“If you call my sister a whore one more time, I will hunt you down and put your head on a pike,” I grind out, even though I know I shouldn’t be talking back. But how can I ever describe the rage that I feel at hearing my beloved sister reduced to a pejorative expletive with no truth to it? Queenie was loving, and she didn’t share herself with just any man. Kian must’ve been special.
Giulia cracks me across the face and, for the second time in as many weeks, I taste blood.
“Come to heel, pet. Or I’ll break you like I break my horses.”
I put my hand to my cheek, closing my eyes against the overwhelming rage inside of me, a fire that burns so brightly it could blot out the sun. Cat said something to me like that once. “You know, all horses can be broken, Gidge.”
Like I said before, I’m a bear. A predator who hunts alone. You go ahead and try, bitch. I’ve been challenged by greater minds than you.
I say nothing as Giulia walks away, letting my stinging cheek remind me of what I already know: I’m not safe here. I’m not safe anywhere. I have to carve out space for myself.
The next day, Grey and I are invited to the shooting range. I’m given a revolver with a single round in the cylinder. I lift my eyes up to look at Ivan Wolfe, his thin, slick exterior a couth blotch against the surrounding hedges and the rolling hills of pine behind him.
“Is this a warning or a privilege?” I ask dryly, turning and lifting the revolver up in both hands. I could shoot Ivan with this gun, but what good would that do me? Instead, I fire off the shot and hit the bull’s-eye dead center as Grey raises a brow in surprise. With a flick of the wrist, I open the cylinder and hold the gun out. Ivan smiles as he studies me, nodding his chin in response to my silent question and watching as one of his goons moves forward and puts another round in for me.
I snap the cylinder closed and move over to a person-shaped bull’s-eye beside the circular one. This time, when I fire, I hit the pretend figure right in the head and fantasize that it’s Giulia Wolfe.
“You’re good at this,” Grey muses, grabbing a gun from another one of the ridiculous mafia goons and taking a few shots of his own. I notice that he’s given a full cylinder. Interesting. So I’m the bigger threat here? Not bad for some backwoods biker bitch, am I right?
“I’m a club daughter,” I say with a snort, opening the cylinder yet again and waiting for another round to be placed in it. “I got my first gun when I was six.” I nail the next shot and then sigh. It’s just not as fun this way. And I have a feeling that Grey is the only one who’s impressed by my shooting. Ivan’s just checking to see where I’m at, if I’m willing to lie about my skills for a chance at escape. If I were to act as if I didn’t know what I was doing, things wouldn’t go well for me.
The Grey Wolfe Mafia will never trust me, no matter how well I toe the line, but I need them to believe that I’ve been cornered and chained, that I’m an animal who’s smart enough to wait for the hunter to free them from the trap and put them in the cage … rather than one who’d chew its own leg off to escape.
“The wedding is next week,” Grey reminds me, and I glance over to see him with the gun pointing at the target, but his eyes on me. “Are you going to behave?”
He fires off several shots. I wait until he’s done to put my bullet right in the center of his, and he frowns.
“What choice do I have, Grey?” I query, tossing the gun to one of the goons and heading inside to try on my dress.
It’s a day that many girls fantasize about.
It’ll be the start to a new nightmare for me.
Typical.
I’d have rather married one of my father’s dickhead officers.
I hate how much that sentiment appeals to me.
I don’t see much of the Don in the weeks leading up to the wedding, but I’m inundated with Giulia’s presence. She brings me white lingerie and makes me try it on for her under the pretense of selecting the very best for her only surviving son. In reality, I’m certain it’s an exercise in humility for me. A humbling, if you will.
“Those scars …” Giulia tsks, looking at my rippled and ruined legs. “You’re lucky Grey is a man of heart. This body …” She sighs again, walking a circle around me while I stand there in a white teddy and stripper heels.
In order to control my temper, I’ve sent a good portion of my psyche into the clouds. I’m experiencing a level of depersonalization disorder that’s never happened to me before, like my body isn’t really mine, like I’m not really here at all. I’m just an observer, watching it all from on high. Or down below, drenched in hellfire. That seems more appropriate.
“I’m hotter than you’ve ever been—scars and all,” I murmur, but Giulia just laughs at me, snapping her fingers to call her servant girls forward. In their hands, they have the dress.
It’s a hideous, gaudy thing, but undeniably expensive. That, and it weighs about a million pounds. I’ve worn it a handful of times during fittings, but tomorrow, I’ll be wearing it for real.
Walking down an aisle.
Getting married.
As far as grooms go, there are worse ones. Grey is a good man, and every day that I get to know him better, I know that I made the right choice in saving his life.
That being said, I’m not happy about any of this.
The servants slip the dress over my head, adjusting the long sleeves, rearranging the train, and draping the lace veil over my face. Giulia makes a few tweaks here and there, selecting several pairs of shoes that are slipped onto my feet, examined, and then rejected. I’m draped with diamonds, primped and prettied up for the mafia to gawk at like a sideshow freak.
“This will have to do,” Giulia muses with a sigh, studying me with a distasteful expression on her hideous face. The more I look at her, the more I think she looks like a witch, one with a candy cottage who bakes and eats babies. Fuck you, you stupid bitch. I’m going to rip you apart, first chance I get. If I have to marry your son and play mafia wife just to get a chance to kill you, then you best bet your fake tits, that’s what I’m going to do. “Can’t put lipstick on a pig.” She turns back to her servants and gestures for them to undo all the work they’ve just done, removing the dress, the jewels. When they go to take the lingerie, I slap their hands away and give a little curl of my lip. “Gidget, don’t be a beast.”
I unhook the clasps on the teddy and shove it down myself, tearing the garter belt off, kicking off the heels, and chucking the items into a heap on the floor. “You’re being waxed after this,” Giulia tells me on her way out the door.
That gives me pause.
“Excuse the fuck out of me?” I ask, standing there naked and quivering. There’s so much heat and hate inside of me, I don’t know what to do with it all. What would Beast say? I think, imagining his quiet stoicism, the way I beat on his chest and he simply stood there and took it. He’d wait. He’d bottle it all up and unleash it at the most opportune moment.
“You look like a yeti,” Giulia says, giving my cunt a dirty look, as if it’s something distasteful to be tolerated. “My son deserves better. You’re getting waxed.” She continues out the door, letting it slam shut behind her.