Page 31 of Mafia King's Surprise Baby

I hadn’t really bothered to learn more about him before. Our wedding was a done deal, so I had no way out, whether I wanted to or not. It didn’t matter how he lived his life if I was stuck with him either way.

But today, Leo, and then my father, forced me to think deeper about what’s going on. There must be more than meets the eye here, and I have to find out.

Good thing I know someone who can help. All sorts frequent the Sorbonne, from the straight-laced to the straight-up deranged. Benji Castiel is one of those. We’re friends, though; I was even his beard for a while. So he owes me, though I’m sure he’d help me just for the fun of it. He loves to test out his hacker chops.

I pull my laptop and fire off an email to Benji, asking him to find all he can about my secretive fiancé. Maybe this will bring me some peace of mind, or better yet, leverage to worm my way out of this alliance.

***

Benji comes through a week later. I’ve thrown myself into meetings with the wedding planner in the meantime—it keeps my father off my back, my fiancé is recalcitrant to get involved so I dodge him, too, and it forces my thoughts and my path away from Leo.

I sit down at the small desk in my bedroom and open the email, frowning as I read along. When I’m done with his missive, my heart is hammering.

What does he mean by ‘open at your peril’ on the four sets of fileshe’s sent me in increasing number of importance?

What the hell is Ardian Abrashi up to that a seasoned hacker and dark web spider is telling me to be careful and think twice before looking through?

I hitch in a breath. Is there hope for me in there? A way to break the marriage contract?

Steeling myself, I open the first folder.

Pictures pop up, and I gasp.

Selfies of Ardian with a pretty blond woman, his arm around her, a small smile on his face while she grins widely into the lens. A file in the folder states she’s twenty-five, a kindergarten teacher in Brooklyn. I check the metadata on the selfies—the latest one is from last week.

I gasp out in shock. Ardian isn’t single. From the looks of things, he’s in love with this woman, is in a relationship with her as at last Friday, a day before he met me for our ‘date’ in Manhattan.

No wonder he’s always busy. He’s got another life with someone else out there.

This changes everything. When I thought I was marrying someone coming into this partnership on the same terms, I could stomach it. Now, I’d be the other woman, even though I’d legally be his wife. I can’t do this to another woman!

My cursor hovers over the next file. Maybe there’s more of the same ilk in there? I’ll need all the ammunition I can get to take this to my father, to get him to break this contract.

I click on the second file, and my heart almost stops. Pictures,most of them. Of women in various forms of bondage. But always with a gag in their mouths, mascara running down their pale cheeks.

I don’t know why I open the third file. More pictures, and these look like torture sex. There are compressed video files, too. I open one of them, and I freeze as I watch the short clip, bile rising in my throat. A woman is gagged and tied to an X-shaped cross. A man in a balaclava pushes an open champagne bottle into her vagina; it’s obvious she’s in pain. Then he takes a hammer and breaks the bottle, and the psycho then fucks her with the neck of the bottle that’s still inside her. The broken edges on the other end slice her inner thighs open, there’s blood running down her legs, and—

I slam the laptop closed and vomit in the paper basket next to my desk.

Lord in Heaven! What sort of man am I about to marry?

I can’t do this. I can’t go ahead with this marriage. If this is Ardian’s tastes, I don’t see him playing them out with the sweet-looking kindergarten teacher, though this might be her jam, I don’t know. But if not with her, the woman he seems to love, why not with the woman legally his, his wife?

I used to think letting him touch me would be hell, but this? This would be literally an encounter with the devil. One he might revisit on me every day for the rest of our lives…

I’m out of my chair in a flash, requesting an Uber on my phone. The closest one can be here in twenty minutes; I can’t wait this long. Mattia’s house is three blocks away. I can walk there in as much time.

I hotfoot it to his house, breathe out a sigh of relief when I see his Cadillac in the driveway. I’m already punching in the door code when I remember to ring the doorbell—wouldn’t want to walk in on anything happening between those two. Hana told me they’re trying for a baby in earnest.

“Bianca, what’s wrong?” Hana’s on me the second I make it in. “You’re pale as a ghost.”

“Where’s Mattia?” I croak.

“In the kitchen. Why?” Her hand, which was rubbing my back, pauses. “Did someone hurt you?”

The tears I’ve been trying to keep at bay surge through, and I’m blubbering like a fool as she wraps her arms around me.

“What happened?” Mattia asks as he rushes to me. “Who did this to you?”

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