“Noemi!” I whisper-shouted. “What are you doing?”
“Shhhhh.” She placed her hand over my mouth, and every bone in my body wanted to fight her off, but several sets of footsteps getting closer had me freezing.
I couldn’t make out anything they were saying, but we both stayed silent as the footsteps disappeared, a door closed, then engines turned on. Several seconds ticked by, but neither of us moved from our position.
“You can come out now, girls,” Ma said from the other side of the door.
Noemi let go of me, pushed the door open, and dragged me out with her. “What the hell was that?” she asked. “Why was he here?”
Ma’s gaze veered to me, then to my dad, who stood a couple of feet to the side. “Let’s go sit down.”
“Why?” I asked, following them because Noemi wasn’t giving me a choice with the strong grip she had on my arm.
“We need to talk,” my dad replied, his voice somber but also shaky.
Neither of them said another word as they sat on one of the sofas and signaled for me and Noemi to sit opposite them. We did as we were told, but when I pulled in a deep breath, the distinct smell of cologne overtook me—a cologne I recognized but couldn’t quite put my finger on where I knew it from.
Ma and Dad looked at each other, and with a nod of Dad’s head, he turned to face us. “You both know of the Beretta family, correct?” Noemi and I nodded because we did—everybody did. “Well, Luca Beretta died recently.” I blinked, trying to figure out where this was going. Why was this so important that Noemi had messaged me to come home right away? “Which means his son, Lorenzo, will be taking over.”
“Okay.” I shuffled to the edge of my seat and leaned my forearms on my thighs. The atmosphere was intense, promising something that I wasn’t sure I was ready for. “What does that have to do with us?”
“Well.” Ma cleared her throat. Her brows pulled down in concern—or was that fear? “Mr. Beretta—Lorenzo—needs several things before he can become boss.” Ma paused, and I stared at her, waiting for her to continue, but when she turned to face Dad, so did I.
“You remember him, right, Aida?” My gaze flicked around the room, trying to place who he was talking about, but I was still occupied with why the tension was so thick around us, and why this meant I had to come home, and why there were people in our apartment.
“Erm…”
“We made the delivery the other day. He was standing in the kitchen.”
My eyes widened, and I shuffled even farther onto the edge of my seat. “I…I remember him.” I inhaled another breath, smelling the distinctive cologne, and it was all I needed to remember standing in the kitchen across from the man covered in spatters of blood. “That was Lorenzo Beretta?”
“You’ve met him?” Noemi asked, her voice sounding far away.
“Yeah.” I stared at Ma, then Dad. “Why are you telling us this?”
“He…” Ma cleared her throat and shuffled on the seat. “He needs a wife before he can take over as boss.”
I blinked.
“And he wants you,” Dad finished for her.
At first, I wasn’t sure who he was talking to, but somewhere outside of my body, I knew he was looking at me. His dark eyes bore into mine, saying a thousand things silently.
“Me?” I pointed at my chest as I stood. My legs were wobbly. I felt like a baby giraffe trying to gain its footing, only I didn’t fall over on my first try. “He wants me to be his wife?” I laughed—the lose-control-of-your-body type of laugh. They were joking. They had to be.
I turned to face Noemi, expecting the same reaction from her, but it wasn’t there. She was staring down at the floor, her hair covering half of her face.
“Aida,” Ma said, standing up, and my laughs waned into somber gasps. “You don’t have to say yes. You have a choice.” She stepped toward me, but I moved to the side.
“A choice?” I raised my brows, my emotions all over the place. I wasn’t sure whether I was feeling anger or sadness or full-on rage, but whatever it was, it was taking over quickly and I didn’t know how to handle any of it. “Was he here?” Dad stood, so I moved my attention to him. “Was that who was here just now? The two SUVs outside?”
“Yes,” Dad said, his face not giving anything away now. He’d carefully schooled his features into an expression I hadn’t seen before. “If you say yes, the wedding will be in ten days.”
“I…I don’t believe this.” I threw my hands up in the air, trying to make sense of all of this. Ten days? He wanted me to become his wife in ten days? “He came here to ask if I’d be his wife and didn’t even have the decency to ask me?”
“It’s tradition to ask the family.” Ma stepped closer to me, only this time I didn’t move. I couldn’t process everything that was happening. I’d gone out on a date with Brad and come home to someone wanting me to be his wife. “As I said,” Ma continued, “you don’t have to say yes. You can—"
“What happens if I say no?” I waited, wondering what they would say. I wasn’t sheltered from the workings of the world. I knew we paid the Beretta family each month for protection of the store. There wasn’t a street in this city that wasn’t controlled by an organization, so where would we be if I said no?
I took several steps away from them, and by the time my back hit the doorframe, all three of them were standing, watching me with wide eyes. “I…I can’t deal with this.” I felt behind me and held on to the wall, feeling like if I didn’t, I’d fall down in front of them. “I have an assignment to do.”
I didn’t say another word as I spun around and darted to the room I shared with Noemi and Vida.
I hadn’t lied. I did have an assignment, but there was no way I would be able to concentrate. We’d all grown up listening to the horror stories of the Beretta family, and there was one rule we all lived by: don’t cross them.
Would me saying no be crossing them?
Ma said I had a choice, but I knew I didn’t.
LORENZO
I grabbed the back of her neck, needing something to hold on to for traction as I pounded into her, unrelenting in my rhythm. She squealed but soon followed it up with a groan. They were all the same—the women who sated my needs. They didn’t think twice about what I was going to do, and once I was done with them, they knew to leave. I wasn’t going to entertain them. I wasn’t going to give them hope. I knew who I was, and so did they.
I ground my teeth together and thrust deep inside her again, feeling my anger building with each movement of my hips.
Two days.
It had been two days since I’d gone to the other side of town and met with Aida’s parents, and I hadn’t heard a thing from them since. Why was it taking so long? What did they have to think about so seriously?
I’d made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. Not only would their daughter be taken care of financially, but they’d have even more protection by being part of the family. Oh, and of course, a big payout would come their way too.
So, the question remained: what the fuck was taking so long?