Chapter 4
PRIEST
Luna Revello is silent as we drive through the city.
Just the two of us.
We’re in my armored G-Wagon, Rocco, my driver, good friend, and top bodyguard, at the wheel.
I brought the G because Tomasso Revello is one shifty son-of-a-whore.
I don’t trust him. We’ve weakened his reach, but he’s not as impotent as he pretended back there at his club.
Yeah, we have him by the balls. But I’ve seen desperate men do crazy shit.
And trying to take us out, even if it takes out his daughter too?
I wouldn’t put it past him.
He’s old-school mob. And he rose to the top by killing the boss before him, chopping off his dick, and stuffing it down his throat. The stuff of legends, Tomasso Revello. Five years ago, we wouldn’t have come at him. But five years ago was a different fucking time.
And his daughter beside me?
She’s the stuff of wet dreams. Hot and uptight. Smart and mouthy. So stubborn that she’s dangerous. She’s got backbone and pride, and her tits are to die for. Not gonna lie.
I’ve been thinking about fucking them ever since I got a view down her tee and felt her hard nipples against me earlier.
It’s not what I’m supposed to be thinking about.
Lust doesn’t belong in my fucking headspace right now.
But when I volunteered myself for matrimonial tribute as the oldest Andriani brother and the recently anointed don, I didn’t know what I was getting in my future wife.
I didn’t really think of her as a person at all, if I’m honest. She was more of an abstract idea.
A nuisance. Another duty I took on. I didn’t know she’d make my dick so hard that I could barely see straight.
But she does.
And she’s mine.
No going back on that now.
“You okay?” I ask her as Rocco glides to a stop at a traffic light.
The city is a riot of colors. Blue, red, yellow, green, white.
People at any time of day or night, crossing the streets, crowding the sidewalks.
So many cars moving. Buses, commuters, tourists, and below this concrete wilderness, the subway.
I feed on the energy of this place, always roaring, balls to the wall, never sleeping.
This city is like a regular one, only jacked up on coke, and I fucking love it.
It’s home.
“Okay?” she repeats like she doesn’t understand English.
But I know enough about her. She’s as articulate as they come. A degree in creative writing, perfect GPA under her belt. And a soon-to-be-completed MFA from one of the top programs in the country.
Yeah, my girl’s fucking intelligent, and I like that even more than I like her tits and her attitude. Smart women make my dick hard. Vapid chicks? Not for me.
“Your face,” I elaborate, still furious at her bastard of a father for daring to raise his hand to her. I’ve never wanted to kill a man more than I did in that moment. The fucking restraint I exercised. Jesus, I hadn’t known I possessed that much. But apparently, I do.
For her.
I don’t like it.
“Where he hit you,” I add, still feeling like we’re speaking two different languages. She has this glazed look in her eyes, and I don’t know if it’s shock or if this is a show she’s putting on. I’m prepared for it to be either. “How is it?”
“Oh.” She lifts a hand to her cheek, pressing it to the swollen bruise. “That.”
“Yeah, fucking that .” I’m angry now, feeling like I’m spitting nails with every word. “Don’t minimize what he did to you. He never should have touched you. If I’d known…”
I let my words trail off because they’re ugly and full of vengeance.
I’m not trying to scare her right now—I want her malleable.
For all the bravado Luna Revello shows, I know enough about her to understand she’s soft.
Softer than soft. And I’m not talking about her delicious skin, her lips and ass, her sweet curves.
No, I’m talking about the way she was raised.
She’s been coddled and protected. She’s Tomasso Revello’s fucking golden child. His only child who hasn’t left the chat of life. And that’s why she’s priceless. That’s why I have to marry her. If we want to join the families, it’s got to be with blood. It’s got to fucking stick.
“It’s fine,” she says.
But her voice is off. I heard it earlier, when it was full of sass and fire. Something has changed. And whatever it is, it’s broken her a little.
That pisses me off, even though I know I shouldn’t give a fuck. She’s the enemy. The daughter of our enemy. She’d sooner stick a blade in my back than tell me the truth. And even though she agreed to leave with me, I’m no fool. I know she’s biding her time, looking to run at the first opportunity.
Fortunately for her, I won’t let her.
“It’s not fine that he hit you.” The words leave me in a rush before I can think twice.
I know better than to show so much emotion—any emotion, in fact—but something about her makes the parts inside my machine come loose.
She leaves me feeling strangely vulnerable, and I don’t know if it’s her or the fact that she’s going to be my wife.
My other half, sharing my bed. The mother of my future demons. Fuuuuuuck. I have to flip the switch and turn off that part of my brain.
Right goddamn now .
“He does what he wants. It’s his right.” Her voice is wooden. As hollow as her eyes.
And perversely, it stokes my rage for that piece of shit, Tomasso Revello. I never liked him. He’s a coldhearted, merciless prick. Takes one to know one. But abusing his own daughter? It’s lower than low.
I clench my jaw. “Hitting you isn’t his fucking right. Don’t act like it is.”
“I’m not acting like anything.”
This situation is fucked up to the nth degree. But we’re fucked up too. The world we were born into is fucked up. And now, together, we’re doomed to do fucked-up shit.
Until we die.
We’re not dying today. Not here, not now, not yet.
“I didn’t know he was going to hurt you,” I say, my throat thick.
I’m reliving that bastard slapping her, and it’s filling me with rage I can’t afford to feel just now, which is crazy since I’m the one who held a Glock to her head earlier.
But maybe not quite as crazy when you know it wasn’t loaded.
“If I had suspected, I’d have had his hands cut off.
Fuck. I should have his hands cut off for hitting you. ”
I’m not lying. I’d have held him down and watched as my brother Lucky sawed off Revello’s ugly, worthless mitts.
I’d have laughed and spat in his face. All that, I would have done just to keep him from hurting Luna, to keep him from breaking that fragile bond between a father and his daughter.
So important. He was trying to send a message, but I’d have told him something else.
You don’t fuck with my woman and get away with it.
I shouldn’t say any of this to my future bride, of course, so I hold my tongue. I’m good at being quiet. At making the other guy talk. And usually, when he does, he spills his guts.
Okay, sometimes it’s because I’m slicing him up with a blade. In my next life, I’m gonna be a chef. I’ve got serious knife skills. These hands are works of art.
At my side, she stiffens and shrinks away from me.
But damn it, she needs to understand. This isn’t Iowa. She’s back in my world now. This isn’t some kumbaya shit in a cornfield. This is life and death, blood and violence and sex and hate and vengeance and money and power. It’s the ugly underbelly, and that’s where we live, where we thrive.
“Are you going to do it?” she asks, and I can see her hesitation.
There’s something she doesn’t want to give voice to, but I don’t have a clue what it is.
“Am I going to do what? You’ll have to spell it out for me, bella . I don’t read minds.”
“His hands,” she says, rubbing her wrists, looking pale. “Are you going to cut them off? I would ask that you please don’t.”
She’s being protective of her father, and the knowledge kills me.
He doesn’t deserve her loyalty or her love.
At the first sign of trouble, he offered her as a sacrifice—and obviously without a thought to her future plans.
When I first signed on for this shit, I was expecting a bride who would marry me for the good of the families.
To forge a truce, a bond. To build our strength, our wealth.
Instead, I’ve been given a wild woman who’s plotting all the ways she might kill me in my sleep. I know the signs. I’m no fool. This marriage bargain was sprung on her today. Without warning.
I’d expected better from Tomasso, but now, I can see that I was wrong. I’d given him far more benefit of the doubt than he deserved. Good thing I’ve got a room prepared at my penthouse for all occasions. I’m going to have to lock her in it until I figure out a plan.
“Priest,” she says, looking like death.
So serious, so pale, so still.
“Please don’t hurt him.”
My lip curls. I want to kill that motherfucker. I want to gut him like a fish. I should. And she should want me to do it—fuck, she should want to watch from a front-row seat. Doesn’t she know the shit he’s done? She has to. She’s his daughter.
“Don’t defend him,” I snap. “He’s not worthy of your concern.”
Or your anything , I add silently.
“He’s my father.”
“Your father who sold you to me,” I remind her harshly. “And you didn’t even know it, did you?”
She inhales sharply. What just went down was a complete surprise to her. No question.
I don’t like the idea of forcing an unwilling woman to marry me, but I don’t have a lot of options at this point.
We need to play nice- ish with Revello for now.
Emphasis on the ish. We need to control him, to use him and his businesses.
He’s like a bomb we just defused. If I don’t marry his daughter, the countdown is on until he detonates.
His cancer isn’t that progressed. According to my intel, he’s got a few months in him, at least.
“What do you mean, he sold me to you?” She wants to know, her voice sharp as a blade.
“I have a contract with Daddy Dearest. We keep the peace. I get you.”
“You can’t get me. I’m not some object you bought at auction to put on a shelf.”
I grin at her. “Baby, I’m not going to put you on a shelf. Trust me. I’ll put you against a wall, on a table, in the back seat of a car?—”
“You aren’t going to put me anywhere, asshole,” she snaps, interrupting.
I think about spanking her sassy ass. About my palm print, red on one of her bare cheeks. I wonder if she’d like it. I know I would. But this isn’t the time or the place.
We have the rest of our lives to figure out what works between us.
I hold her stare, meaning business. “You don’t interrupt me, sweetheart. Got that? And you don’t call me names. At least not in the presence of others.”
I jerk my chin toward Rocco.
“I’m not your sweetheart. You got that?”
I like her balls. She’s feisty, and it makes my dick rock fucking solid.
“You’re whatever I say you are,” I tell her. “Because you’re fucking mine.”
Yeah, I like the way that feels. I like knowing she belongs to me. I’ve claimed her. I’m keeping her. She’ll learn to like it. If she doesn’t…
Tough luck, as my father always used to say.
This marriage isn’t about what either of us wants.
It’s about what’s best for the Andrianis.
It’s about uniting two warring families to make us stronger, wealthier, and more powerful than we’ve ever dreamed possible.
But she doesn’t need to know any of that.
“I’m not yours,” she insists, like arguing with me is going to change anything for her. “This contract…I want to see it.”
Smart of her to ask.
I hold her gaze through the glow of street signs and lights. She’s sexy as hell when she’s angry.
I shrug. “I don’t have it with me.”
“Then when we get to wherever you’re taking me. Show me there.”
“I’m taking you home.”
Her lips part for a second before she responds. “To your home?”
“ Our home, bella .”
It feels strange to say that. Although I’ve been preparing for this essentially arranged marriage for months, it never felt real. But the thought of Luna Revello as mine, living with me in my fucking penthouse…
I’m not used to it yet.
Maybe I’ll get there.
She rubs her palms over her thighs in a nervous gesture. “I’m not living with you.”
Her jeans are filled with holes. I make a mental note to arrange a shopping trip. She’s got the sexy artist thing down, but she’s got a new role to play: Mafia wife. She needs designer clothes. She needs to be dripping in gold and diamonds.
I raise a brow. “Well, you sure as hell aren’t living with Daddy Dearest, sweetheart.”
She gives up on her jeans and tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “In Iowa.”
Mother Mary. She really doesn’t understand the way this whole marriage thing is going down, does she?
“Not anymore.” I nod to the bright lights passing by out the window. “You live here now. With me. You go where I say you go. You do what I say you do.”
Her chin goes up, and I can practically feel the defiant fire burning inside her. “And if I don’t?”
I pull my suit jacket aside so she can see the Glock strapped to my hip. “There’ll be consequences.”
She bites her lower lip but doesn’t answer me. Instead, she turns her attention to the city flying by, like she’s alone in the car.
She’s ignoring me.
I lean my head back against the supple leather, relaxing now that we’re out of Tomasso’s territory—what will soon be Andriani territory, with this marriage. And I let her give me the silent treatment. It’s the only upper hand she’s going to get.