Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 84446 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84446 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
In the end, though, I was the boss.
This was my decision.
And they had to fall in line.
Only half of my crew was seated, shifting uncomfortably in their suits unlike the Costas who were practically strapped into suits while they were still in diapers.
The rest of my people were standing in the wings, scattered around the cathedral, armed and ready to act if this shit went sideways.
My gaze was on one of my men at the side of the building who was watching something in the crowd that had me on edge as the sounds of The Bridal March drifted up to the high ceilings of the church.
No one stood.
Like we all knew any sudden movement could cause chaos to break out with how tense everyone was about this gathering.
When my man in the wings relaxed, I turned toward the aisle, finally getting a look at my bride as she walked to me.
All the Costa women were gorgeous, so I hadn’t even bothered to look into which one they’d decided to have me marry.
And she was that.
Gorgeous.
She was short and slight, so small it seemed crazy that the family put the weight of this alliance on her petite shoulders, with long, dark hair, and a sweet, round face dominated by dark blue eyes.
I’d hoped for pretty. And I got it.
What I didn’t expect, though, was how fucking young she was. She couldn’t be older than twenty, twenty-one. A fucking baby, really, to be handed off to a man her family didn’t know from Adam.
The fuck were they thinking?
I’d half-expected to turn to find some eighty-year-old widow walking toward me. And, technically, they’d be within the terms of our agreement to do so.
But no.
Here was my bride.
A kid, really, climbing up the steps to stand beside me, making me all the more aware of how small she was with how I towered over her.
To her family, I had to look like a predator about to devour its prey.
I didn’t hear a fucking thing the priest droned on and on about concerning the sanctity of marriage. There was nothing holy about this union.
I found myself turning toward Lore at the right time, though, looking down and noticing for the first time that her hands were clasped tightly together, not wrapped around a bouquet of flowers.
I’d ordered one, I was sure. There weren’t a lot of details I’d needed to iron out, so I knew what I’d done.
Sent the engagement ring to her house along with cash she’d need to buy a dress.
Reserved the church.
Made sure the bridal suite had anything she might need in it.
Bought the wedding bands.
And ordered a bouquet from a local florist.
But here she was, without it.
It seemed for the best, though, since she had no one to hand it off to when I had to reach for her hand to say my vows.
Only to find her shaking like a goddamn leaf.
Costas.
Fucking animals subjecting this kid to some unknown fate.
But here we were.
It was too late to go back now.
So I slid the ring on her tiny finger as I said my vows, then felt her cold fingers on my hand as she said hers, her voice trembling, barely loud enough for me and the priest to hear, then slid the ring on my finger.
I’d made sure ahead of the time to talk to the priest about not making room for objections, and not including words like ‘love’ in our vows, and also not to declare it was time to kiss the bride.
I was pretty sure Lore’s father and brothers would say Fuck the alliance, charge up to the altar, and skin me alive if they had to sit through that.
As soon it was done, it was time to go.
Before the Costas decided that they didn’t want this alliance after all.
We had to get the hell out of Dodge before shit went down.
In the car, I yanked at my tie and unbuttoned several buttons, unaccustomed to wearing suits, save for funerals.
Sure, the idea of the mob these days was all designer suits, silk ties, and ten-thousand-dollar watches.
But my organization had always been a little more rough around the edges. We hadn’t been raised in cushy brownstones in Manhattan. Most of us crawled out of the cracks of the most dangerous neighborhood in Brooklyn.
The backseat was quiet as we drove from the church to the apartment building, and I didn’t know what the fuck to say, so I said nothing.
“So, are you just not going to talk to your wife?” Rico, my driver, and one of my oldest friends, asked as we stepped onto the sidewalk outside of the building.
“The fuck am I supposed to say?” I asked, shaking my head. “She looks like she’d drop dead if I accidentally talk too fucking loud.”
“I know I’ve said it about fifty times already,” Rico said. “But this was a really bad fucking idea.”