6
H er wedding day came too soon.
She wasn't ready.
Standing in front of the altar in the Orthodox Church, Alessandra realized for the first time in her life just how disposable she was, for the simple reason of being born a girl.
Her father would have never allowed for things to get this far had it been Matteo in her stead.
She loved her brother fiercely, but in her current predicament, she couldn't help being envious of the privileged place he had in their father's heart.
She was becoming the wife of a man who not only abided by foreign customs and social etiquette, but also a different faith.
Of course, the Catholic Church recognized the union as long as there was a dispensation provided, and with the intervention of her father, that dispensation was received two days before the wedding.
Had her grandfather been alive, he would have died all over again from a broken heart.
The priest went on with the ceremony, but she blocked him out, lost to her own thoughts.
Beside her, Roman stood with his hands clasped in front of him, blue eyes set on a point above the altar doors.
He looked just as ready as she was for this entire charade to be over with, and she realized with an odd sense of comfort that their feelings on the marriage were mutual.
He wasn't any happier to be there than she was.
Hope kindled in her chest—timid and frail like a snowdrop trying to emerge from the cold earth.
Maybe she would find an ally in this unlikely pairing that had been forced upon them.
Gabriella had cried that morning—big, fat tears that spoke of hopelessness and fear for what was to come.
Alessandra had no more tears left. With a stiff spine, she had accepted both her mother’s desperate hugs and Carmen’s insincere well-wishes as they helped her get ready for her big day.
And now, hours later, she felt just as apathetic.
She hadn’t seen Luca around, and she didn’t think he was going to show up at all today.
Not that it mattered. Luca had stopped being the center of her small universe the day he’d betrayed her trust. Another man demanded her attention now, and he was standing right beside her—a silent but commanding companion in a story that was just being written.
Almost an hour later, dazed by the foreign customs of wearing a crown during the second part of the ceremony and having to walk around the Holy Table, Alessandra's gaze searched for her husband's. The priest said something that sounded final but which she didn’t catch because she was still too distracted by her thoughts.
But then Roman angled his body toward her, and before she realized what was going on, he leaned down and sealed their union with a soft kiss.
Alessandra inhaled sharply, her hands going up against his chest. Instinct told her to push him away, but when he grabbed her waist to gently pull her closer, she forgot all about it. His lips were warm and gentle as they pressed against hers, and all too soon, they were gone.
He let go of her, and she struggled to remember how to breathe.
She’d been kissed before—of course, she had.
But as she stared up at her new husband—that icy gaze of his set on her face—she fought the urge to trace her lips with her fingers.
Around them, some guests clapped unenthusiastically, and Alessandra had to force her eyes away.
A moment later, Roman’s hand found hers, and she let him pull her down the aisle and toward the exit.
???
The wedding venue was brimming with unfamiliar faces—grim, sullen expressions that spoke of the guests' feelings on Alessandra’s nuptials with Roman.
She spotted her parents, sitting at the same table as Vitaly Leskov and his much younger wife.
Her father had his head slightly bent and was listening to whatever Vitaly was telling him, while her mother was smiling tightly at something the other woman said.
A business transaction.
This was all her marriage represented—a way to settle an old dispute and also profit from it.
Alessandra didn't know a whole lot about how the mafia worked, but she did know that what was happening right now was unprecedented. There had never been a merger like this between two worlds so different. It was no wonder both sides were feeling less than happy about it.
Roman had left their table about ten minutes ago, and as her eyes scanned the crowd, she found him at the open bar, deep in conversation with another man. He looked relaxed as he nursed a tumbler of whiskey, and Alessandra had to wonder if it wasn't just a front.
“Hi.”
Startled by the voice, she looked up to see that someone had decided to join her in her husband’s absence. A young woman with dark hair coifed into a stylish bun and blue-gray eyes smoked to perfection smiled at her, and at a first glance, she didn't look much older than Alessandra.
“I'm Tatyana,” the woman said, taking Roman's empty seat and holding out a delicate hand. “The groom's sister.”
Alessandra grabbed her hand lightly, unable to hide the surprise on her face. She hadn’t yet met Roman’s siblings because no one had bothered to actually arrange it. All she knew at this point was that he was the eldest and he had a sister and a brother.
“Hello.” Alessandra found her voice, quickly recovering from the surprise of being approached.
“We haven't had the chance to officially meet, so I thought I'd introduce myself. I love the dress.”
“Thank you,” she said with a small smile. She hadn't put that much effort into picking out a dress, but it was pretty enough people wouldn't be able to tell.
“I'm sorry.” When Alessandra gave her a confused look, Tatyana explained, “That you have to do this. It sucks.”
“Oh, well.” What else could she say, really?
“Yeah,” Tatyana agreed with a single nod of her head. “But don't worry, my brother is a decent guy.”
“That's comforting,” Alessandra joked, managing to find her sense of humor despite the heavy burden of the day. Not even a minute into their conversation, and she already knew that she liked her sister-in-law.
“Well, it's the best we can hope for.”
Tatyana did have a point. As depressing as that sounded, in their world, often times the best a woman could hope for was a decent man for a husband.
Not someone to love and cherish her, but rather someone who wouldn’t use his unfair advantage bestowed upon him by their antiquated social rules.
Someone who ultimately wouldn’t abuse her.
After a moment of silence, Alessandra looked down and noticed there were no wedding rings on Tatyana’s finger.
“I hope you don't mind me asking, but are you...” She gestured to her hand. “Uh, you know.”
“Engaged or married? Not yet, though judging by my father's latest decisions, who knows what I'm in for. No offense, of course.”
“None taken.”
“That’s Alek over there.” Tatyana pointed to the man talking to Roman. “He’s the youngest.”
Alessandra looked that way, just now noticing the resemblance. Much like his older brother, Alek had an angular face, dark hair and light-colored eyes she assumed were also blue. “How old is he?”
“Twenty-two. I’m twenty-four, and I guess you already know this, Roman is twenty-eight.”
Alessandra hadn’t, in fact, known how old her husband was, but she was grateful for Tatyana’s input on filling in the gaps with information no one had deemed important enough to share.
“I’m nineteen,” she said, feeling the need to offer something in return.
Tatyana gave her a smile that looked almost sad. “I know.”
The girls chatted for a few more minutes, mostly about trivial things, until Roman's shadow fell over them.
“I see you've met my sister,” he told Alessandra.
Tatyana gave her brother a pointed look over her shoulder. “Someone had to keep her company.”
“I was only gone for a few minutes, and you're in my seat. Go find yours.”
That wasn’t exactly true, but Alessandra wasn’t about to correct him on that statement.
Tatyana rolled her eyes and gave Alessandra a smile as she stood. “Call me if you want to hang out sometime.”
After she left, Roman sat in the now empty chair. Taking a sip of his drink, he gave Alessandra a look that she couldn't decipher. His blue eyes coasted over her face before they fell on her left hand. “You like your rings?”
She followed his gaze to the pair she wore on her slim finger.
The platinum wedding band was encrusted with small diamonds, while the engagement ring was adorned by a sole three carat, oval stone.
She appreciated the way they complemented each other, and she told him that.
“I like the balance, and they look good together. Did you pick them out yourself?”
“I did.”
Alessandra smiled because she hadn't expected him to care enough to do so. “That was nice of you. Thank you.”
“You have nothing to thank me for. It's how the custom goes.”
She tried not the be put off by his flat response. “Tradition doesn't dictate that the groom has to buy a house when he gets married.”
He went to take another drink from his whiskey and paused. “How do you know about the house?”
“My father told me.”
This time, the hint of a smile touched his lips. “Couldn't have you live in my bachelor's pad. It would’ve been a dick move, even for an arranged marriage like ours.”
For a long moment, silence stretched between them, until Alessandra gathered the courage to try and satisfy her curiosity. “Why did you agree to it—this marriage?”
She had an idea why , but she thought that as the heir to his Russian legacy, maybe he had a little more of a say in the matter of choosing his own wife.
“It's business,” Roman responded in an emotionless voice, clearly wanting to end the conversation there.
In the month leading up to their wedding, she had desensitized herself enough for his words not to bother her as much as they should have.
With a nod of her head, she glanced away, her eyes landing on her brother.
He was standing in a corner of the reception hall, hands tucked into his pockets and his gaze focused on her.
She knew how much this was bothering him—could practically feel his animosity for this sham propel across the busy room and land straight into her soft heart.
Her hands were tied and so were Matteo's. What their father wanted, he got.
The thought saddened her and filled her soul with a bitterness so potent, it nearly took hold of every molecule in her body.
For the first time in nineteen years, she felt abandoned.
Undesired and discarded like an old object that had lost its value.
Tears she didn’t know she had left pooled in her eyes, and she blinked rapidly to chase them away, afraid someone might witness her misery.
She had already promised herself she wasn’t going to cry anymore.
And she wasn’t going to give up on herself either.
She had to find a way to survive—to have some semblance of a life outside the warm cocoon she’d been raised in.
There was no way to know what awaited her in the months and years to come, but she refused to accept the prospect of an unkind fate without a fight.
From what she’d been told, Russian men were dominant, possessive and prone to violence.
They drank a lot and they took mistresses.
They were difficult and pigheaded—much more so than their Italian counterparts.
Alessandra didn’t know how much of that was true, but a large part of her feared she was going to find out for herself soon enough.
To his credit, Roman had been unexpectedly civil toward her, so maybe there was some hope, after all.
She had to cling to that notion because it was all she had left.
“Can we leave after the cake is served?” she asked after some time, not looking at her husband. She sounded quiet and subdued, and she hated it.
“If that's what you want.”
She didn't have the energy to focus on Roman's slight change in tonality or the weight of his gaze on the side of her face.
All that she knew was that she couldn't wait to leave.
Even if it meant being alone with him.