Their Princess (Ridge MC #5)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

ADELINA

There’s an unwritten, but well-known rule as a Mafia princess—leave the business to the men.

I’d been groomed under that saying for all of my twenty-two years. Every time I got headstrong, Nonna Petra always said, “La Famiglia è un mondo di uomini.”

The Family , meaning the Mafia, is a man’s world.

Growing up in the Mafia had lots of perks—no money worries, private schools, clothes, whatever college I wanted to attend—but very few in the way of becoming a successful modern woman.

I had tried to abide by the mantra Nonna imparted before she passed. That was until my father made his deal with an outlaw motorcycle club. The bastard didn’t even have the balls to tell me directly, leaving the chore to Mamà.

Arranged marriage—words I thought went out the window after Papà’s generation.

But there I was, in the back of his stretch limo, heading south into the dusty wasteland where I would meet my future husband.

Throwing my head back onto the headrest, I mumbled, “Fucking shoot me now!”

“Adelina Parisi,” my father, the new Don of la Famiglia, barked.

I rolled my eyes and shook my head, hopefully putting a period on what I thought of his so-called partnership. If one of his goons shot me for insolence, it may have been a good thing. At least a hole in my head might save me from this shit show.

“Let her mope, Mass,” Uncle Rafe said, and I focused outside through the tinted window.

Dust kicked up around the limousine, turning everything orange. The Arizona desert sprawled out, not too different from Las Vegas, but there was little to look at except for the pitchfork-like cacti. Yup, we might as well be sailing across the River Styx... right into my own personal hell.

Could I even hope that my betrothed was half as hot as some of the romance authors I followed painted Hades? I guess Persephone had been trapped in the underworld too, so we were about to have a lot in common. Both pawns to dark and powerful men.

Who didn’t like being a pawn?

Oh, right. Me.

At least Persephone got to leave her prison for six months out of the year.

Hell would be hot, obviously, but I didn’t expect it to be so freaking dry.

I ran my fingers over my other hand’s ashen knuckles. “I’m going to have to buy a vat of Cream Nera.”

Papà narrowed his eyes. “I’ll buy the whole fucking company if you’ll quit your whining.”

“At least they have humidifiers indoors in Vegas.” I huffed and crossed my arms.

Here, the dry, dust-coated heat seeped into the car, no matter how high we turned the AC. My pores tightened on my face, and I could feel early wrinkles forming. I should’ve put an extra layer of moisturizer under my foundation, but I hadn’t been thinking straight.

With Mamà’s help, I had caked enough makeup on to make myself look like a beauty queen straight off the Vegas strip. Hopefully, the fucking biker liked his women to look like strippers. Then again, that seemed right up the alley of motorcycle club trash.

My father checked his watch like we were running behind schedule, but the limo slowed as we came over a hill. There wasn’t a town in sight, so where could this infamous motorcycle club be?

I turned, having to look over my shoulder to see farther up the road, and I braced myself in the seat. There wasn’t anything to speak of in sight except what looked like an old, deserted gas station with some construction happening nearby. But we did pass a weathered green sign that read Park Ridge.

“ This is it?” I whipped my head around to glare at Papà again.

“Don’t give me that look, Adelina.” He tugged on his cuffs at his wrist. “It’ll give you early wrinkles.”

The skirt of my dress had ridden up, and it scooched even higher as I squirmed in my seat. Meeting my future husband today would definitely not be a relaxing vacation. My father—along with my uncle Rafe—basically had to drag me out here. Papà’s capos had lingered around, sneering, and their cars now followed in our motorcade.

“Pull down your skirt,” snapped Papà. “You look like a whore.” He turned his attention outside as though I disgusted him.

I scoffed. “Isn’t that exactly what you’re making me by trading your eldest daughter for the chance to make more money on your deal with the Mexican cartels?”

“That’s enough, Adelina.” He’d at least stopped explaining why this was an important duty I should embrace for la Familia.

“Of course it is.” I uncrossed and recrossed my legs.

My uncle’s dark eyes grazed up my legs under his dark eyelashes, taking in every inch of my bronzed thigh. I gripped the hem, curious how long he would stare if I pulled it up a little higher. I had to wear a thong with this pencil skirt, and though I’d never seen Rafe gawking at a woman’s body, I wondered how far I could push him.

For a hot second, I imagined which one of the two men here would have the bigger reaction if I flashed my thong. My father, angry and fuming that I was acting out, or my uncle with his wandering eyes and strong jaw?

The two of them looked nothing alike, but half-brothers rarely did. That, combined with the massive age gap between them. Their father really liked to sleep around. Hell, Papà did too, but Mamà always stayed by his side for some reason I couldn’t understand.

She had always said, “He wasn’t always this way, Adelina.” But that didn’t excuse it. Didn’t women deserve to have the undivided attention of their men?

The men in my family, however, proved to be a group that couldn’t keep their dicks in their pants. Except Rafe.

I pulled down my skirt, as my father instructed. Uncle Rafe watched as I leaned back in my seat, crossing my legs at the knee. The skirt rode up again, but my father said nothing this time. His nose was nearly pressed to the glass, and Rafe turned toward the window too. He reached for the gun at his hip. I didn’t think bikers would wear their guns like that, but he would be new to club life too.

Did he resent it as much as me? Rafe and I were both facing the unknown, but he was a rider and seemed far more suited to whatever went on in motorcycle gangs. Besides, the rumors in la Famiglia said he’d already been in some hell holes, thanks to his time in the Marines.

These fucking desert dogs were animals without class or remorse. I wasn’t like my father, who got off on crime and torture, but I had been around long enough to understand what I would be walking into. A shitshow that put us square on the wrong side of the law. At least where I’d been, I could pretend I wasn’t a part of the underworld part of la Famiglia.

But with this random-ass business in the middle of nowhere with motorcycles lined up at the front, glittering too brightly in the sun, there wasn’t a society to hide in. What a bunch of men with small dicks.

Rafe stared at the bikes too, lips pursed.

Tilting my head, I asked, “Do you like what you see, zio?”

The Italian for the word uncle drew his eyes to me, but his gaze didn’t falter. His hand hadn’t left the handle of his gun, as if we were about to be caught in a shootout. Maybe that would save me from this God-forsaken marriage.

Was the agreement with the MC so fragile that Rafe was scared it would break? Or was it just his military training that had him on guard before we even exited the limo?

“C’mon, Zio Rafaele, aren’t you excited to join other riders?” I asked, taunting him.

He almost cracked a smile. “You ever been on the back of a bike, nipote ?” He threw the familial term for niece back at me. “Where there’s nothing but the rider, the road, and the wind.”

His words sounded wistful, like riding let him escape from the monsters of his reality. To solidify that point, he glanced back at the capo who drove a with a trailer carrying Rafe’s Harley.

“Worried about your baby?” I asked, prodding what I knew was a sore spot for him.

“Wouldn’t have to if your father let me ride.”

Papà snapped, “Enough you two. I can’t hear myself think.”

“You should’ve thought about that before you made him secretary and me a whore to this motorcycle gang,” I replied. “But I guess that makes you my pimp.”

“And you, mia figlia, need your mouth washed out with soap.” My father raised a brow.

We stared off. I’d always lowered my gaze when he’d looked at me like that before, but not today.

The limo stopped outside what looked like a body shop that needed a new paint job. And new windows. Maybe a new door too. The MC probably didn’t give a shit about that. I wouldn’t when I had no money and a bunch of dirt for a back yard.

Who the fuck would even want to live out here?

Apparently, someone was settling in with the house going up next door to the dilapidated gas station.

A capo opened one of the limo doors, and my father stepped out, buttoning his jacket. He scanned his surroundings, even over the roof of the car, while squinting into the bright sunlight.

As soon as my father was out, Rafe threw open the other door and made a B-line for the trailer. With his high and tight crew cut, he looked more like a soldier than one of the other capos, but he singularly focused on freeing his motorcycle from the straps they’d used to tie it down.

“Rafe!” Papà’s voice boomed, but my uncle waved him off and fired up his bike.

Sighing, my father extended his hand for me, beckoning me forward, and I slipped out of the limo.

My heels sank into the dirt, and the dust painted my skirt and blouse. Not my shade, but I dealt with it for now. I didn’t very much care about being fashionable, but my mother would have a field day if she saw a hair out of place. As if my appearance was a reflection of her personally. I didn’t think a biker would really give a fuck what I wore. The question was whether they would be able to keep their paws off me.

Arranged marriage was a contract. Nothing more. Nothing less. Touching and sex weren’t about to be part of this deal. But if I could make someone squirm, it might be worth it.

When my father didn’t move, I huffed. “Should we get this over with?”

My father flashed his shark-like smile at me. “Don’t tell me you’re excited, mia figlia?”

“No. But I sure as hell don’t want to fry in the sun.” I shielded my face.

Papà didn’t give me the extreme pleasure of his response, instead watching his little brother.

Rafe parked his bike at the end of the row, and the rays of light glinted on the polished chrome. He inspected everything before returning to where we waited.

Ignoring their silent exchange, I peeked over at the front of the shop. While I couldn’t see the bikers in the shadows beyond the open garage doors, they had to be watching. My skin crawled, and I leaned toward Rafe as my shield. It was the reason Papà said Rafe was joining the MC too. With his military background, Rafe would be the best positioned to ensure my safety.

His stone-like presence made him as solid as a rock. Or maybe a boulder. No one could move him, and that’s the exact reason he acted as our bodyguard when my girlfriends and I went to the clubs.

I took a step toward the shop, but my father moved faster, cutting me off. I tried not to jump back or to act like he’d gotten the better of me in front of his underlings. Papà’s speed was abnormal for a man getting so fucking old, but he used it to his advantage. Always, he had to be on top or the first to enter a building or the first to take a bite at dinner. Like the alpha of the pack. Why’d men like him have to put on such a front?

“Please,” I drawled, “by all means, you go first.”

He flashed me a look that said he would eat me for breakfast if I went inside first, but something darker burned in his gaze.

Rafe stepped between us. “Don, we’re in the open.”

So respectful. And by the way he preened, my father did love his new title.

My uncle shot me a look, but like usual, I couldn’t read much in it. Through my high school years, he’d been around the world. After he returned when I was about to get my undergrad degree, my sister and I had asked him where all he had gone.

He always shot us a one-word answer. “Classified.”

I was just his annoying niece, someone Papà ordered to play bodyguard to my sister, my friends, and me. Rafe was closer in age to me than he was to my father, so Papà said he should like the detail. But I would be damned if anyone could tell what Rafe liked or didn’t.

My father stalked toward the doors, leaving us to scramble after him. My father probably just wanted a dramatic entrance. Too bad there were no horns to announce his arrival, or a red carpet to be rolled out. He disappeared into the darkness beyond where the sun’s light could reach. I waited back a step in case there was gunfire or some other assault.

Nothing. Why was that kinda sad?

Rafe nudged me forward with his elbow, and I shot a look at him. Was he really going to make me do this?

I leaned up toward him and whispered, “We could hop on one of these bikes, ride off, and leave dust in our wake.”

My uncle’s lips thinned, and he slowly shook his head, and I deflated. Rafe—always the rule-follower.

True, my father would be pissed if I tried to run from my duty and this contract. He would probably hunt me down and make me go through all this again. Scratch that. He would have his goons, and maybe Rafe himself, hunt me down.

The MC would be pissed if we stole their bike. But ... we would be free for a few more moments. This wasn’t just my freedom but his too.

“You said to get this over with,” said Rafe.

Was that a small smirk pulling at the corner of his lips?

What an ass.

“Give me a fucking break.” I strode forward on the balls of my feet.

Inside the dimly lit and oily smelling shop, my heels clapped on the concrete. It took a second for my eyes to adjust, so I blinked rapidly, as if that would help. The smell of gasoline snaked up my nostrils, and I swallowed a gag. How did people live like this?

The temperature had dropped thirty degrees as soon as we stepped out of the direct sunlight, and a pack of leather-wearing hairy men gathered at the back of the room. Some wore vests, but others still sported full jackets, and I couldn’t fathom how they could bear it in the heat. All of them had patches decorating the leather.

They looked at ease, though. Enough so that I now wanted one of those leather jackets. It would be killer with a pair of distressed skinny jeans and stiletto boots. Maybe even one of those leather vests but cut for a woman’s body. Even how they wore them with blue jeans and black boots screamed of sex and danger.

What a look.

Papà’s men were dangerous, but something about the edginess of these men inched them a notch above the Mafia on the ruthless scale.

My father stood in front of them, his superiority sucking all the air from the room. He hooked his fingers, beckoning me forward. If he expected me to act meek like I always had, he had another thing coming today. I lifted my chin just in time to see the fury flare in his gaze.

But then he smiled.

Of course he wouldn’t give away that I was acting defiantly with him.

All the eyes that had been on Massimo Parisi turned to me. I was the prized pig, wandering ignorantly into a slaughterhouse. After—of course—Mamà stuffed me into a short skirt and painted my lips. My father wrapped his arm around my hips, pulling me closer, and I rolled my eyes, scanning the room one more time. The bikes, in various state if repair, and the parts and tools weren’t my scene.

Then my gaze landed on a woman standing near one of the work benches, her belly protruding between low-rise jeans and a cropped tank. Her eyes on me were super intense, as though she didn’t want me here anymore than I wanted to be here. At least we had that much in common. Using a shop rag, she polished the chrome on some contraption attached to an air tank, and what looked like a scar peeked out from her tank top’s scooped neck.

I released a breath. Thank God I wasn’t the only girl here. Though I wasn’t about to become pregnant like her.

“My daughter,” proclaimed my father. “A beauty, isn’t she?”

No one in the MC said a word, and I didn’t know what offended me more. That I didn’t get a whistle or a moan or that a few of them actually scoffed. My father, however, peeled his arm off me when it was obvious that he wasn’t getting the response he wanted. That much was satisfying as fuck. Look at the failed showman.

“Well, president?” asked my father.

A man with a skull cut and a tattoo of a rose on his neck sauntered out of the shadows but kept up with his silent routine.

Papà fidgeted, though. “Do you require a DNA test?”

“No need,” said the man, the apparent president of the MC. “You have the same nose.”

My hand twitched. Did he have to pick out the one feature I tried like hell to hide with makeup?

The bald man shouted, “Sas.”

What kind of name was that? A hulking man walked out of the back, taller than anyone I had ever seen, and that was saying a lot. We held season tickets for the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels. Hell, I’d even dated a couple of the college players, one of them topping out at 6’8”.

This man’s lengthiness, though, wasn’t as honed as a basketball star’s. The T-shirt he wore under his leather vest hung off of him like he shopped big and tall, but it only leaned on the big portion of the term. The way his clothes hung off him made him seem awkward on first appearance. But he made up for what might’ve been seen as a weakness with the darkness in his eyes. The shadow of his gaze dragged across my skin like claws.

Sas stood beside the president. “Sasquatch, meet you?—”

A laugh jolted my body, and I slapped a hand across the lower half of my face. Too late. Everyone stared at me, but I couldn’t stop laughing. Sas was short for Sasquatch ? Were they fucking serious? They couldn’t be serious.

“Adelina,” hissed Rafe over my shoulder in a warning tone that told me this wasn’t the time or place.

I forced my mouth into a straight line and fought to hold it there. The laugh hadn’t been intentional. Not really. It just spewed out, like vomit.

Maybe they preferred vomit all over the concrete floor, but I probably couldn’t manage. My appetite had been nil this morning with my nerves, and I had begged my sister, Caterina, to cover for me. I think she’d told them that I was just fussing over my appearance. The words had only been a partial lie, but the last thing I’d needed was someone pushing me to eat.

I swallowed my laughs, but the sound reverberated through the shop. Sucking in a deep breath, I said, “Nice acoustics.”

But then I started laughing again. This was just so ridiculous I couldn’t hold it inside.

I probably sounded mad, so that should’ve been a red flag. The MC dude—because I couldn’t call him Sasquatch—didn’t want a crazy chick, did he? Perhaps I should keep it up and see if he’d send me back.

His eyes lit up like a hound that had smelled meat, and I thought twice about the idea. Seemingly, he did want a crazy chick.

Therefore, I schooled my features to remove all traces of emotion.

“Something funny, princess?” He tilted his head, and what he didn’t say screamed louder than what he did: something about crazy chicks being more fun and wilder in bed.

Rubbing his jaw, Sas ran his tongue over his lower lip, making me shudder.

As if Rafe could sense it too, he stepped forward. The coolness of his patchless leather jacket brushed against my bare arm. I finally swallowed my laughs with a deep breath and didn’t laugh again, but I didn’t duck my head.

I wouldn’t show weakness. They didn’t blink so neither would I.

The president of the MC worked his jaw and finally said, “Sasquatch, your bride, Adelina Parisi.” He dulled my name by not using the Italian lilt, made it sound flat.

Sas kept his unnatural gaze fixed on me, beating down on me. Instead of his fists, he used his eyes to throw a gut punch. But I wasn’t about to back down. I rolled my shoulders, coming to my full height and relishing the extra few inches my heels afforded me. I was still short compared to anyone present, but it felt extreme next to this man.

“Are you going to introduce the rest of the club?” I asked.

“Mia figlia,” Papa warned.

“Please forgive me.” I painted a smile on my lips and infused a more amicable tone into my words. “It would honor me for you to introduce your friends?”

A vein in Sas’s jaw fluttered. He didn’t like that—why? But I pressed, “Or I could guess their names?” They couldn’t have been as ridiculous as Sasquatch.

“Adelina,” warned Rafe.

“Oh, right, uncle...” I gestured toward the line of bikers. “You’re one of them. Introduce us.”

If I was going down, I would take him with me.

Instead, the president answered, “Graff, Ghost, Pippin, Merry, Jackyl.” He placed a hand on his chest. “Wilde,” he introduced himself but didn’t say who the woman at the bench was.

“And her?”

“Bou,” answered Wilde.

I wasn’t here to become an MC bitch and join their old ladies. This would be no slumber party. We wouldn’t braid each other’s hair or share stories about our first kisses. Gross.

“Why Sas?” I asked, almost laughing again about his name.

He narrowed his gaze at me. “Why not me?”

“There are more handsome men here.” I glanced at Ghost and then Graff. He was cute. Both of them had better names than Sasquatch, even if the name did fit him.

“Nothin’ to do with looks, princess,” said Sas.

“Because you know you wouldn’t be chosen?” I asked.

“You’ve got a mouth,” he spat.

“Physically, yep.” I popped my lips. “Obviously. Don’t take it personally.”

“Your mouth?” He curled his lips.

I glowered at him. “Marrying you. Or any of you. I won’t be a docile mail-order bride.”

“Adelina,” hissed my father.

“What?” I demanded. “It’s what I am. They may not be paying for me with cash, but it’s nothing more than a business deal. I do know my own worth, thank you very much.” I had seen his books, unbeknownst to him, and knew exactly how much money his capos laundered after it came back from Mexico.

Papà simpered, his nostrils flaring.

He didn’t faze me, though. “Business deal, Father. I have no say at all. You’re just one powerful man passing me to”—I hesitated, unable to call Sas powerful—“another man. I’m just a pawn in your game.”

My father raised his hand to me, and I jutted out my chin, waiting. Let the fucker do it. I wouldn’t go down without a fight.

Instead of striking, he curled his open hand and pressed it down to his side, a sly smile spreading across his face. “I knew I should’ve brought Catalina.”

I hissed in a breath, and my jaw gaped open. “You wouldn’t dare. She’s sixteen.”

These men could hit me and yell at me, calling everything terrible in the dictionary, and I wouldn’t break. I wasn’t their bitch. But if he brought Catalina, she would never survive.

Rafe stepped between my father and me, acting like my personal shield, and he said something to Papà I didn’t hear. But quickly, I realized it wasn’t to protect me.

All eyes in the shop had shifted to the doors, and everyone stilled for a split second. Then I was sprawled out on the ground, a heavy body on top of me.

Adrenaline flushed through me, hot and quick, but everything was dark.

And dirty.

And loud—shouts and gunfire.

I blinked and peeled back my hair, trying to see through the haze. Then came another pop, more like a boom. It rattled my heart. With a small screech, I ducked my head, placing my arms over it.

Gunshots.

Who the fuck was shooting? Why?

“Stay down,” growled the man on top of me, and then the weight peeled off my body.

Whoever had thrown me to the ground, their boots scraped against the floor.

I tried to turn my head to see, but another round of gunshot sliced through the shop. Air whizzed by me, ruffling my skirt and sizzling the back of my thighs. Something, somewhere, shattered.

Were they shooting at me? I was in a room with a motorcycle club and the Mafia, so why the hell would they shoot at me?

More gunshots echoed in the shop, some from behind me. They were everywhere now. Rafe, the capos and the MC were all shooting toward where the original gunshots were fired. I didn’t know where the hell that was. But bullets rained down all around me, and I was laying in the middle of it all like a fucking chicken for slaughter. Fuck that!

Taking a deep gasoline- and oil-scented breath, I pushed to my feet, now hating the heels. Thanks, Mom.

I needed to run, but where was safe?

“Stay down!” yelled Rafe from somewhere in the shadows.

The fuck I was.

“Adelina!” yelled Rafe.

I sprinted through the door in the back into a kitchenette. The door swooshed behind me, but I kept moving toward the back door and yanked it inward.

Fuck the Mafia and MC.

Fuck this marriage contract.

Let them slaughter each other. Maybe then I would be free. I ran out into the daylight, immediately blinded again. My heels dug into the sand, and I was sinking. I kicked up dirt as I tried to sprint along the side of the building, ducking my head as another round of gunshots loosed inside the shop.

My shoes were pointless. I dropped to my knees and slipped them off, holding them by the heels in one hand. Crawling, I scrambled beside the building, trying to find shadows to hide in. I shot a look backward, but no one was following, so I slumped against the stone. Sweat beaded down from my temples and into my already blinded eyes. Tears leaked from the corners. I hated to cry, but sue a girl for being scared. I hugged my knees to my chest. The rocks cut into my ass, and when I looked down at my hand, one of the sharp rocks had drawn blood.

A man whistled at me. “Come here, little slut!”

Was I going to be everyone’s whore today?

“Don’t make this hard for me. Come here, Mafia bitch.”

Why were they coming after me? What the fuck did I do?

“There you are,” murmured a man with a hearty laugh.

Boots waited in front of me, and I curled into a tighter ball, hoping it would be one of the MC bikers. That wish slapped me hard in the face. What a day it was that I was already hoping the MC would rescue me? Instead, I faced the ugly mug of some asshole.

His gun was pointed directly at me. “Beg for your life, puta.”

“No,” I said, though if begging for my life meant saving it, maybe it wasn’t such a terrible idea.

He brushed his finger over the trigger. “On your knees and beg.”

“No.” I jutted my chin and stared up at him along the line of the gun’s barrel.

Was I stupid right now? Maybe. Was I a coward? No.

“Say hello to God, puta.”

“Or you could,” said another voice.

The man holding a gun at me twisted toward the voice, swinging his gun sideways, but a boom of another gun blasted him backward, painting my vision red. He stumbled and fell, landing like a lump of meat. His blood seeped into the dusty ground, running along the ridges of the concrete to collect near my bare feet. He turned to pull them away and stared down at the body. He was very dead. Black eyes stared at me and at nothing. His mouth hung open and one side of his head was missing. I was frozen, trembling—until a hand grabbed at me and wrenched me to my feet. I wasn’t tall enough to see who held me now, but his shirt was loose under a motorcycle vest.

I tilted back my head to stare at the man who just saved my life.

Sas.

What a knight in shining armor. Or should I say a misplaced bigfoot, not in a forest, but in the middle of Arizona’s desert? Bigfoot with a gun.

He glared at me like he was pissed, and I wasn’t exactly happy about the situation either. Then he pushed me down again, and I landed straight in the blood and dirt. The metallic tang seeped into my mouth. It was in my hair. On my clothes. Staining my skin.

“What the fuck?” I demanded, but then a round of gunshots resounded over my head. I threw my hands over my ears, trying to block out the sound. It shook my bones until I could no longer separate the vibrations of the gunshots from the fear trembling through me.

Sas knelt beside me, gun raised and eyes focused down the sight line. His body partially shielded mine as the bullets clinked off the metal window frame above my head. I squirmed, ready to run again.

Sas glanced back at me. “Sit fucking still, princess,” was all he managed to ground out.

But his face was reading like he wanted to yell at me. If we were really getting married—assuming we survived this—he would have the rest of our lives to yell at me. Wasn’t that what married people did?

I hid behind him. His hulking body was at least useful as a shield, and he seemed to have a pretty good aim with the long-barrel handgun he was whipping around like someone out of the Wild West.

I, on the other hand, flinched time and time again. As soon as the gunshots dissipated, they picked up again. A roaring engine cut through the air, and I peeked around the corner as Sas stood, still shooting. Other bikers chased after a truck that was speeding north on the highway, still shooting.

When the truck crested the hill, leaving everyone on foot in the literal dust, the gunshots died off.

“Ghost, Merry, Pip,” yelled the MC president—Wilde, he’d introduced himself as. His voice boomed loud enough to reach me in the back of the shop. “Ride out. I want the ID and make of that truck. Now. Jackyl, check the bodies.”

The four of them were moving, three grabbing for motorcycles, and Jackyl flipping over the first body. I didn’t know how they still fired up after being caught in the middle of a shootout, but they took off. Jackyl moved away from the first body after pulling a wallet from the pocket. He jogged around the back, nearing the body not far from me. I shied away from him and the body, disgust churning my stomach.

Sas turned to me, grabbing my forearm. He yanked me to my feet like a rag doll and nearly took my arm out of its socket.

“Get off me,” I said, trying to pry his fingers off my arm.

Sas tightened his grip on me. “Are you stupid?”

“How fucking dare you?” I demanded.

“Me?” He scoffed before towering over me, literally blocking out the sun like he was the moon in an eclipse. “I saved your ass.”

“I never asked to be in this situation.”

“They sure as shit seemed to be after you.”

“I didn’t need to be here,” I mumbled.

“As if this was my brainchild.” He pushed me forward, and I stumbled. But he caught me around the waist before I fell, pulling me flush against his body.

My heartbeat went inexplicably erratic as he leaned down and hissed in my ear, “If you think your little teenage ass and flat chest is what I’m looking for in a woman, you’re full of yourself, princess.” As though to emphasize his disdain, he reached down to the hem of my skirt and pulled it away from my leg, letting it snap back in place.

I tried to pull away, but he didn’t let me go. So, I looked up and over my shoulder at him. “Good thing we’re on the same goddamn page, then. There’s nothing about you’re lanky and skanky ass that could even hope to drench my panties.”

He grunted.

The fucker actually grunted like a motherfucking cave man. Then, tightening his grip on my waist, he began walking us both toward the back door entrance.

Rafe ran out of the shop, meeting Sas and me halfway, he looked down at Sas’s arm, to my face, up to my enormous captor, and then back at me. “Adelina, are you okay?”

“Let me go.” I squirmed until the iron-like grip on my waist loosened, then I pushed my way out of Bigfoot’s hold and faced my uncle. “Is that all you’ve got? Am I okay? I’ve never been shot at before.” Being a Mafia princess never brought me so close to death. And I’d never been so manhandled.

“Are you all right?” asked Rafe through clenched teeth, emphasizing each word.

“None of this blood is mine, but this skirt is trashed,” I said, knowing what Rafe wanted to hear.

I had come here untainted, and Rafe was just making certain I wasn’t now ruined for my future husband. His concern was nothing more than protecting the Don’s business. Not if I was actually okay with all the shit that just went down. Unfortunately, I couldn’t hide the dried tears, no matter how much I scrubbed my cheeks and acted like the dust got in my eye.

Sas was covered in blood too, but no one was asking if he was okay. He had even been limping while he held on to me, threatening to drag me down. I thought the Mafia was bad, but at least they protected their women. Even up in my gilded tower with too much money to know what to do with, I lived an upper-class life. But the MC and whoever the fuck those assholes were showed me a whole new level of violence. The type I’d never seen.

My father sheltered my sister, me, and our mom away from such things. My future husband didn’t seem to have the same sense of propriety.

Papà stepped out of the shop, holding his hand over his eyes to block the sun, and Rafe returned to his side.

“Do we know who they were?” my uncle asked.

“The Medellín Cartel,” said Sas, but I had no knowledge of that cartel. Or any cartel.

I turned to my father, wanting to ask what he had sold me into. What kind of business had he turned the Mafia into? We weren’t saints, but la Famiglia didn’t take shots at random girls. Did they?

Did I know my father or his business at all?

“This is proof.” My father flung out a hand in the direction the truck and some of the bikers had gone. “They tried to kill my daughter.”

“Don’t sound so upset, Papà,” I muttered, rolling my eyes, and Sas raised an eyebrow at me.

Wilde came out the back door, joining us.

My father continued, “They tried to kill us all, and they would’ve. They’re onto our deal, and this attack is proof that we’ll be stronger together. The deal goes forward as planned.” He leveled his gaze on me. “Say thank you, Adelina, to your future husband. He saved your life.”

He definitely could’ve let me die. But then my father would just use my sister as his pawn, and I couldn’t bring Catalina into this. She was young and still learning to have a good head on her shoulders. She thought the best of everyone, no matter how many times they proved otherwise.

“It is a debt of honor we now owe, daughter,” said my father, meeting my gaze. “An omertà.”

I lowered my gaze at hearing the word. It wasn’t something I’d heard him say often, but it had deep meaning in the Family. By using it, he put an end to me questioning his authority. No matter how much I wanted to argue, the omertà bound me to silence.

“I agree that this arrangement needs to continue,” said Wilde, breaking the awkward silence. “The union is strategic, and apparently both of you need to wrap your noggins around that.”

Sas bobbed his head. He was just a follower. Like me. And together, we were entering into a marriage of violence.