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Not even married and he was already getting on my nerves. This was going to be interesting for sure.
We waited another twenty minutes before they finally sauntered in. I didn’t need to guess which of the two men sitting on the other side of the table was my husband-to-be.
Firstly, Andres sat on the chair at the end of the table that was exactly opposite from mine. His steely blue eyes darkened with each second of silence that ticked by. He was dressed in a black Armani suit, and his hair was gelled back. His jaw was clean-shaven, a stark contrast from the subtle stubble he usually wore on a day-to-day basis. Daddy must have made him clean up before making his way here, seemed like.
Beside him sat his brother, on his right hand. They were similar, but Valerio didn’t carry the same air of power that his brother did. Andres’ air carried a colder and darker feel to it, while Valerio carried an almost silent kind of call. It was lethal in its quietness because you didn’t know how deadly he could truly be. Was he a slow kind of poison or was he more of an atomic bomb?
“Shall we begin?” Valerio’s deep voice carried throughout the room, breaking the silence.
Andres and I stared at each other, his blue eyes colliding with my caramel ones. We were two bulls reading each other's movements, waiting to see who would charge first. In the years of establishing my throne in this world, I had learned to wait and watch for the reaction.
I watched his face for a tell. Everyone had one, but for some reason, I couldn’t see one in him. He was good. Felipe had taught him well. It didn’t matter, though. He was still human, and when his skin was pierced, he would still bleed red just like the rest of us.
“Wife.” He looked me up and down like I was below him. I barely stifled the snort that wanted to escape my lips. He was just like the rest, they didn’t think much of me at first, until I showed my hand.
“Husband,” I said in the same mocking tone. “You’re late.”
“Traffic.”
“You landed by helicopter, if I’m not mistaken. You made quite a mess on my fields, I might add. You will need to pay for that, of course.”
One side of his lips tilted upward. “Feel free to forward me the bill.”
He was a cocky little shit, and I was yet to decide if it annoyed me or intrigued me. There was something about him. There was a subtle air of insecurity that he carried. It reminded me a lot of the days when I was new to leadership. I quickly had to kill that part of me if I wanted to go up against the likes of his father.
“Shall we get down to it, or are you two going to fuck in front of us?” Valerio spoke up, looking between us with disinterest.
“The agreement is simple. The two of them marry within the month and then produce a child within the year. You promise to give us more manpower and we allow you to expand territory further into the city. Seeing as we will be one family after the wedding, I don’t see an issue with any of this.” Uncle Dimitri repeated what he had told me when I had first been notified of my sentencing in front of our new guests.
The last thing in this world that I wanted was to get married and, least of all, have a child. I was the furthest thing from nurturing and caring. Taking the head of the Syndicate had left me jagged and calloused. I did not have the softness that it required to care for a child.
“It needs to be a son.” Andres held my gaze. “I do not feel comfortable having a girl as my heir, as you can understand. Women are just not fit to lead.”
My father’s pocket knife burned in my pocket. This man was itching to be stabbed, and I would gladly make him bleed on this floor if he asked for it one more time.
“And yet it is a woman who has far more territory and power than you do,” I quipped.
“Remind me, who came to my father to beg for help? Surely a powerful woman such as yourself could handle a few attacks from the Russians?”
My hand flexed, wanting nothing more than to retrieve the knife and throw it at him.
I stared at my husband-to-be with a feral hunger. We were either going to be the most powerful alliance our society had ever seen, or we were going to burn it down trying to take each other out.
Only time would tell the outcome of our fate.
Chapter Five
Andres’ POV
Nothing I had on this woman could have prepared me for what I had seen two nights ago. Firstly, her beauty was not truly reflected in the pictures I had of her. I had never thought of brown eyes as striking, but hers by far had been the most piercing I had ever connected with. There was a fire in them that didn’t reside in many of the women within our world.
It was the fire of a warrior—a Survivor.
I knew of her story and how she came to claim the throne from her father. All families across the country knew. But to see her in the flesh like I had, it was… something.
“Pay attention, Andres.” Savina flipped through the catalog that our wedding planner, Daniella Franc, had given her. “Rather than watching me, you should be looking at the options for table placements.”
We had walked into the wedding planner's office ten minutes ago, and already her presence was suffocating me. I didn’t know what it was about this woman that irked me so much. Her breathing was enough to have my chest twisting.
