Despite being the longest day of my life, as we drove up the long, winding driveway to Casa Nera, I saw that it wasn’t over. The house was lit up like a Christmas tree in the darkness.
“What’s going on?” I wondered. A huge number of men had gathered outside in the front courtyard.
“The family are here to pay their respects,” Renato answered. He didn’t look tired at all. If anything, he had a restless energy, like the day hadn’t been enough for him. Apparently, he needed more than a mere wedding to tire him out.
Elio pulled to a stop beside the house, and over a hundred heads turned our way as we left the car. Renato held my hand to help me out, steadying me in my wobbly heels and restrictive dress.
As we stood there together, the moon shining down on us, a clap started and spread across the entire group of collected men. I looked over the crowd. They smiled, cheered, and shouted congratulations.
Overhead, a loud bang sounded. The gangsters had clearly been expecting it, as no one pulled a gun. I jumped out of my skin, and Renato’s arm came around me. He was so solid and warm. I looked up and smiled as fireworks burst across the sky, dazzled by the display.
“What do you think, bambina?” Renato asked me. His eyes were reflecting the jewel-colored lights, and it was hard to look away.
“It’s beautiful,” I murmured.
“Yes, it is, isn’t it?” Renato agreed, his gaze never leaving me.
We watched the fireworks until a bell sounded. “Time to go inside.” Renato wrapped my arm around his and turned me toward the house.
“Where now? Doesn’t this day ever end?” I asked. “I don’t know if my feet can take much more.”
“Not a problem,” he said, and without another word, scooped me into his arms to cross the threshold.
My heart all but jumped into my mouth. Too many feelings swirled inside me right now. Shock, confusion, fear, and something else. It felt an awful lot like relief. Great, they’ve made me just as crazy as them.
“You can put me down now,” I muttered to him as he carried me through the house.
“Maybe, but I won’t.” His voice was calm and deep.
His confident hold comforted me somehow. I was supposed to be scared of this man, but his grip on me made me feel like I’d never fall.
“Because?” I wondered, studying the place where his starched collar met his tanned neck. It looked positively edible. He was too tempting; it really wasn’t fair.
“I don’t want to,” he answered.
Then we headed into the largest room in Casa Nera. I’d always wondered if it had been a ballroom at some point. Tonight, it was lavishly decorated with fresh flowers and stylish but elegant banquet tables. A fire roared in a hearth big enough to climb inside.
Another round of applause started when we entered. Casa Nera staff stood against the walls, clapping vigorously.
Bottles of champagne popped all around the room as Renato took me to the table in the center and sat me on a plush velvet chair.
Men from outside filed into the room, talking loudly. A lot of slapping shoulders and smiles. It wasn’t the vibe of a deadly mafia family at all.
Then the line formed. My chair was in the middle, and starting there, the line snaked back out of the room, it was so long.
Renato stood behind my chair and placed a hand on my shoulder.
Elio was first. The sottocapo approached. He gave me a slight grin and bowed his head, holding out his hand.
“It’s okay, Charlotte, that’s why they’re here,” Renato said, unruffled.
I put my hand in Elio’s, and the deadly mercenary brought it to his lips and lightly kissed the back. “Non ti deluderò, sangue del mio sangue.” The Italian rolled effortlessly off his tongue, and he smiled at me and moved away.
“What does it mean?” I asked Renato over my shoulder.
“I will not fail you, blood of my blood,” Renato translated, covering my shoulder with one of his huge hands and sending a warm jolt through me.
I didn’t have time to ask more than that, since another made man approached, reaching reverently for my hand.
They kept coming. Strangers who bowed their heads and promised me their allegiance. I didn’t know what the hell to think. There was something ancient about the ritual, and the formality of it suited Renato. Everything about him had the edge of history and tradition, though he clearly bent the rules whenever he wanted to.
The ceremony, because that’s what it felt like, went on for nearly an hour.
“What was that?” I asked Renato later, when the men drank champagne to toast their fearless leader’s nuptials and I finally had a moment alone with my new husband. Husband?
Just the idea was ludicrous, and yet it had happened.
Renato messed around with something on the table. He’d doused his hands in sanitizer, the harsh chemical smell seeming out of place in the ballroom that looked straight out of another era.
He took my hands in his, and the shock of his powerful fingers sliding over mine went all the way down to my toes. He smoothed the sanitizer over my hands meticulously.
“Don’t tell me you’re secretly a germophobe?” I wondered.
He simply smirked. “We’re not done yet, anima mia. And that was a pledging ceremony… like knights of old, getting down on one knee and promising their lives to their rulers.”
“Rulers?” I repeated.
Renato hummed in agreement and tugged me to my feet. A hush fell over the assembled men.
“My family is now your family, Charlotte De Sanctis, and every single one will protect you and your sister until their last breath. You’ll never hunger or want for anything again. You’ll never be alone again. You’re a very powerful woman now, Charlotte. You command an army of men who would die for you. They came tonight to pay homage.”
My head spun; I couldn’t take in his words. But the sight of a knife in his hand soon cleared the brain fog. “What is that?” I asked nervously.
He took my hand, freshly sanitized, and held it up for all to see. The ruby-and-diamond ring sat on my fourth finger. Renato nudged it up a few inches and set the tip of the knife on the skin underneath.
“Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood,” Renato intoned.
The fucker was going to cut me, right here in front of everyone, like some kind of barbarian. “Only this band – our union – holds the blood inside. Only this ring keeps you safe. A shackle you can never break,” he said quietly, and then pushed the blade against my skin.
He twisted it with the expertise of a man well-versed in leaving scars. I bit my tongue so as not to cry out. The slice burned, and blood dripped down my hand as Renato pushed my ring over the weeping wound, stopping the bleeding. It would leave a scar. A ring I could never take off. Marked, forever, as his.
He turned the knife around, holding the hilt in my direction. I took it from him slowly. The point was poised over his chest as he fiddled with his ring. I could kill him right here and now, before anyone could stop me.
No. You couldn’t. His men would cut me down immediately, and anyway, I was pretty sure he could disarm me in a second. He was so confident, though. He knew I wouldn’t try it. He knew the spell he had woven over me and the power he held.
You’re a very powerful woman now, Charlotte.
He offered me his bare ring finger, and I cut him just like he’d cut me. He pushed his wedding band back on, just like he’d done with mine, and pressed our bleeding hands together. Ruby droplets scattered across the skirt of my white gown, matching the ring. It seemed fitting somehow. Of course, a deal with the devil and a marriage born in Hell would be sealed with blood.
I was the demon’s bride, and I looked it, standing there with blood spattered across my dress, my hand clasped in a red grip. The applause was deafening, and then the shouts began.
“Bacci!”
“Kiss her, boss!”
“Bacci! Bacci!”
I barely had time to warn Renato before he was leaning forward.
“Don’t.” Suddenly the thought of kissing him in front of everyone and the thunderous cheers became too much. Too much attention, too much anticipation, too much guilt that I’d enjoy it, too much fear of what that meant.
“Stop me,” he murmured against my lips, sliding his hand around the nape of my neck and then kissing me hard.
His tongue pushed between my lips, sending a gale of fire roaring through me. He kissed me mercilessly, like he wanted to devour me, and I sagged into his chest and let him.
No, I didn’t just let him. I kissed him back. My mouth moved over his, and the feel of his hot skin burned like liquid fire. I stroked my tongue along his, and he gave a deep rumble of appreciation. When he pulled back, I nearly stumbled, but he was right there, holding me up.
What the hell had I just done? I shouldn’t be kissing him or swooning against him. Lucy and I were his prisoners. I was losing my head here and forgetting who was good and who was bad.
Renato was the villain, the blackhearted mob boss who had just forced me to marry him, and I was going weak at the knees from his unwanted kisses. Are they unwanted, though? I shoved that thought violently from my head.
In the rest of the room, oblivious to the roller coaster of guilt and shame I was riding, the music started up and the party began.
The De Sanctis men who hadn’t been invited to the wedding – the sheer number of them made that impossible – were here to celebrate their capo’s new bride.
Renato leaned in to speak to me. “You have ten minutes to show your face here.”
“And then?” I wondered, though the heat creeping through me warned me of what he was going to say.
“Then we’re going upstairs, bambina, and you’re all mine.”
