Page 14 of Koroleva

"Is this some kind of joke? Because it's not fucking funny," I growled.

"That mouth..." he scolded, clicking his tongue.

"Where's your boss? Did he send you here so I could make a fool of myself? Is that why Capuleto agreed? So that I'd marry a drug dealer instead of his son? Is this some kind of twisted revenge?" I said through clenched teeth.

"No, darling, the only son of Massimo Capuleto here is me, and soon I'll be your husband."

"You can't be my husband!"

"Why? Because you came like a bitch on my mouth, my hands, and my crotch last night? Because you thought you were screwing one of my workers instead of me?" A slight cough warned us that we were not alone and that the priest had turned beet red. I felt heat climbing up my face. "Scusa, padre," apologized that fool.

A thousand thoughts crossed my mind, but one… one took the cake.

"Tell me something. Did you know it was me?" He offered me a despotic smile.

"From the moment you walked through the door."

I wanted to scratch him, spit in his face, shove the damn bouquet up his ass, and wipe that cynical smile off his face with a bite that would tear out his tongue. How could he let me believe it wasn't him and do all that he did last night?

"So, what's it going to be, Koroleva?" he dragged my last name across his tongue. "Are you leaving or staying?" Neither he nor anyone else was going to ruin my plans, no matter how much of a bastard he was.

I offered him a venomous, cynical smile.

"I can't wait to give you the 'I do,' Capulleto," I stressed the 'L', making sure he noticed that I purposefully mispronounced his name, turning it into an insult.

He looked at me defiantly before turning to the priest and nodding.

The ceremony continued.

7

Don’t yank my chain

When I saw her cross the threshold of the bar last night, I couldn't believe it.

I was playing a game with my men when she appeared. Her. My future wife. Yuri's sister. The same one who had refused to dine with my father and me that night.

I gripped the cue tightly in my hands; I wasn't going to go after her, I wanted to observe her and understand what she was doing there. So, instead of approaching Nikita, I waited for her to come to me.

I was convinced that she was already bored with her private bachelorette party and had come to the bar to meet the man she was going to marry.

What I didn't expect was that, as I found out later, she had no fucking idea who I was and that her intention of visiting my haunt, my den, was to sleep with any of my guys the night before our wedding.

If she had achieved her goal, I would have become the laughingstock of the Angeli dall'inferno, and I was not going to tolerate it.

There was no love between us, that was undeniable, but I expected a minimum of respect from her part and I was going to teach her that I was not a puppet for her to do with as she pleased. No matter if she was Yuri’s sister.

Perhaps my physique had misled her.

I was always told I didn’t look like a "businessman"more like someone who ran a bar, played in a band, or dealt coke.

My father hated the ink covering my body, the hoops in my ears, and the piercing that punctured the right wing of my nose. He said it wasn’t serious. But he also knew there was nothing he could do about it. It was my choice, my personal decision, and my own style.

We were no longer in the era where gangsters wore a tilted fedora on their heads, donned pinstripe suits, and decorated their face with a fine mustache on their upper lip.

Fashion had changed and it no longer mattered that I looked more like a biker than the son of the most dangerous capo of the Calabrian mafia. My way of dressing allowed me to infiltrate effortlessly among the underworld, making them feel more comfortable than if I wore a suit and tie. I saved those for serious meetings.

I considered myself a motorcycle enthusiast; I had been fascinated by them since I was a child. They were my hobby, my passion. In fact, I had a wide collection with several highly valued models. If I hadn't been the son of Massimo Capuleto, I surely would have dedicated myself to mechanics, or owned a dealership for enthusiasts like me.

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