Page 1 of Forced Vows

Chapter 1: RÓISE

Facing the guillotine to my dreams, I wait with my uncle while Don De Luca's secretary opens one of the imposing double doors to his office.

A foot taller than normal doors and each of them at least six inches wider, the entry to the Italian mafia don's office screams power and wealth. Right along with the twelve-foot ceilings.

In Manhattan every inch of real estate is precious, including vertical space. Having an entire floor in their building with twelve-foot ceilings tells everyone who comes to meet the don that he can squander that space on aesthetics because unlike normal people, his access to square footage is virtually limitless.

His ridiculous wealth and far-reaching influence are why my uncle is so ready to sacrifice my future.

Some might think I'm being dramatic.

I'm not.

Every one of my dreams dies behind those doors when this blood alliance becomes a reality.

When my engagement to a member of the Cosa Nostra becomes official.

The low timber of masculine voices leaks out as the door opens.

One of the voices sounds familiar. I shake my head. It's not possible.

No way can he be here.

Then one of the men laughs darkly and the cold dread of certainty freezes me in place.

My first lesson in the cost of being part of a mob family came when I was nine years old. I loved to play dodge ball during recess. Until one day, a classmate filled one of the balls with water instead of air.

When it hit me dead in the center of my stomach, all the breath in my lungs gushed out in a gasp. Unable to yell, or even cry, I stood there as pain like I'd never felt radiated out from my stomach.

The classmate was the son of one of my grandfather's men. He was angry about something my grandfather had done to his father. The boss of the Shaughnessy Mob, my grandfather was untouchable.

I was the easy target.

It was the first time I hated being the granddaughter of the mob boss and part of a world where violence was the go-to solution for conflict. But it wasn't the last.

Furious when he found out what happened, my dad wanted to pull me from the private Catholic school where the other children of high-ranking members in the Irish mob went.

He and my grandfather argued for days, but eventually my dad won. That grade school was my first taste of life not overshadowed by my family's criminal world.

Two months ago, when I chose who to take as my first lover, I thought I'd had my last. But even that was tainted by my family's world.

Because the man I can't stop thinking about…the one who stars in my dreams night after night and my fantasies while I touch myself just as often…is in that room.

I went across the country and evaded my bodyguards so I could choose who to have sex with the first time. All to give my virginity to a freaking member of the New York Cosa Nostra?

There is no way this goes well.

Whoever it is will have leverage with my future husband. Like all syndicate men, he'll use it. And once again, I will pay the price because I am the easy target.

"Come on, Róise. This is no time to get up the high doh." My uncle grabs my arm and tugs me forward.

Who wouldn't be stressed under these circumstances?

Even if my one and only sex partner wasn't in the same room as my future fiancé, meeting said fiancé for the first time is enough to make anyone's nerves riot.

And not in the way Ares made my nerves riot that night two months ago.

There are three men waiting in the room, but my eyes lock on only one of them and refuse to move on.

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