Page 4 of Forced Vows

My too accommodating and vulnerable younger cousin.

Uncle Brogan says a clean bill of health is necessary for my part as temporary guarantor of the blood alliance he is negotiating with the Genovese mafia.

Considering the fact that I had to negotiate to be on birth control for the first two years of marriage, the request didn't surprise me. I'm only twenty years old and I'm not ready to be a mother.

Besides, I've got another year and a half of my Bachelor in Fine Arts program before I graduate. I had to make finishing my education a nonnegotiable item too. With my uncle!

I haven't spoken to a single Cosa Nostra soldier.

These mafia men see marriage as a business transaction.

You don't sign a business contract without knowing the other company is able to fulfill its commitments. In my case, that means carrying a De Luca heir, the permanent guarantor of the alliance between the Genovese mafia and the Shaughnessy mob.

For the right to wait two years to get pregnant and finish my education, I agreed to the exam and signed my consent to the genetic tests. I didn't agree to having my virginity confirmed.

They don't have any right to that information, much less to expect me to be untouched sexually. This blood alliance might be right out of a chapter in history when women were treated like possessions, but I'm not.

Love for my cousin might force me to marry a man chosen for me by my uncle, but I don't have to go into the marriage with a submissive attitude. I'm not sure I've even got one of those in my acting repertoire.

No matter what the men in my family and the Genovese mafia might think, I am my own person.

All of my choices are being taken away though. There's one left I just realized I won't let them take: who I give my virginity to.

I'm not engaged yet.

For cripe's sake, I don't even know the name of my intended groom. I doubt my uncle does either. All I'm sure of is that he'll be a high ranking De Luca in the Genovese mafia. That's what Uncle Brogan says, anyway.

Which means I'm not betraying anybody by having sex for the first time before I enter into the bondage of matrimony.

How do I have sex before my groom is chosen and the engagement becomes official?

I could ask a friend to help me out, but afterward, would I ever be able to look my friend in the face? Not that I have a bunch of male friends. But the few I do have are only friends.

Okay, friends are out.

Uncle Brogan has some hot guys on his payroll, but I'm not looking to get anyone killed. And my uncle will murder any man who works for him that touches a woman in his family.

Right. No bodyguards or other mob soldiers.

Using a dating app leaves a trail I don't have the skill to erase. So, that's out too.

There's only one option I can see: a one-night stand with a stranger at a club, or something. Somewhere and someone not connected to the Irish mob in any way.

A one-night stand isn't exactly fairytale fodder, but neither is an arranged marriage to create an alliance between two criminal syndicates.

And sex with a stranger is better than losing one more decision to the machine of two syndicates aligning.

Chapter 3: MICELI

The thump of the bass beat from the club's speakers reverberates through my body, going straight to my cock. Beautiful women writhe sinuously on the dance floor, a buffet for my senses and my neglected libido.

Some are partnered. Some are not.

A few have definite potential for tearing up the sheets with me in my hotel room later.

I'm celebrating, even if I have one more job to do before returning to New York.

The operation in Colombia went smoothly. It was a good call for Sev to send me to Colombia with Cian Doyle's man to oversee the destruction of the Guiterrez cartel.

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