2. Leon
2
LEON
O f course, it would be her.
Her.
Of course.
Because when has anything in my life gone entirely to plan?
“You’re marrying me off to him? ” Mia hisses to her father, but she makes no effort to prevent the rest of us from hearing.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Teo flinch. The Guild’s don has never seemed particularly thrilled by the arrangement either, but he’s somehow convinced Marco of its merits.
Enough for Marco to bring his daughter here personally—a feat I’m sure is impressive, but one I decidedly don’t care enough to ask about. I’m only here for one thing. Everything else is Teo’s mess to sort out.
But it’s Cassandra Moretti who speaks up first. “Mia, please.”
The redhead turns on the woman in anger. “You knew about this?”
“I tried to warn you! You never picked up the phone.”
“You could have come to Candelabra at any point.”
“She couldn’t.” Teo throws Cassandra a tired look. “She shouldn’t have tried to contact you at all.”
Cassandra folds her arms across her chest, a strikingly formidable creature despite the softness of her features. “She’s my best friend. I wasn’t going to let her get married without me.”
Teo sighs, gesturing to the man next to her. “Rocco, we really need to have a conversation about confidentiality.”
The heavily tattooed ex-don throws an arm around his wife’s shoulders and shoots Teo a lazy smile. “I’m retired, remember? I don’t answer to you.”
“You’re on sabbatical.”
The two continue to bicker about semantics, but my attention is quickly recaptured by the woman before me.
If it weren’t for the fact her eyes were darting around so quickly, I would have sworn she’d frozen entirely in shock.
They hadn’t told her. They’d dressed her up like that and dragged her to this hotel without so much as a heads-up. There was a part of me that would have probably felt sorry for her if I weren’t in an equally dire position.
As if sensing my gaze, Mia Chiavari finally lets her eyes rest on me again.
“Why? Why you?”
For a moment, it’s hard to look away from the open vulnerability on her face.
She is beautiful. But that much I knew already; it was an objective reality that one tended not to forget.
The clothes she wore only accentuated that fact. The shade of her dress perfectly complemented her slightly bronzed skin. Her fiery hair—cascading over her shoulders in subtle waves—drew the eye away from her generous cleavage to where it softly framed her face.
Mia Chiavari was objectively beautiful, but it was her expression that drew me in.
I liked the stubborn set of her jaw, the determination in her alarmingly bright, emerald-green eyes. I even liked the measured elevation of her brow as she assessed and reassessed her environment. She took the measure of me, like she was plotting five separate ways to kill me.
She was a fighter. And that was what set my heart to racing.
“Natali is in need of an heir, Mia—” Teo begins to answer for me, only for Mia to cut him off.
“I wasn’t fucking talking to you.”
My eyebrows raise at that. The don of the Guild doing as he was told is new. Everything about her spiritedness calls to me like a siren song.
“Honey.” This time, it’s Marco who speaks. The older man holds onto her arm more firmly. “This is the last step in securing the alliance. He will ensure your safety as long as you provide him with a child.”
Mia suddenly looks very close to vomiting. “You’re selling me to him.”
“This is not a negotiation.”
The two of them stare at each other for a moment as something wordless passes between them. Then, Mia swallows hard and takes a step back.
“What kind of choice is this?” she whispers.
I half expect her to start crying, but she simply stares at her father with a grief I’m not sure how to comprehend. Somehow, it’s so much more terrible because she isn’t crying. Everything about her declares that her heart is breaking right before my eyes, but she doesn’t shed a single tear.
Perhaps my reaction is more to do with my relationship with my own parents, but surely, this is not a normal reaction to being told such a terrible thing.
“I’m sorry,” Marco whispers back. “I love you.”
I have to look away for a moment, forcing my mind to focus on all the reasons I need to do this.
Ever since my mother died…ever since I killed my mother for threatening the life of my sister…the Prince’s Hand has been in freefall.
I have no second. I have no heir. There’s no one left to pick up the pieces if I die. And there’s a strong likelihood of that happening, considering the war with the Cartel on the horizon.
The prospect of dying has never been of particular significance to me until now.
Now, my potential death has become quite an inconvenience.
Winning this war is dependent on an alliance between the two Italian factions. An alliance I am willing to consider for the sake of my sister, who decided to endanger herself once more by marrying the don of the Guild.
Then again, I’d be willing to consider anything if it kept her and my niece safe.
They’re the only family I have left in the world.
“And you’re okay with this arrangement, are you?” Mia yells at me, emerald eyes screaming louder than her voice ever could.
The Guild needs my support, but they’re worthless without me. I’m a risk. If I die at the wrong moment, it could endanger everyone else.
They need an insurance policy—an heir to my throne—as soon as possible.
A wife was the simplest solution.
And if it meant the alliance would become viable…if it kept my sister safe…
“Yes.”
It’s the first words I’ve spoken out loud to her since that fateful day all those months ago.
I thought she was nothing more than Teo’s feral bodyguard. Entirely too sure of herself, judgmental, mindlessly loyal. Though her little party trick of toppling men three times her size was, in fairness, a useful one.
Thinking about it now, of course, it would make sense that she was Marco Chiavari’s daughter.
The oldest surviving member of the Guild was perhaps the most respected man at the negotiation table. When he made me the proposal, it had felt like something akin to an honor.
At least this I could get right. I could marry a respected woman. I could sire an heir. I could save my family.
But all my plans will fall to the wayside if Mia doesn’t make it down the aisle.
“You’re okay with marrying a total stranger, so that, what? You can knock her up at your earliest convenience? Force her to bear you an heir she doesn’t want? Own her like some kind of…dairy cow?”
Mia storms forward relentlessly, leaving her father behind.
“Yes,” I inform her. “This union will save lives.”
She comes to a stop right in front of me, long hair tipping down her back so that she can look me in the eye. “This union might kill me, not that any of you bastards give a shit about me. ”
“It is as your father said. I will keep you safe.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I can see the resentment in her gaze, all her pain bubbling to the surface of her expression.
I’m taking away her future. All her plans, her goals, her dreams, ruined by the monster who is the don of Manhattan. In her eyes, I was her greatest adversary, the enemy she would have to whore herself out to for the greater good.
Once, it might have pained me to be perceived like this.
But these days, I don’t have much time for sentimentality.
“I will not force you to marry me. You can walk out that door right now, and I will not let a single person come after you,” I tell her truthfully, ignoring the way Teo and Rocco seem to bristle at my words.
Mia swallows again, her gaze beginning to waver.
“But you know what the consequences will be if you do that.” I keep hold of her gaze. “It’s your choice.”
She manages to fight through a few more seconds of rage, before closing her eyes completely. She’s simply breathing in and out, gathering herself now.
She doesn’t open her eyes when she speaks again. “If I do this, know that I will never forgive you. I will despise you until the day I die.”
“I can live with that.”
“I will never love you, either.” Her eyes flash open. “And I will not tolerate any mistresses.”
“Nor will I tolerate any man who looks at you with anything less than respect,” I counter easily. That part, at least, is something that has always come naturally to me. I take care of my things.
She gives me a disbelieving look. “So you’re just fine with us condemning each other to celibacy?”
I take a moment to rake my eyes very purposefully over her body. The curve of her hip, the toned muscles of her arms, the expanse of her bare neck. The attraction comes naturally, too. “Not quite.”
A pretty little flush spreads across her cheeks. “Beyond what is necessary to get me pregnant,” she amends bitterly.
So, she is not completely adverse to the sight of me then. Interesting.
“I’ve made my decision, Miss Chiavari. As I’ve said, the choice is yours.”
Mia glances back at her father, who has now made it down the aisle to hover nervously at her elbow.
They share another long look that I pointedly stare away from. I notice, for the first time since Mia entered the room, the priest standing at my side, silently taking in the entire situation.
I dread to think what Teo must be paying him for this.
Mia suddenly clears her throat, drawing my attention back to her. Her chin is now stubbornly pointing in the air.
“I will marry you,” she declares solemnly, and my heart begins to race in my chest.
This is truly happening.
“I will fulfill my duty to the Guild and to my father, and that is all,” she continues before turning to look at Teo. “I assume this means I’m no longer considered a liability?”
There’s a bitterness in her tone that I don’t quite understand, but I watch as Teo nods. “Once you become a Natali, your allegiance will be to the Prince’s Hand.”
Mia chokes on a laugh. “So, I’m someone else's problem now, am I, Princeling?”
“Mia,” Cas says quietly.
“I’m so furious at all of you,” her friend snaps back.
Cassandra seems to accept this. “I know. I wish it was different. I wish we could have planned this together. You can hate me. That’s okay. All I can do is be here for you now.”
If I weren’t standing so close to her, I might not have picked up on the fact that Mia’s hands begin to shake.
She quickly balls them into fists and turns sharply to the priest. “Just get on with it.”
The last wedding I attended was my sister's. Isabella had flown me out to Vegas for what was supposed to be a week-long trip. I made it through the vows before turning right back around and heading straight home to New York.
This is somehow worse.
I couldn’t have stopped Isabella if I’d tried. She was in love, and to her, that was worth all the risk that came with it.
Whatever this sham of a marriage will turn out to be, there’s no way to sugarcoat it by blaming love. It’s a transaction, a soulless binding of souls in the presence of four entire witnesses.
Every word that comes out of the priest's mouth feels like a death sentence.
The only person in the room that might feel worse is the woman before me. Which is somehow oddly comforting.
“Leon Natali and Mia Chiavari, have you come here today to enter into this covenant of marriage freely and without reservation?” the priest asks.
I feel the corner of my mouth twitch at the sight of Mia rolling her eyes. “Oh, yes, no reservations here.”
When the priest looks at me for my confirmation, I simply nod—I don’t trust myself to speak.
He instructs me next to take her hand, which would be easier if she wasn’t still gripping her fists together. But eventually, I manage to coerce her fingers flat against my palm while desperately trying to ignore the small tremors running through them as they are pressed against my skin.
The ceremony continues with us both monotonously repeating his words verbatim. It’s Marco who supplies us with rings, simple bands that complement the color of Mia’s dress.
I barely register the coolness of the metal as Mia slips the ring on my finger. I’m more focused on the way her fingers wrap around my wrist to hold it steady, as if she doesn’t trust me not to jerk my hand away.
When it’s done, we both look away from our hands at the same time and I’m suddenly very aware of how close she is, of how soft her fingers feel in mine.
“Leon, you may now kiss your bride.”
I don’t really think when I bring her hand up to my lips. But I’m rewarded with an unguarded moment of surprise as I press a kiss across her knuckles.
“May I present to you, for the first time, Mr. and Mrs. Natali.”