Page 54 of Corrupted Heir (Mafia Kings: Corrupted 1)

“Yes, Fallon. He’s dead.”

I should have yelled at him, berated him, something to tell him what I thought of the vile thing he’d done, but words eluded me. I couldn’t find them because, in truth, I didn’t know how I felt about what he’d done. He’d murdered a man, and now he stood in his kitchen, covered in blood, without any remorse. It was wrong, and yet, he’d killed the man who had no regard for my life, who had handed me up on a silver platter.

“It’s not so black and white sometimes, is it?” he said, but his voice was gentle, not scathing or mocking.

“I don’t know what to say—”

“Nothing,limone.You don’t have to say anything. I did my job, nothing more.”

But it felt like more than that. Or maybe I just wanted to believe it was more than that. It would explain why I leaned up on my toes and pressed my lips against his. I could feel the stickiness of the blood on his chest against my arms. All I could smell was its coppery tang. But Dominic’s lips were firm and warm.

“Thank you,” I whispered as I leaned away, and then I hurried to my room.

Chapter Nineteen

Fallon

I stood in the middle of the marble-floored bathroom in a long, white satin dress. It hung prettily off my shoulders and fell all the way past my toes like it was trying to envelope me completely. Swallow me up.

In a few hours, it would all be done. I’d be married.

“Married,” I said to my own reflection in the wide mirror. I could see my mouth forming the words, and I could hear my own quivering voice, but I still found it difficult to believe.

An arranged marriage.

I wondered if this was how the brides from centuries before me had felt, trembling in the hours leading up to a life sentence from which there was no escape.

Had wedding bells sounded like the banging of a gavel in their ears, condemning them to their imprisonment? Did their beautiful white gowns feel like orange jumpsuits? Did their expensive diamond rings feel like steel handcuffs?

“It’s time, Miss Moore,” a deep voice called through the bathroom door. One of Dominic’s lackeys.

He and I were the only people still in Dominic’s apartment, though I couldn’t say what time Dominic had left. I didn’t care. Our fragile truce had held up over the past several days, but today, white-hot flames blasted through my veins. This was my life he was taking away from me, even if he was just as trapped in this as me.

I stood staring at myself for another long moment, silently begging the woman in the mirror to get me out of this, to trade places with me, to do… something. But of course, she didn’t. She couldn’t. She was trapped as much as me.

“Miss Moore?” the lackey called again.

“I’m coming,” I said, more to keep him from speaking to me again than to placate him.

I’d delayed all I could, but I knew there was no sense in trying to put off the inevitable. It was coming whether I wanted it to or not. I squared my shoulders, turned away from the woman in the mirror, and stepped out of the room.

The tall, dark-haired lackey stood outside the door, just far enough away I could get by him without having to touch him. He followed me down the hall and into the living room. I spun around before I reached the front door.

“What’s your name?” I asked. This man was going to take me to the church, escort me inside. He was the closest thing to a wedding party I had. He was practically my maid of honor, and I didn’t even know his name.

“It’s Leandro, ma’am,” he said with a curt nod.

“It’s nice to meet you, Leandro,” I said, even though it wasn’t the first time he’d been here. I held out my clammy hand, and with a confused look, he took it, shaking it and then drawing back like he was afraid I was going to try to clock him.

“Have you worked for the Luca family for long?” I asked. It probably seemed like I was stalling. Maybe I was.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said with another curt nod. “Seventeen years.”

Leandro didn’t look a day past thirty; he’d been working for the Lucas since he was barely a teenager. That was abhorrent, and it didn’t do a thing to make me feel any better about this wedding.

I turned back toward the door.

“He’s a good man, Miss Moore,” he said before I could reach for the handle.

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