Page 70 of Fallen Rook

“How are you doing, Enzo?”

“I—”

“Just kidding; I could not care less.” His unfriendly smile stretched just beyond the limit of gentility. “I need to say my piece before this wedding takes place.”

A cold chill glided along my skin. I was dreading this talk almost as much as I was the actual event.

The wedding.

Everything in my life revolved around this goddamn wedding.

I narrowed my eyes. “Let me guess, she’s not like other women, I need to be gentle with her, blah blah, fucking blah?”

“You? Hurting my sister? No. Katya can skin your ass with a nail file.” Alex snorted, waving me off. “I’m not worried about the physical aspect of it at all. Nor about you cheating on her. She’d do the same. You’re both not innocent in that respect.”

“Well, then what do you want?” I growled, impatient.

“To warn you about this wedding,” he hissed. “Initially, Vello and I had agreed that Achilles and Katya would marry. Katya was very interested in the scarred brute. Don’t ask me why. My sister operates in mysterious ways. When he turned her down so carelessly, her self-esteem took a real blow. Achilles had to jump through hoops to convince me to accept you as the groom instead. No offense, but you’re the spare, not the heir. No significant amount of power will ever find its way to you.”

“Are you ever gonna get to the point, or am I expected to sit here for a few more hours and listen to your bootleg version of The Godfather monologue?” My jaw twitched.

“Point is, she can’t handle another rejection.”

I stared at him through a mist of white-hot rage, biting my tongue until it bled.

“You can’t call off this wedding, no matter what,” he clarified.

Again, I didn’t give him my word. I couldn’t bring myself to throw my life away unless Luca and Achilles absolutely demanded it. And I hadn’t decided whether I was desperate enough to beg them to or not.

“Do you understand”—Alex rose to his feet and loomed across the table to meet my gaze—“that I will kill you if you humiliate her like Achilles did? Because I will. With my bare hands. In front of an audience.”

Slowly, I stood as well, towering a few good inches over the Russian. I was sick and tired of being treated like a simple pawn. A sacrificial lamb, the lesser Ferrante brother.

I slammed my palms between us, rattling the entire room with my force. “I don’t take orders from the Bratva, Alex. Only from the Camorra. Specifically, from the don. Don’t mistake my amiable nature for weakness. I will do whatever’s good for my clan, for my organization, for my family. Now, if you wish for this wedding to happen so badly, I suggest you make right with Luca and drag Jeremie back to Vegas, before I send him to you in a body bag.”

“You won—”

“I will.” My voice did not waver. “And I am sorely tempted to. Don’t forget, I did not ask for this union. Nor am I happy to share my roof and my bed with a Bratva princess.”

The pakhan scanned my face, looking for a crack, for a tremble, for a flinch. “And if I get Jeremie out of your hair, will you marry her? Will you promise to make her happy?”

A dull, rusty ache pierced my chest, like a fingernail digging inside an open wound. It was a sacrifice worth making. I was destined to stay in the closet forever, with or without Katya. If I wouldn’t marry her, I’d marry another woman from a family we needed a business alliance with.

My future held no great love story.

But Luca…he still had a chance.

My throat burned with all the things I couldn’t say, and I swallowed them down.

“Yes,” I said quietly. “You have my word.”

Alex patted my cheek with a condescending smile. “Very good. In that case, you should head home to greet her. She’s on her way to you. Wanted to surprise you. Put on a show for her, yeah? Pretend you missed her.”

I traipsed out of the room, the dark goo inside me overspilling.

Chapter Twenty-One

Tom