Chapter 0002

MARIELLA

Every step was like a pin pricking at the sole of my stilettos, my feet heavy with anxiety and a bit of anticipation. The sound from the main hall had my heart drubbing at an infuriating rate; a pace I never knew was possible.

The closest I had seen Adonis Vitale was a few months ago at a party my father had thrown for the success of one of his own. He had so polite with my nonna and to us. That was before he’d learnt of my name. After that, he’d just left as if I was a ghost haunting him. The look in his eyes that day was clear aversion. To me. To the thought of my marriage to him.

Now, I was expected to look at his face and be thankful for his generous hand in my marriage to someone else.

I hid beside the broad doorway and touched my chest over my dress. My mind calculated various possibilities of things that would happen when I walked in. They would all stare at me, which wasn’t even a prediction. It was absolute.

Some would whisper behind my back and talk about how I’d been rejected by the capo. Some would talk about how lucky I was to have my hand accepted in marriage, despite being rejected by the capo. Everything would come down to Adonis Vitale and all of it would equally crush me.

Arabella looked at me from the foot of the stairs and rolled her eyes. She didn’t understand what I was going through, and I didn’t expect her to. All I wanted was not to be judged, which would nearly be impossible from now on.

“You know you have to go in, right?” she asked, and I gave a blunt nod. “Come on. You have me by your side. Don’t worry about others.”

“They’ll all make fun of how things went down. The man I was supposed to marry is inside with his wife and daughter. I can’t do this.”

Arabella groaned. She was irritated by my nagging. “Do you know what they’ll talk about if you don’t show up? That you’ve run away, or that Papa hasn’t raised us right. Or that you have a lover and whatnot. These wouldn’t be true, but that wouldn’t stop anyone from assuming.”

I took a deep breath, and as soon as she reached the end of the stairs, I wrapped my hand around her arm. Mostly, to keep me steady. “You’re right. Better let people talk about Adonis Vitale than a supposed lover who doesn’t exist.”

Arabella raised a brow but didn’t speak. She clasped a hand over my cold ones and walked me into the room. The sudden lights blinded me and I squinted, slowly registering the view. This party room was the size of three master bedrooms combined, reserved especially for Papa’s parties. French-styled windows, printed wallpapers, intrinsic carpets over the hardwood, the chandeliers—everything about the room screamed fancy.

When Arabella had said ‘fewer people’, I thought of a handful of twenty. But there had to be at least seventy people in the room, their eyes momentarily brushing my presence before returning to chattering.

I feared scanning the place; afraid I might catch sight of Adonis Vitale and wouldn’t be able to look away. Many women, even married ones, fancied him and not without reason. He had charms and the looks to add to that, even though people received coldness from him. Being the capo had restricted him from showing any signs of affections, I believed.

Arabella dragged me to the table Mama was at and pushed me into a seat.

Mama squealed. “Be gentle with her. People are watching.”

“I would be gentle with her if she wasn’t so stiff,” Arabella spat back. “She was too scared to even cross the threshold.”

Mama held my hand over my knees and soothed, “This happens to everyone. I remember when your papa came to see me.”

“Not again,” Arabella grunted under her breath, which earned her a disappointing look from Mama.

But Mama went on, “He was the tallest man in the room and the one with the grumpiest look as well. Before marriage, I thought I was marrying a tool.” Arabella chuckled, but my lips were too tight to force a smile. “But you know your papa. He can be funny at times.”

“And absolutely adorable while arguing with you,” I said, finally feeling a bit at ease in my nerves.

“That,” Mama said, suppressing her laughter. “From what I hear, Eros Castellanos is a charming man.”

“How old is he, exactly?” Arabella asked before I could.

“Twenty-eight. Ten years older than Mariella,” Mama said as if it was any good.

“He’s a man already, but look at Mariella. She doesn't even know how to kiss.”

Mine and Mama’s eyes widened, and we both shushed her. Mama ignored Arabella and turned to me, her eyes soft with love. She worried about me more than Papa did, but she couldn’t help me. Couldn’t stop this marriage even if she wanted to.

“He’s very handsome and is an underboss, like your father. To add to that, he has a good relationship with the capo. He—”

“Why have I not seen him? Or heard of him that much? It’s like he just came out of nowhere.” Arabella said intervening, which made me curious as well.

It was true that Eros Castellanos was a new name, yet Papa had told me he had been an underboss for seven years. Everything about Eros Castellanos was a mystery. Marriage to me was for his initiation. So there was another question to ask. How had he been an underboss without an initiation? Without a wife?

Even Adonis had a wife. Everyone believed he had cheated by not marrying as a tradition before being crowned the position. But the main reason was that his crowning was sudden, and he didn’t have the chance to choose a woman. Now it had come to light that he had married shortly after his crowning.

Eros, however, became the underboss of Manhattan without a proper initiation or a branding or a wife, when every born or crowned made man of higher positions had to go through these.

“He’s a secretive man like the capo,” Mama explained, keeping a low voice.

I gritted. “It would’ve been better if he had a secret wife too, like the capo.”

Papa appeared beside Mama’s chair and gave me a shaky smile. Leaning into Mama’s ears, he whispered something and then left. I wished he would’ve at least asked me how I was and I would’ve told him the truth. I didn’t want to go through with this marriage.

“You come with me,” Mama said to Arabella, and I straightened. “We need to greet the guests at the door.”

“Can I come too?” I panicked, but Mama shook her head.

“You need to sit here and smile. Talk to whoever comes to check on you.”

“I’m sure no one would realise I’m missing from the venue.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mama chided, and I slumped in my chair. “Stay here and smile.”

I watched as both my mother and sister disappeared through the door. My nerves danced like a ticking bomb while I tried to gather myself. If anyone walked up to me and asked me about my wedding, I would start screaming at the top of my lungs.

My eyes fell on Mama’s glass of wine and I regarded whether to chug it down. I doubted I could meet anyone’s eyes without taking some bit of alcohol.

“Here you go,” a voice said and a glass of wine was held before my face.

I twisted my head to see who this voice belonged to, only to catch a pair of blue eyes staring back at me. Tension spread through my body, even though my body alerted me to stay calm. I had never seen this woman, but I had to say, she was beyond what I knew as beautiful. Sharp eyes and chiselled nose, plump lips and a perfect slender figure.

I took the glass from her and she sat down on Arabella’s seat with a leg crossed over the other. “You were all alone, so I thought of giving you some company,” she said, her voice filled with power.

It didn’t take me much time to guess who she was, and I asked, “You’re the capo’s wife?”

She nodded with a humble smile. “Isobel Vitale.”

“Mariella Romano.”

“I know.” Looking around the room, she mused, “I’m not sure if anyone here seems to like me.”

“You’re the capo’s wife. They’re all afraid of you.”

“Afraid of me? Why?”

“Because you’re the capo’s wife,” I said with a raised brow and she chuckled. No wonder Adonis Vitale—the man no one could tame—was fascinated with this woman. “They’re all afraid of spewing nonsense, which is normally all they talk about.”

“At this point, I’d accept nonsense. Anything's better than being ignored.”

“No, it’s not. Trust me. It’s much better if they just forget you exist and go on with their day.” She stared at me with an uncertain look in her eyes and I quickly said, “I’m not trying to be rude or anything.”

“You’re not happy about this marriage, are you?” she asked, but it looked from her face that she already knew the answer. She sighed. “I know the feeling of being bartered away for anything less than happiness or love. But we can’t change traditions overnight.”

“You found love, didn’t you?”

“It takes a lot of time. I was lucky, but if circumstances were different, I would’ve been someone else’s, and I don’t know what would’ve happened then.” She looked down at the glass in my hand and added, “But you have nothing to worry about. Eros will keep you happy. He can be an adamant moron sometimes, but he’s a good man.”

I snorted, “A good man?”

“Better than any man you’d find in our world,” she corrected. “Good thing. He balances his life inside and outside of this circle, so technically, he’s a Mafioso, but he’s not.”

I didn’t understand a single word she said, but I refrained from questioning. What would she have thought if I told her I knew nothing about the man I’d get engaged to today? No one had bothered to tell me, and truthfully, I hadn’t shown an ounce of interest in knowing either.

“There you are.”

My heart almost leapt out of my chest at the sound of Adonis’s voice, and I froze in my seat. Isobel’s eyes drifted past me and a small, loving smile tugged at her lips. That was a sign that Adonis Vitale wasn’t as cruel to his wife, or at all, as he was to others.

Adonis stood beside his wife’s chair and looked down at me. I refused to meet his eyes and tried to hold my composure with confidence, but it was nearly impossible against the cold air shrouding us in his presence. Isobel seemed to be unaffected by it, though.

They truly were a match made in heaven.

“Where is he?” Isobel asked, turning her head toward her husband, who gave a brusque nod in return. “This man needs to be serious, given the circumstances of his situation. I don’t know when he’ll understand.”

Adonis shook his head. “I would tell you his plans if he hadn’t dodged my calls like the entitled prick he is.”

The way they both talked about him seemed like they knew him too closely. Adonis didn’t seem like a cold capo while talking about Eros, but more like an angry father, which made me question the value of Eros and Adonis’s relationship. It was clear now that Adonis was the reason Eros had been free of the traditions of our mob world. But why had Adonis given him a free pass?

“Oh,” Isobel’s sharp cry pulled my attention, and she pointed at the door. “He’s here.”

Adonis’s jaw twitched, and he paced toward the door, anger quite evident in his eyes. Maybe he wasn’t as lenient with Eros as I had thought.

Suddenly, my breath hitched in my throat as I noticed the man Adonis had stopped before. His height was just as tall as Adonis, and his shoulders were just as broad. The stubble that covered the line of his jaw and chin didn’t hide the sharpness, and the suit had just intensified his fierce handsomeness.

But the most attractive thing about him had to be his eyes. I had never seen eyes as vibrantly blue as his.

This was Eros Castellanos, my fiancé.