2. An Impulsive Mistake
An Impulsive Mistake
Three months later…
I stared at the last one, feeling completely detached. If this marriage alliance went ahead and the Russians accepted it, there was no room for unrealistic expectations. I’d had those with M, and look where it got me.
The moment the words ‘then use me’ left my lips in that family meeting, I knew what I was signing up for. I doubted it would ever be love. I’d made my peace with that, despite what my overprotective brothers thought.
My family had only two rules they lived by: never kill innocent women or children, and never sell their women in marriage alliances to gain power or wealth.
The Buccinis married for love. But what they couldn’t understand was that offering me in an alliance didn’t break the rules.
I was marrying for love; the love of my family.
“Knew I’d find you out here. Have you seen my wife?”
I slammed my notebook shut as I glanced over my shoulder to find my closest sibling and best friend approaching. Santino scanned our immaculate lawns in search of the woman who had turned his entire world upside down.
I always knew he would one day find the woman of his dreams, the one who would make him lose the last of his sanity, not that he had much of it to begin with.
Honestly, I’d spent most of my adult life dreading it.
I’ve been his top priority ever since I was born; the centre of his world and the one he’d die for before he let anything happen to me.
We’d been each other’s person our entire lives, and even though I knew my brother was a hopeless romantic and had always been in search of ‘the one’, a selfish part of me hoped he might never find her.
But he had. Seeing him so happy and besotted, well, it wasn’t as hard to accept as I’d thought it would be.
Arianna was amazing and perfect for him.
And I knew, without doubt, my brother would get himself killed before he ever let her twisted Irish uncle anywhere near her.
He’d go to war for her. And so it was my responsibility to make sure he won that war.
“She’s upstairs, but I’m under strict instructions to distract you for an hour. She’s planning a surprise for you.”
His eyebrows shot up, and a wicked smile crept onto his face as he took a seat beside me on the back steps. He stretched his long legs and pulled his phone from his pocket, opening a timer and setting it for fifty-eight minutes. I rolled my eyes.
“I suppose that means I have fifty-eight minutes to convince you to become a nun and join a convent.”
I scoffed, shaking my head. “That will be an hour of both our lives we’ll never get back.”
“Just hear me out,” he began, opening a browser on his phone to show me a video of a Benedictine nunnery.
“You love silence, right? Look how peaceful this place is. Stone-walled gardens full of flowers, hours of uninterrupted time to write, compose music and play for the pretty birds. And not the flying rats we get in the city. Classy birds, Raya.”
“Classy birds?” I raised an eyebrow. “Why didn’t you say so?
Sign me up!” I used my most sarcastic tone, which he ignored.
This was so typical of Sani. I offer myself to a rival mafia family to save his ass, and instead of thanking me, he tries to sell me the ‘nun-life’ as if it’s an elite members-only spa retreat.
“Fucking Hoopoes! That’s a classy bird. Don’t look at me like that. You can spend your entire day reading, Raya, in silence. No one will bother you. Tell me that isn’t your idea of paradise.”
I mean… he had a point.
“I don’t think they’d let me and my dark romance vampire smut in. I’d be a disgrace.”
“Just hide your filth in a book of psalms. They’ll never know.”
I giggled, hooking my arm through his and resting my head against his shoulder.
“I’ll be okay, you know. If the Bratva agree to this, I’ll be fine. I’m tougher than I look,” I whispered. He exhaled, his shoulders sagging as we stared at the sunset bleeding across the horizon. “Like you always told me, let them all underestimate me. That’s my superpower.”
“I know you’re tough,” he groaned. “I just don’t want you to have to be, especially not for me. I don’t want you to sacrifice your life for mine.”
I lifted my head and looked at him until he turned my way.
His brown eyes held as much guilt and pain as his wife’s had when I had a similar conversation just minutes ago.
“There is no one else on this Earth I’d rather sacrifice for.
You’re not asking me to do this for you.
I’m choosing it because I love you and Aria. ”
His jaw tightened.
“You’ve always put me first and protected me, Sani. Let me do this for you.”
He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m going to the gym.”
He stood up abruptly, and I stared at him, knowing him well enough to recognise that he needed to beat the shit out of something before dissociating in the sauna, listening to Cher on repeat until he could hold his wife.
Sani never coped well with change, especially when it was out of his control.
I gave him a weak smile, and he bent over, kissing the top of my head before storming back inside.
He knew deep down that this was what had to happen. That’s why he was so mad about it. He wanted to keep me in this bubble of protection and safety, where we could both pretend I was living a semi-normal life. But I wasn’t normal, and I didn’t want normality.
I’d tried. I’d tried really hard to blend into the background, keep myself busy, and find a sense of purpose.
I’d taken my homeschooling seriously, read far too many books, loved working out at the gym and swimming, cared for and rode my horse around the estate, learned to play the harp and the piano, and composed classical music.
I’d trained to become a nurse so there would be a family member at the estate able to treat gunshot wounds, knife wounds, black eyes, and broken bones.
It also helped satisfy my fascination with blood.
But lately, most of my time was spent caring for my mamma, who was diagnosed with dementia two years ago, on top of her pre-existing bipolar disorder.
Sometimes, it didn’t feel like there were enough hours in the day to even think.
It was only when I sat on my family estate each night and watched the sunset that I had time to ponder what I really wanted out of life.
The version of myself I carried so tightly throughout the day, the reserved one, the careful one, the caring daughter, the obedient princess, the one who folded her feelings into smaller shapes so they didn’t inconvenience anyone…
she became easier to shed when I watched the sky bleed into darkness.
There was something about the way the colours morphed into each other with complete trust: gold into amber, amber sinking into crimson, before it shifted into violet, then blue and finally black that told me to never resist the darkness when it came.
If anyone had asked me, I would have said I was content with this life. But you can be grateful and restless at the same time, can’t you? I could love my life, but also still ache for more.
Before M, I used to think I was waiting for love to find me.
But not the kind that people write sonnets about. Not flowers or sweet promises or grand gestures like my brother likes to give Aria. If I’m honest, I’ve always longed for something more dangerous. Something consuming and ruinous.
The kind that drags you under, kicking and screaming, with a hand clamped over your mouth, and teaches your heart to beat only to a wild rhythm they control.
I knew how that sounded. I’d been reading too many dark romances.
I didn’t want to be broken or abused. But I’ve always known I needed more than what I was living to really feel alive.
I just wasn’t sure what it was, but I knew that when it found me, my life would split into before and after, and I would never be the same.
“Signorina Buccini,“ a quiet voice interrupted my thoughts, and I turned to find Sophia, our maid. Her eyes swept our surroundings to check we were alone before she plunged her hand into her apron and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “This is for you.”
I stared at the outstretched paper for a moment, my heart lodged in my throat at the memory of receiving each of M’s letters the same way, from the same maid. She turned and fled as soon as I took it, my hands trembling.
There was no way this was a letter from M. For one, I hadn’t heard a thing from him in over three months, and it wasn’t in an envelope like the others had been. Yet I still found myself expecting to see his messy handwriting as soon as I unfolded it.
I looked into the inmate who was released from the prison in Dublin for you. I have information. Send your bodyguard or someone you trust to meet me outside the back gate at nine PM, and I’ll hand them the file.
Nero
Madonna mia. He actually did it.
Nero was one of my brother’s men, our best tracker and a tech wizard.
He could find anyone, even if they didn’t want to be found.
Last week I’d written him a note asking whether he could find M for me.
I just wanted to know if he was okay, if he’d made it out of prison, if he’d gone back to his gang, or if he was lying in a ditch somewhere.
But Nero had refused to help me, afraid it would upset my brothers, especially as they knew nothing about M and I was asking him to go behind their backs.
It looked like he’d had a change of heart.
I scrambled up from the steps and raced to my bedroom. As soon as I was inside, I started pacing. It was already eight PM. I had one hour to find someone I trusted enough to meet Nero discreetly and bring me the file without my family finding out.