Page 16 of The Forbidden Husband

And damn it, a part of me hated that she didn’t rise up to challenge me like she had wanted to.

“Did you plan on marrying for love?” I asked.

“Don’t we all?” She stopped and corrected herself. “Everyone other than you, of course.”

“Not in this business, we don’t.”

“Why do you assume I planned on staying in this business?” she asked, tilting her head.

“You’re here, aren’t you?”

She didn’t reply immediately, and the hesitation had me looking deeper into her expression. Sadness and regret lay there, but she shook them off and shrugged. “I guess I am.”

“Why?”

“Why what?” she asked.

“Why are you here if you didn’t plan on staying in this business?”

Again, hesitation. “Enzo, I think there are a lot of off-limit topics about our pasts. Your commitment issues. My career aspirations. I’m sure we’ll add more to the list.”

I could have left it at that. I didn’t need to know anything about her, and I never planned on sharing more about myself than what she could see on the surface. Aria wasn’t going to be my friend or companion. She’d be the woman responsible for holding our families together, and that was it.

But I couldn’t help myself.

With her this close, I could never help myself from spewing utter bullshit. Adding alcohol into the mix… well, that wasn’t my brightest idea.

“You did plan on leaving. What were you going to do?”

She only shook her head and leaned back, shifting her attention to where people danced to the slower instrumental music from live musicians that played on the patio. “It doesn’t matter,” she said on an exhale. She lifted her glass. “We’re here now. Cheers to that.”

“Tell me something real about you, Aria. Something that’s not off limits.”

She considered my question and pursed her lips. “I have a photographic memory.”

I blinked.

“That’s not possible.”

She nodded and pointed to her head. “Everything I have ever seen or heard is right up here, ripe for the picking. My younger sister Noemi learned how to code before she got really good with computers, and she’d have me memorize her long lines of code to recite back.”

“Noemi?” I asked, my attention catching on the name for some reason.

“Yeah. She’s the second oldest.”

I had never met her siblings, but I knew their names. Evelina and Livia were the youngest, and Noemi…

My eyes widened with realization.

“Don’t look at me like that. She’s still my sister.”

But shewasn’tjust Aria’s sister. She was on our kill list. There were reports from everywhere about her involvement with the Russians. Alonzo claimed she was kidnapped, but we had seen her walking freely at the side of Anton Petrov, the Russian mob boss responsible for my parents’ deaths.

Alonzo had been responsible for apprehending my parents’ killer, and he had given no further information. He claimed it was a hitman from Anton Petrov himself, but other people reported a betrayal among the Russian’s inner circle. A betrayal that led to their deaths.

Aria watched me, waiting for a response I wouldn’t give.

The conflict had nothing to do with her, especially since her sister was on our “capture and kill” list.

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