As my gaze met Luca’s cold gray eyes, I could tell that he knew. I couldn’t hide from him, no matter how much I tried. Nobody would know how much I wanted to escape. But I had grown up in a world where a perfect mask was the only protection afforded to women and had no trouble forcing my face into a placid expression. Father would be furious if I let my terror show, and Luca’s Familia would use it against us. Every pair of eyes in the pavilion scrutinized me, waiting for a flicker of weakness.
“You may kiss the bride,” the priest said. I knew that, and it wasn’t as if I hadn’t had time to prepare for this exact moment, and yet fear corseted my body in a relentless grip. That’s what my father and every other male relative had tried to tell me since my betrothal to Luca. I should be honored to marry the oldest son of the New York Familia. The Italian Familias across the US needed to lay their feuds to rest and work together to beat down their enemies. Both were dwindling since the Russian Mob ‘The Bratva’, the Taiwanese Triad, and other crime organizations had been trying to expand their influence into our territories. I knew what else this was about: money and power. It was about duty and honor, about doing what was expected. This wedding wasn’t about love or trust or choice. I’d been growing up in a world where no choices were given, especially to women. Nothing my father could say would prevent Luca’s Familia from exercising vengeance for making them lose face. Even if I still managed to escape Luca’s watchful eyes and that of his henchmen, my breach of our agreement would mean war. Death was the only acceptable end to a marriage in our world.
Now, as hundreds of faces from the Chicago and New York Familias stared back at us, flight was no longer an option. I should have run when I still had the chance. “I enter alive and I will have to get out dead.” The last few words of the oath that men swore when they were inducted into the mafia could just as well have been the closing of my wedding vow: There was no way out of this union for me. Until death do us part wasn’t an empty promise as with so many other couples that entered the holy bond of marriage. A daily reminder of the golden cage I’d be trapped in for the rest of my life. What was meant as a sign of love and devotion for other couples was nothing but a testament of his ownership of me. Luca’s strong hand was firm and steady as he took mine and slipped the ring onto my finger. My fingers shook like leaves in the breeze as I raised them, my heartbeat hummingbird quick.
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