Strapped: A Second Chance Mafia Romance (15 page)

M
y whole life
has been about violence and crime. It’s all that I know and all that I remember. My earliest memory is one of me stealing, and to be honest it hasn’t changed much since. As soon as I gave up school at fifteen years old, I was given a high-up captain position in my father’s mafia group, and for the last five years I have been building up my crew, making them the most powerful and reliable workers we have.

I’m proud of what I’ve achieved, I really am. Others might not understand that, but to me, I feel like I’ve really made something of my life. For someone with no prospects and no aim, actually making something work so well is something to be proud of.

What I didn’t realize until two years ago, was that being a violent thug actually made me attractive to women. They see me as a ‘bad boy’ and they all want to change me, even though deep down they know that they can’t. What they don’t realize is that by just believing that, they’re giving me the green light to behave like I want, acting like a bastard without any guilt. Because I was a late starter, losing my virginity at the grand old age of eighteen years old, I feel like it’s my responsibility to sow my wild oats, sleeping with as many women as possible, never getting with any of them more than once (that’s my one and only rule – twice equals bunny boilers, and I don’t have time for that).

But something about this girl is different.

I don’t know what it is yet, only that there’s something entirely unique about this situation.

When I got the memo to meet my dad in one of the head office quarters, I didn’t think too much of it, but as I entered the room and I spotted our biggest rival – Patrick Murphy from the Irish mafia – I knew that this wasn’t going to be a typical meeting by a long shot.

I’d heard through the grapevine that there was a peace treaty in the making, I just didn’t know how that was going to be achieved, but it seems like I’m about to find out.

As my dad introduces me to the father and daughter from the Irish mafia, I wonder if we’re going to mess with these guys in some way. But since I don’t know the direct plan, and I don’t want to suffer the consequences for screwing up whatever my dad has up his sleeve, I try to behave in the way that I think he wants me to. So instead, I step forward and I take her hand to kiss it as if I’m some normal charming guy, but as soon as my skin connects with hers, I feel a weird buzzing inside of me, one that has me extremely intrigued.

I want her!
The thought bursts through me powerfully, almost shocking me into saying something stupid, but I catch myself at the very last minute.

Of course I want her, this chick is seriously hot, but it seems to be more than that. She has something quite captivating about her, something that makes me want to keep looking. She has long, shiny, sleek raven-colored hair and red lips that are to die for. Plus that rocking body… wow, that really is phenomenal. Curves in all the right places and cleavage that I want to plunge my face into. Then there’s a pair of never-ending legs that are already driving me crazy. As I stare at her, all I can picture is those bright red lips wrapped around my cock, and an erection instantly strains against my jeans.

“I’m so glad that you like them,” my dad continues, dragging me out of my fantasy for a moment. “Because you’re going to marry Sophia.”

I turn to stare at him, shooting him a horrible look. This has to be some sort of shitty prank, right? Sure, this chick might be super sexy, but I’m nowhere near ready to settle down, especially not with someone I don’t know, as part of some crazy ploy.

I have no intention of being a part of the peace treaty in this way. I don’t even care if we have peace or not! I actually like the violence, it’s a part of who I am. Why the fuck would I care if it ends or not?

“What are you talking about?” I chuckle nervously, flickering my eyes everywhere, trying to find someone laughing, someone who knows that it isn’t real. “You must be joking.”

Please be joking, you seriously have to tell me that this is a joke.

“Of course I’m serious,” my dad shoots down any chance of hope. It seems like this shit is real, and I have no idea what to do about it. “Now can you please wait outside so I can discuss the details of this arrangement with Mr. Murphy?”

I stalk from the room, muttering something under my breath, with Sophia not far behind me. I’m absolutely fuming with this information – how the hell can my dad just use my life in that way? After everything that I’ve done for him, he uses me as a pawn within his game? But however pissed off I am, I don’t want our rivals to know, so I’m having to keep all of the expletives tucked away inside, ready for a showdown later on.

And there will be a showdown!

The way that Sophia stands away from me winds me up even further, none of this is my fault, so I decide to spend my time wisely, riling her up. I can tell from the way that she holds herself that she isn’t very experienced with the opposite sex, so I figure I can probably work her up so much that she gets her dad to call off the wedding, getting me out of it without even having to do anything.

So I slide along the wall, moving closer to her, really invading her personal space. I can instantly tell that she’s uncomfortable, which encourages me even further. This is going to work, I just know it. In fact, I’m probably a genius!

“So, it looks like you’re going to be mine,” I say, knowing that will get to her. “What do you think about that?”

Her face goes through a whole range of expressions before she settles on a steely determination. “I… I…” her nerves come out in her words, completely negating her body language. For a split second, I feel sorry for her. I almost want to call this whole plan off, just because there is a real sweetness to her, but then I remember my dad’s smug face, and the red mist descends over me once more. “I don’t think anything,” she eventually finishes. “This whole thing is stupid.”

I laugh loudly at her, understanding her frustration exactly, but I can’t start feeling too much of an affinity with her because that will build a bond. I need to keep her separate from me, because she really is the enemy. “Right, of course,” I drawl, running my hand up and down her arm. She jerks herself away from me instantly, proving that I’ve gotten to her, so I move until I’m standing in front of her and I push myself into her, giving her the opportunity to feel a lot of my body. I know that this normally drives girls wild, and I want to do this to Sophia too.

She’s backed against the wall now, unable to move, and she can’t even look at me.

“What’s the matter?” I ask huskily, resting my forehead against hers. “Don’t you like your fiancé being this close to you? How the hell are you going to cope with our wedding night?” Her eyes flicker up at me and a small whimper emanates past her lips. She’s absolutely petrified about this, which means I have her exactly where I want her. “We’re going to be expected to make a baby,” I warn her. “Which means we’re going to have to be fucking all the time. Everywhere and anywhere.” I describe it in the worst way possible, wanting to shock her.

This is the woman my dad wants me to break my ‘one time only’ rule for? Is he fucking mental?

I stare into her piercing eyes, trying to find something similar to distress there, but instead there is something else, something fiery deep down and I feel myself grow even harder. I have to pull myself backwards a little, hoping desperately that she doesn’t notice, but I can tell that she’s dealing with keeping her own emotions under control.

This is a damn mess, it hasn’t gone to plan at all!

Luckily, at that very moment, the door behind me clicks and I can jump away from Sophia as if I’ve been electrocuted without her realizing that I’m uncomfortable.

“Come on,” Patrick says to Sophia, smiling widely at her, proving that they’ve conducted some kind of crazy plan for us. “It’s time to go.”

As I watch them walk away, a true feeling of panic sets in. I need to put an end to this, and I need to do it now. I wait as the other men filter from the room, leaving my dad in there alone and I stomp in all guns blazing, ready to confront him.

“What is this crazy bullshit?” I yell the second I burst through the door. “I can’t marry that girl, she’s the enemy. Are you crazy?”

“Son,” he replies wearily, as if he’s having to explain something to a child. “Things need to change around here, we cannot go on killing each other in this way. This is the
only
way to prevent any more deaths.” He looks me straight in the eye, refusing to back down. “Do you really want to lose any more good men?” he demands.

I know that he’s referring to my friend Mike who was killed last year by the Irish mafia in a crazy gang shootout, and that just spikes my anger further. How dare he use that tragedy to guilt trip me? Who the hell does he think he is?

“I won’t do it,” I insist. “I won’t marry her.”

“Oh you will,” dad tells me, looking at me with that famous glare in his eyes – the one that normally gets people killed. “You absolutely have no choice in this.”

“If I refuse?” I ask, my heart pounding wildly, as I dread the answer.

“You’ll be excommunicated.”

Shit, has he really just threatened that?

I’m so blown away that my dad would suggest chucking me out of the business and the family too, that I actually find myself giving in and nodding. I should have known before I came in here that it would end this way – my dad always gets what he wants. Why did I think that I would be able to do anything different here?

“Perfect, son,” he throws his arm around me in a mock caring gesture. “That’s great, because the wedding is next month.”

“What?” I scream, riled up all over again. “Are you kidding?”
Next month? No fucking way!

“We need this done sooner rather than later – you know that! The quicker we get this treaty settled and in place, the better for all of us.” He stands up, indicating that the conversation is done, and I’m too gobsmacked to argue. He then exits the room, leaving me alone with my thoughts. How is my life going to change being a married man? Is my dad making me give up everything? My whole life? I just don’t even understand. This has all happened far too quickly for my liking.

All I know for sure is that I don’t know what is going to happen next and that terrifies me…

I
t’s happening
.

I actually can’t believe it.

The closer the wedding got, the more I protested against it, but it got me absolutely nowhere. No one listened to me, everyone treated me like I was nothing more than a very irritating child who didn’t know any better, and now I find myself staring into a mirror, looking at my reflection in a wedding dress. A long flowing, ivory-colored gown that hugs my curves and hides my cleavage in a very demure, glamorous looking way. It took less than a month to throw this lavish affair together, and to get the perfect dress for me, and I have no idea what to even think about any of it.

I look weird, not like me at all. I look like I’m playing some bizarre game where I’m pretending to be a grownup, but I’m not really. Of course, technically I am but since my eighteenth birthday went past in a blur without any acknowledgement, to me it doesn’t really feel like it happened. My mind was understandably somewhere else entirely on that day, and I haven’t really thought about it since.

It’s kind of like this is some really strange dream that I cannot wake up from, no matter how hard I try. And I’m really,
really
trying.

“Are you okay?” My friend Arial rushes around me, placing my veil correctly and pulling out the train of this long, flowing dress. She’s my bridesmaid, dressed in a sleek pink number, and I wish more than anything in the world that I could swap places with her. I want to be the one with my whole life ahead of me, my freedom intact, and the world at my feet. I really don’t want to be here, about to sacrifice my entire life for the peace between the two gangs. “You look beautiful.”

I suppose in a way she’s right, I do look like the traditional pretty bride, with my long dark hair tied up and some very natural looking makeup on my face – I look kind of ethereal – but that is totally overshadowed the utter terror coursing through my veins.

“I don’t know,” I tell her with a trembling voice. “This is all a bit much for me.” I want her to detect the madness within me, I want her to help me escape, even though I know for a fact that I can’t leave this behind. It’ll cause far too much carnage. I just want her to understand how desperate I truly am.

I think that she senses it, but she already knows that she can’t do anything about it. She doesn’t know everything about my family because I’ve never wanted to endanger her with their issues, but she knows enough to understand how complex all of this is. She understands enough to know that I don’t have any choice in the matter.

“It’ll be okay,” she tells me, nodding wildly, knocking the flowers off of her head slightly “I’m sure it will. I mean… you said he’s good looking, right?”

“I did,” I admit, thinking about that guy pressed up against me in that hallway. He’s so hot that it hurts, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. It doesn’t mean that I want to be his wife, or that I’m going to like him as a person. He confuses the hell out of me, and that makes it really challenging to even be around him. “But I just… I don’t know. This is all so intense.”

She doesn’t know what to say, and neither do I, so she does the next best thing and she pulls me in for a deep and comforting hug and that’s where she holds me until someone calls me to tell us that the cars are waiting.

“Come on,” she says holding my shoulders and staring into my eyes with a severe intensity. “Let’s go and get through this.”

I suck in a few deep breaths, trying to calm down my pounding heart, and then I nod. I certainly don’t feel any less nervous at all, but that doesn’t matter. I have to go through this no matter what, so I might as well get it over and done with.

“Okay,” I grip tightly onto my friend’s hand, never wanting to leave this spot. “I’m ready. Let’s go. Let’s do this.”

As I step into the car, I find myself faced with my father who is glaring at me in a way that suggests if I mess this up, I’m going to be made to pay. I flick my eyes towards the window, preferring to focus on the outside world instead. I don’t want to be made to cry by the man that until a few weeks ago I thought loved me.

Now I know different. Now I know how indispensable I am to him. Now I know that everything I thought was real, just wasn’t.

We quickly arrive at the church where the ceremony is taking place, and I can’t help but feel a little breathless at how beautiful it all is. How have our families managed to get all of this together so quickly? It’s insane. I always assumed that weddings would take months to plan, yet somehow they have gotten this organized!

I suppose it helps to have endless money at your disposal.

“Okay,” my dad takes my arm in his, and Arial stands behind us. “I’m going to give you away, so let’s get this done.”

It hits me then that I haven’t even had a rehearsal or anything. People are normally much more prepared before they walk down the aisle.

I can’t do this, I really can’t do this.

What the hell am I going to do?

The music blares, and despite every inch of my body screaming out against this, I find myself walking along, doing what needs to be done. My heart in thumping painfully against my rib cage, my breaths are coming out labored and panicked, and I’m shaking all over. As we burst through the doors, I fix my eyes upon the man that I’m about to agree to spend the rest of my life with, but surprisingly he isn’t even looking my way. His eyes are on his shoes, and his body language is distant, as if he wants to be anywhere else in the world than here, which has me feeling sad.

Of course I feel exactly the same way, but at least I’m trying to hide it. At least I’m being polite, trying to spare his feelings somewhat.

How the hell are we going to navigate this mess if he won’t even look at me? How are we going to do this forever, if we can’t even make eye contact?

He eventually meets my eyes when my dad passes me over, and the ceremony begins, but that’s because he has to. We have to keep looking at one another because that’s what is expected of us, but it doesn’t make it any less awkward. It’s acutely obvious that I’m here to wed a stranger, and that’s a really horrible sensation.

I listen to the words that the officiant speaks out, solidifying our ‘relationship’, but none of it really sinks in. The words don’t feel like they apply to me, which makes it even harder to accept that this is real life.

It’s a dream, it just has to be.

“…Friends, we have joined here today to share with Enzo Carbone and Sophia Murphy, an important moment in their lives. During their time together, they have seen their love and understanding of each other grow and blossom and now they have decided to live out the rest of their lives as one…”

Does this man realize that every single one of his words is bullshit? Does he know anything about our situation at all?

In the end, I need to tune him out as he drones on, because it’s making me far too uneasy for words. I shift from foot to foot uncomfortably, and I twist my fingers anxiously around and around. It’s strange that Enzo doesn’t look outwardly fazed at all – he appears to be quite calm and relaxed – but inside I feel like I can sense a storm brewing. One that could explode at any given moment.

How the hell have we both allowed this to just happen? Why were neither of us unable to put a stop to it?

And then it’s time for us to speak. Enzo is made to go first, repeating the words the man says to him. “I, Enzo Carbone, take you, Sophia Murphy, for my lawful wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, until death do us part.”

It sounds so odd coming from his mouth, especially as he speaks it with such a stilted tone, and it’s even stranger when I have to say it too. “I, Sophia Murphy, take you, Enzo Carbone, to be my husband. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love and honor you all the days of my life.”

Urgh, that doesn’t feel real. It feels like insanity.

“…and now you may kiss the bride.”

What?!

Panic courses through me, as the crowd starts to inappropriately cheer and whoop loudly, encouraging us to take that step. I never thought about this, not at all, but judging from the self-satisfied smirk Enzo did. He has been waiting for this all morning, and now his moment is about to arrive.

He pulls me closer, wrapping his arms around my waist and my pulse rate seriously kicks up a notch. He inches his face closer toward mine, and it takes all that I have not to pull myself away. I can’t do this, I just can’t, but at the same time I have to.

If I don’t kiss him, I’ll wreck absolutely everything.

And then, as soon as that thought crashes through my mind, it’s as if I’m being drawn in like a magnet, and I lean in. We move closer in what feels like slow motion, until all of a sudden he crashes against me and fireworks explode all over my body. His lips are slow and patient, but there’s also an element of passion there, one that threatens to consume me entirely. It’s almost as if the feelings that we are both trying to disguise come out in that moment, and I actually feel myself go weak at the knees. I’m almost a puddle of jelly on the floor, and from the way he’s gripping me tighter to him, it’s as if he is feeling exactly the same way.

This isn’t the first kiss that I’ve ever had in my life, but it’s by far the best. Nothing else even comes close. In fact, it’s as if my entire past melts away and nothing ever happened before this very moment.

The sparks that are racing all around me leave me feeling more confused than ever. Do I like this guy or do I hate him? I just don’t know. I keep flickering between decisions, and it’s driving me insane. All I know for sure is that I’m not supposed to be driven so wild by a kiss with a husband that I don’t even know.

Then he pulls back, and he stares into my eyes for a moment, and there are a million and one sensations flooding through me, and a ton of questions too, but I can’t do anything more than stand there and stare at him questioningly. There is all sorts of activity going on around us, but it’s all just background noise, it’s nothing more than a blur.

Where the hell do we go from here?

“Come on,” Enzo leans in and speaks quietly to me. “It’s time for the reception.” After which he starts to lead me away. That moment was actually kind of sweet, and it leaves my emotions even more conflicted. This is insane!