Arranged Mafia Marriage

Michael

“What makes you think I want to do a deal with you?” I glance across the conference room table in my office. The man sprawled out at the foot of the table chuckles.

“Come now Capo, you and I both know that you need allies on your side in your quest to bid for the role of Don.”

“I don’t need you for that, Nikolai.” I yawn. “I am the son, the heir; the title of Don is as good as mine.”

“If that were true, you wouldn’t be meeting with me.” Nikolai’s lips twist, “You not only need to show that you have built up your association with the strongest organized crime syndicates in your region, but you also need us in your corner should the Don, for some reason, decide to turn on you.”

I stiffen, then force my muscles to relax. Fucker is good. As strategic as me. As ruthless as me. As power-hungry as me… Which is why he hadn’t hesitated to accept meeting me on my own turf in my office. Not that it was my idea, but I have to give Seb credit. By asking Nikolai to come here, he’d shown that he was thinking ten steps ahead. Nikolai accepting it? It shows that he needs me as much as I need him.

“The same can be said of you.” I tilt my head, “You’re here meeting me on my turf, unarmed-”

“But not alone,” He spreads his arms wide, drawing my attention to the two men who stand on either side of him. His younger brothers Roman and Victor stare back at me, their faces impassive.

“Brothers, eh?” I jerk my chin toward mine who stand behind me, “Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em.”

“That’s family for you.” Nikolai chuckles, “In our business, it’s all about blood ties. You may not get along with your family, but you can trust them to have your back.”

That’s what I had thought too. Then Luca decided to turn everything on its head.

“The times are changing,” I murmur, “enemies become friends become enemies.”

He frowns, “I am not following.”

“We’ve never been on the same side of the fence before-”

“Yet you reached out to us, and offered us a proposal we couldn’t resist.”

He’s referring to our earlier agreement where Nikolai agreed to stop targeting our ships in return for a cut of the money we make on the shipping routes.

“The enemy of your enemy is a friend, too.” I allow my lips to kick up.

Niko’s forehead creases. “The Kane Company.”

“Indeed.” I lean back in my chair. “They’ve become more daring, of late.”

“Are they responsible for-” He nods toward the bandage on my forehead.

“No, that was me.”

I jerk my head around in the direction of my wife’s voice. She stands by the now open door, Antonio, hovering behind her.

“Sorry, Boss,” he raises his hands, “she wouldn’t take no for an answer, and-”

“You did the right thing,” I wave my hand and he steps back.

Beauty walks over to me. She’s wearing one of the dresses she’d chosen from the boutique in Palermo, where I had taken her. Where I had pushed her up against the wall of the changing room and ripped the dress she’d been wearing and thrust my fingers inside her sopping wet cunt, and she had come. She had moaned loud enough for everyone in that boutique to hear her. The blood drains to my groin and my balls tighten. I move around in my chair, trying to ease the strain on my pants. That’s when I notice that the gaze of every single man in the room is on her. Che palle. I rise to my feet, “This meeting is over.”

Nikolai glances between my wife and me. “Indeed.” His lips curve, “Aren’t you going to introduce us to the beautiful signorina?”

“Signora,” I clarify as Beauty pauses next to me. “This,” I wrap my arm around her and pull her stiff body against mine, “is my wife.”

“Ah!” Nikolai finally gets up from his seat, “Ocharovannyy, printsessa,” He half bows.

Why is it that every man who comes across her seems to be enchanted by her? Can’t the fuckers see that she belongs to me?

I yank her even closer and she digs her elbow into my side. My cock instantly jerks. Fuck. Hasn’t she realized by now that any hint of violence from her only turns me on? Maybe it’s why she’s tried to kill me twice, and both times, the connection between us has only grown stronger. What the hell? Why hadn’t I realized this before? That the more she tries to hurt me, the more I want her. The more she wants to push me away, the more I need her. The more she tries to prove to me that she can do without me…the more I want to imprint myself on every pore of her body.

“And you are-?” Beauty holds up her hand.

“Leaving,” I snap at the same time that Nikolai walks around the table to take her hand in his.

“Very pleased to meet you…” He tilts his head.

Beauty laughs. “Karma,” she murmurs, “call me Karma.”

“A fitting name for the woman who has brought the Capo to heel.” He kisses her fingers and every muscle in my body goes on alert.

“Relax, Capo,” Nikolai drawls, “I pose no threat to you or your family.”

“Didn’t take you to be a liar,” I say through gritted teeth.

He releases her hand and I shove her behind my back.

“Hey,” she protests, “what are you doing?” She tries to step around me and I wrap an arm behind and around her, keeping her in place. She digs her fingers into my arm, and a shudder shivers up my spine.

I glare at Nikolai, who meets my gaze. He doesn’t back away, doesn’t lower his gaze either. For a few seconds our staring match goes on, then he jerks his chin. “You protect what’s yours.” His lips twist, “I respect that.”

“Then you’ll also respect when I say that you need to leave now.”

“A straight shooter, too.” He chuckles, “We are cut from the same cloth, Capo. I do believe we have more in common than we realize.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“Until next time then,” he nods at me, then pivots and stalks out, followed by his brothers. The door shuts behind them.

I release Karma who stomps out and around to stand in front of me. “Jesus, all that posturing. It was highly entertaining-not.” She fumes, “If you dare try to control me again in front of your acquaintances I will-”

“How are you Karma?” Xander cuts in. “Haven’t seen you since your unexpected arrival at the chapel.”

Karma scowls in his direction as he walks toward her. Her forehead smoothens out. Typical. No woman can resist the lure of the beauty of my youngest brother.

Karma smiles at him, “You must be…”

“Alessandro, but people call me Xander.”

“At his insistence.” Christian steps forward, “Personally, I think he does it because it annoys the Capo.”

“Does it?” She shoots me a side glance. “And why is that?”

“He claims it’s a bastardized version of Sandro, which is, of course, the Italian version of my nickname.”

“For the record, I prefer Xander.” Her smile widens, “Reminds me of Xander Cage in the xXx series.”

“Love action-packed Hollywood movies, eh?” Xander laughs.

“Also, video games.”

“SIMS 4?”

“Wha-a-t?” She tosses her head, “Give me some credit, yeah? Call of Duty, all the way here.”

“Holy shit, you don’t say, you-”

“Okay, that’s it,” I step between them. “Out, you guys.”

“But, fratellone,” Xander’s smirk widens, “we were just talking.”

“And now, you’ve finished talking.” I nod my chin toward the door, “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”

“Aww,” Xander chuckles, “and I was only trying to be friendly.”

“Well, take your friendliness somewhere else.” I fold my arms across my chest, fix him with my most stern gaze. “Now,” I say in a low voice and that wipes the smile off of his face.

“You got it, Boss.”

He walks past us without saying another word. The rest of the guys file out with him. Antonio closes the door, and I turn to find Beauty staring at me with an incredulous look other face.

“Don’t call me, I’ll call you?” She huffs, “You really do need to work on your dialogues.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah,” She swipes her hair over her shoulder, “I mean, how trite can you get?”

“Trite, eh?”

“Seriously, every part of you is a cliche.” She sniffs, “From your dark suits, to your glowering face, to…” She glances around the space, “To this office, on top of a nightclub.”

“What’s wrong with having an office at the top floor of a nightclub?”

“It’s predictable.”

“It’s convenient.”

“Why? So you can have women service you as you are working?”

“Hmm.” I stroke my chin, “Now that you mention it, that is a fringe benefit.”

“What the hell?” She pushes against my chest. “How dare you say that to me?”

“I’m not the one who brought it up, Beauty; you did. Speaking of,” I peer into her face, “what are you doing here?”

“I wasn’t aware that I was a prisoner.”

“My point, exactly.” I hold her gaze, “You could have escaped, Beauty; you could have walked out of the house-”

“Which I did.”

“Or called your sister-”

“You didn’t give me my cellphone, and if I had called from your home, no doubt, you would have found out about it right away.”

“You could have called her from somewhere else, once you left the house.

She blinks, “True.”

“But you didn’t think of it?”

She shakes her head.

“Why is that?”

“For the same reason that you didn’t imprison me in your home, this time,” she murmurs.

“What reason is that?” I fold my arms across my chest.

“I know why you carved out the word ‘whore’ on my back.”

“Oh?” I tilt my head.

“It’s because you feel something for me.”

“You’re right about that.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Apathy.” I look her up and down. “You’re a nice hole to bury my cock in, but considering I’ve already sampled what you have to offer,” I raise a shoulder, “I think it’s time I set you free.”

“You’re lying!” She bursts out.

“Am I?” I round the desk, drop into my seat, then flick on my laptop. I busy myself looking at the figures from last month’s sales…which has taken a hit, thanks to the Kane Company hijacking our gun shipments in and out of Eastern Europe. Fuck… Something I need to deal with right away. I glance up at her, “What are you still doing here?”

She opens, then shuts her mouth.

“You’re free to leave.”

“What will it take for you to realize that this connection between us cannot be broken so easily?”

“There’s no connection…and even if there was one, it shattered when you took the oar to my head.”

“Oh, my god!” She throws up her hands, “Your stupid ego is going to be the death of me.”

“That day can’t come soon enough.”

“And yet you faked your death so I’d come back to you,” she points out.

“I faked my death so I could draw out my brother who betrayed me; you were a fringe benefit.”

Her features crumple, hurt writ large across her features. My heart twists and I glance away to stare at the computer screen. The figures fade in and out in front of my eyes.

Cazzo! What’s wrong with me? Why does she still affect me so? When she had walked in here, it had felt as if the world had finally tilted right on its axis. Then I had seen the men in the room look at her and had experienced the kind of jealousy that had twisted my guts, that had made me want to whisk her away somewhere, away from all of them, hide her in a place where no one else could see her or talk to her or glance at her.

Then, I’d realized that I have to let her go. If I continue to hold onto her, she’ll completely undo me. She’ll make me weak, expose my frailties, derail me from the course I have set for myself. Something I can’t afford.

As for her relationship with the Seven and how that would have strengthened my own bid to be the next Don… Well, I’ll just have to do without it.

“So, this is it?” she whispers. “This is what it’s come to? You asking me to leave because you can’t deal with your own insecurities?”

“Interesting theory,” I drum my fingers on the table, “but I’m afraid I am not in the mood to listen to it.”

She stiffens. Anger pours off of her. Then she straightens her back, “You’re going to regret this.”

“I regret the day I saw you in that park. I should have turned around and left. Sadly, you seemed too easy an opportunity to pass up.”

“That’s all I am to you, then? After everything we’ve been through, it’s all you view me as?”

“You know the answer to that already.” I glance away, pretend to focus on my work.

She stays motionless for a second, then out of the corner of my eyes I sense a flash of movement. I turn to find her pulling off the ring from her finger. “Here.” She slams it on the table. Turning, she walks out.