Page 17 of Mafia Boss's Fake Fiancée

Fuck!

“What is it?” Adriana snatches the paper from my fingers because I’m too distracted thinking about what I might have missed.

Her eyes go wide. “Wait, what? Someone’s threateningus?” She looks up at me. “Do you think it’s Cesare? What if he found out somehow? You told me no one would know about this except for your family! Salvatore, what the hell? If my family thinks I’m really marrying you—”

“Keep your voice down.” I glance in the direction of the house. “Do you think your brother would send us a message like this? With a drone?”

She bites down on her lip. “I don’t know.”

“Without signing it?”

“I don’t think so, but if it’s not Cesare, then who the hell is it?”

“We need to find out. My family must’ve gotten excited with the news. My grandma might have told someone in confidence, and they spread the news to the wrong people.” It was always a risk something like that would happen, but I didn’t expect a threat like this one.

Maybe some chatter and unease, but nothing like this.

“But why would anyone care if we got married?” Adriana hands me back the note.

“Because it would mean we’re uniting our families. The Benedettis and the Carduccis.”

“You’re already my brother’s best friend. How would our potential marriage change things?”

“Friendship is nothing compared to a marriage alliance. Our families would become one. Cesare and I are friends—I hope we still are—and we can share information and might fight together, but if we became family, it would be our duty to help each other. You can betray a friend, but if you betray your family...”

“Yeah, I know that. But don’t they know Cesare? He doesn’t trust anyone, and he always wants to do everything on his own. If you actually married me, I don’t know if we’d be uniting anything.”

“And I’ve never needed anyone’s help. I can take care of my enemies all on my own. Just like Cesare can when it comes to his enemies. But maybe that’s the problem. Imagine if Cesare changes his mind because you and I are together. Our potential alliance would be a huge risk to everyone around us. And Cesare has been acting weird lately. People don’t know what he’s going to do.”

“Shit. So what arewegoing to do? Do we tell everyone our engagement isn’t happening?”

“No, of course not. It’s only a few more days.”

We didn’t go through all the trouble just to give up now. I’m not going to break my grandma’s heart.

“I’ll find the idiot who’s stupid enough to threaten me like this,” I say.

“Maybe I can help you.”

“We should tell Cesare the truth before the news gets to him. It could make things more complicated. I thought there was no chance he’d find out, but things are different now. And if this is his doing and he already knows, at least we’ll find out who we’re dealing with.”

“No! We shouldn’t tell him anything. What if this isn’t someone from Milan but from Bologna? Maybe they think you’re here because you want to go back to your roots or something? Like, you could be planning to give Cesare Milan and you could come back here. Your family still controls some territory here, right?”

“Maybe.” There are a lot of possibilities.

“What about someone from your family? Could any of your uncles have a problem with our marriage?”

I hope not. It would change everything, and I don’t think anyone would want to do that to Grandma. Maybe after she’s gone, but not right now.

But then again, they sent me a message with a fucking drone. Who the fuck does that? Unless it’s really one of my uncles, and he knows I won’t say anything to anyone.

But breaking off my engagement... I don’t see why any of them would care. They don’t hate me, or at least I don’t think so.

“I need to do a few things. Can you keep my grandma occupied?” I ask.

“Do you promise to share any news with me? I want to know who’s behind this too, since they’re also threatening me.”

“Fine.”

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