Page 11 of Stone

Her question has my heart skipping a beat, causing me to suck in a sharp breath in order to breathe once again. I shake my head, and tendrils of hair fall from my loose bun.

I swallow past the lump in my throat. “Not yet. He’s been difficult.” I wince.

She wrinkles her nose. “Difficult how?”

Blowing out a deep breath, I say, “Apparently, he doesn’t want an arranged marriage either.” I lift a shoulder. “My family wants the connection to his business, and his family wants that too.”

“Dumbass. Anyone would be lucky to marry you,” she quips, and I chuckle.

As soon as my laugh dies down, her words stir up emotion I try to tamp down. “Maybe his heart is somewhere else.”

I shrug, and she stares back at me as if seeing every truth I keep hidden inside.

“You’re doomed.” She points her pen at me.

“Thanks.” I roll my eyes. I’m pleased she turned the conversation into something lighter so the heavy weight of emotion can’t creep out.

“Sienna.” Czar’s sharp voice cuts through the room, and I snap my head up to find him staring at Evelyn with a promising gleam in his eyes. The atmosphere turns icy in those split moments as they stare at one another. Then he licks his lips like a predator, and I want to throat-punch him for looking at her like a piece of meat.

“What do you want, Czar?” I snap, and he slowly turns his head to face me. The warning behind his gaze has meswallowing. “I’m sorry.” I clear my throat, aware I overstepped, and plaster on a sweet smile. “Did you want me for something?”

Evelyn doesn’t pay attention to our exchange; wise girl. Instead, she keeps her head down and continues to write in her notebook like we don’t exist.

“Father’s moving the wedding forward.”

His glare holds me in place as my throat becomes dry and my hands tighten into fists on the counter.

My tongue thickens and a bead of sweat trickles down my spine. “When?”

“At the end of the month.”

My blood flow becomes rapid, and flurries of butterflies and nervousness take flight in my stomach. My planned future is rushing closer than ever before, and I want nothing more than to protest. To scream and cry and demand a life of my choosing. A man of my choosing. But it’s pointless. My family would never allow it, and the man I want is the man I can’t have.

I’m being forced into an arranged marriage based on another family’s wealth. A family I know nothing about and have never met. All I know is, Azrael has been dealing with this agreement and my time is finally ending. At almost twenty-one, I should have been married off, but some hold up on my fiancé’s part restricted the possibility.

The thought of another man becoming my first of everything makes sickness well inside me, and a whimper leaves my lips as it threatens to boil over.

What if this man is old? My mind goes to Stone; he’s only a few years older than me at almost twenty-four, and I thank my lucky stars that he hasn’t been put in a position where he has to marry someone of our father’s choosing, but that would mean acknowledging him as a son and not a bastard child. Besides, he has mine and Czar’s marriages lined up.

“I think it’s best if this is kept between us,” Czar says, yet it sounds hazy to my ears, like a white noise in the background of the buzzing in my head. “Father doesn’t know I’m giving you the heads-up.” Of course he doesn’t. He’d be livid if he knew Czar spoke so willingly about business in front of me, in front of Evelyn too. Then my eyes dart to hers.

“She won’t say a thing.” Czar stares at me with confidence, and I know there’s more to his statement than what meets the eye. When I glance at her again, I don’t miss the way her cheeks burn as she attempts to bury her head into her schoolwork.

He shouldn’t be messing around with a nice, innocent schoolgirl like Evelyn. She has a future outside of this, and he has a future mapped out for him, just as I do.

Still, I bite my tongue, knowing my place as a perfect Mafia princess, and tell him what he wants to hear.

“Understood.”

Nodding, he turns on his heel to leave the kitchen.

He knows I would never tell Stone about the marriage. Why would I want to break his heart and mine in the process?

I’ll protect him, always.

But I can’t help the fear that creeps up my spine at the thought of how he will react when he finds out. It will destroy him, and that feeling is worse than anything else.

Chapter Seven

---