Page 56 of Forced Vows

I've been busy overseeing an investigation into one of our older capos. Lorenzo Ricci is dirty, but I have to prove it before we can kill him.

I also had to fly to Portland to finalize details on a deal we're brokering between the Hades Brotherhood and one of our allies.

None of that is the reason I haven't texted Róise. After I texted her the first time and she figured out who it was, the harridan blocked my number.

Anything I want to say to her, I have to say through my own people. Because they might as well be good for more than ruining my life.

Her words, not mine.

Róise makes no secret of her antipathy toward our upcoming marriage, but she's going to have to come to terms with it. The contracts are signed and our copy is stored in the secret document safe room between Sev and Catalina's offices in the family penthouse.

The building could take a hit from one of those RPGs and it wouldn't destroy that room.

The marriage is happening.

But right now, my secret fiancée is pretending I don't exist. Not that Allessio and Zoey let me forget about Róise for a single minute.

One or the other sends me a picture of Róise's outfit before they leave the house. Not that they listen when I tell them to get her to change. All of her clothes seem to expose her midriff and every fucking outfit has some pink in it.

There's a message there. And it's not the fuck you, Miceli she intends it to be. Maybe it is, because every youthful outfit reminds me of the more than a decade between us. Of the virgin blood smearing my cock that night in Portland.

Because she wanted one night being a normal woman who got to choose who she gave her virginity to. And she did not want that man to be the mafia underboss she would have to marry.

She did not want it to be me.

She wasn't turning me down in Portland though, was she?

When she thought I was Ares, her god of war. And she was my Aphrodite, a woman I believed to be experienced.

I hope Fate got her laugh out of playing that joke on me.

"She loves pink," Catalina's words bust into my thoughts. "Trust me."

"She was wearing black when I met her." Once to seduce and once to sign our prenuptial contract.

Dressed for a funeral.

Catalina's brows draw together in confusion. "Really? She's always got something pink on when I see her."

"You might want to have a little chat with her about that." Mamma looks around the party décor with none of Catalina's enthusiasm. "It's one thing to have a signature color and another for it to be…"

This isn't about the color pink and we both know it. When we told my mother and Catalina about the planned alliance, mamma was appalled.

That's when I learned that forty years ago, her older brother was killed during a war over territory with the Irish mob. She has more in common with Róise than she knows.

Grandfather negotiated the current truce six months later. Too late for the uncle I never got to meet.

Mamma does not trust the Irish. Róise despises the Italian mafia. It's a match made in mafia war heaven.

If we want to stop the blood spilling every generation, this marriage alliance has to happen. Mamma knows it too.

"Lots of people like pink." I'm not one of them, but it's not my birthday party.

"She's not going to damage Miceli's rep by wearing pink," Catalina, who is decked out in lime green and yellow, gently chides mamma.

My mother smiles affectionately at the daughter-in-law she adores every bit as much as she does her own daughter. "If you say so, cara."

What are Róise's chances for the same affection? Zero to nil.

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