowly over his knuckle. The Royal Blue Sapphire at the center is a deep, oceanic abyss, held in place by matte black rhodium claws that look like talons gripping the light. Against his skin, the blue is electric-vivid and cold.
"It's my birthstone," I whisper, leaning closer until I can feel the frantic heat radiating off him. "My life, placed on your finger. It means I am yours to command, and you are mine to protect. Per la vita, per la morte."
The gold settles at the base of his finger, a perfect, weighted fit. This ring is similar but entirely different to the one on my hand.
To me, it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen-my mark on him.
Earlier today, he left his mark on me too. The five half creasants that he has embedded in my skin. The ones that I want to stay there forever, because it's his first gift to me.
It might be out of hatred but let's be optimistic, shall we?
But then I feel it.
The moment the sapphire catches the light, he doesn't just flinch; he stops breathing entirely. His skin goes from warm gold to a sickly, ashen grey. His gaze is locked on the stone, fixed on that specific, shifting shade of midnight blue.
He isn't looking at a gift. It's as if he's looking at something that has haunted him forever. Something that destroyed him.
Something that I want to remove the existing of, just to wipe that look from his face.
He doesn't pull away-he can't-but his hand goes cold in mine, as if the sapphire is draining the very life out of him. He looks up at me, and I see it. It isn't the nerves of a groom. It's the pure, paralyzed terror of a man who realizes he just married the devil.
And what leaves me shunned is that I don't even know what made me that devil in his eyes.
The officiant turns to him to ask him to put his ring on my hand now. But he's still staring at the sapphire on his hand. And all I can do is try to read him.
I can tell he's hanging by a thread. I don't know what's haunting him, but I hate seeing that look of shattered glass in his eyes. I want to be the one to fix it, even if we were forced into this cage together.
I offer him my hand, keeping my expression smooth. He finally looks at it and reaches for the second box with a jerkiness that betrays his composure. Inside is the Blood-Ruby, the ring that has sat on the hand of every first-born son in my family on their wedding day.
He lifts the gold. It's a massive thing, the deep red ruby at the center pulsing like a heartbeat against the yellow gold. He doesn't just put it on me-he grips my hand with a strength that borders on painful. As if he's trying to punish me for a sin, but not completely.
I watch his eyes. They aren't on the ruby.
They are fixed on my other ring-the one with a Royal Blue Sapphire.
He's staring at it with such intensity I wonder if he's trying to set it on fire with his mind.
He's trembling, his breath hitching in a way that feels less like nerves and more like a panic attack.
I want to ask him what's wrong. I want to tell him that I don't want this either, but I will try to make it bearable.
"To life," I murmur, trying to find a shred of the 'nice' man my mother raised me to be.
Because in this situation, I really don't know what he wants me to be.
He slides the ruby on my finger. The red stone sits on it like a brilliant, bloody contrast to the blue right next to it.
A melancholic bead falls from his eye. Just a single one. But he doesn't wipe it, and just leans in, his voice a cold, jagged whisper.
"To death, more like it."
He pulls away before the echo of his words can even fade. He thinks he's just made a vow of hatred. He doesn't realize that in my family, putting that ruby on my hand means he's the only person in the world I'm now forbidden from killing.
So at least from my side, it's not 'to death' as he says. It never will be.
I feel a pair of eyes that always make every instinct in me to buzz against my skin. Always set me up on alert. Alessandro.
My father is in the front row. The expressions on his aren't filled with parental pride-but with the grim satisfaction of getting what he wanted.
Then there's my mom beside him, she has a tissue under her eyes, and she's wiping the tears from her face. She does have that pride, the comfort and the love any groom's mother would have. She's looking at it, as if it wasn't a business deal, but my actual wedding.
I can't help but bring my index finger to my cheeks as if pretending to wipe my tears. A gesture only she can understand. The one that I used to do every time she cries, when I was a child. The one that always brought a smile to her face and made her forget my dad, just for a while.
She gives me a subtle nod, and then as if even her eyes smile. And that's enough to put a balm on my heart and give me enough strength to face the world. To face my groom.
Though before I can do that, I feel another pair of eyes. Vance.
My twin. My second biggest hater, for God knows what reasons.
He is smiling too, but his eyes are giving him out, because they are blood red with venom. He is looking at me, as if he has already planned my downfall and he will make it happen himself.
I shake my head and look away.
'See, everyone is still the same.' This won't change much.
The Officiant gestures for us to raise our hands back, and we do.
This time after joining ours, he places his too.
"Forasmuch as Zane and William have consented together in holy wedlock, and have witnessed the same before God and this company.
.. by the authority committed unto me, I pronounce that they are husband and husband. "
Husband and husband...
I am married now. I have a husband. One I always wanted. One I dreamed of having one day, as a kid. But then buried my wish alive in my heart, because I knew there's no place for it in our world.
And now when I finally have one-it's him. The same guy who is looking like he has been physically punched to his gut with just that one phrasing.
"You may now kiss."
A/N??
Oh my god...
Maaaaa babies are finally married now. This was a long fucking journey... And there's more to come!
Thank you to everyone who was part of this journey, I hope TSG keeps entertaining you further!
Your love and comments are the world to me. Would love to hear some of your POVs too.
Let's not get too emotional (hi, Biance ??) —
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