Page 5 of From Dust To Don

“Don’t fake it, Princess. I know you’re not that fragile. Besides, it’s not the end of the world if it leaves a bruise. I won’t mind seeing my mark on you anyway.” He said, a half grin on his face but never stopping his march towards wherever he was in such a hurry to get to.

He was right, though.

Stupidly, I had come here looking for a way out of this marriage. An escape to a fate I knew was as certain for a mafia princess as death.

How I thought I was going to accomplish that was a whole different story. Being dragged down God knows how many blocks in the middle of the night by no one less than the enemy surely wasn’t it.

He’d been spying on us for months now, ever since the parade of men courting me had started. I felt we had a connection. Delusions of a sheltered girl who thought she knew danger like the back of her hand.

The first time I saw him, my heart raced madly. The imminent danger had a rush of adrenaline soaring through my body. I craved more of that thrill, and each day that I saw him there, I got a little bit of that fix I seemed to need.

None of my father’s men had so much as picked up on their presence. And for that, I felt special. I knew he was there, and I was certain that he would come the next day without fault. As if he came more for me than the intel that had him hiding in my bushes of Juliet roses in the first place.

Papa was always cautious, and even though I overheard many of his meetings, he had never allowed me to take part in any, so this new edge was too addicting to discard.

“Leave the business to the men.” or “You’re my princess. My most prized possession. I will guard you with my life, Tesoro.” He’d tell me each time I tried stepping my fragile foot in anything less plush and sugar-coated.

Never would the Cosa Nostra allow a woman to sit amongst the men. Our value lies in our pretty faces and the ability to spawn healthy babies, preferably of the male variety.

Every capo who had spoken their interest in wedding me saw even beyond that. They saw an opportunity to strike gold, like the vultures they were. My father’s position, his connections, his empire, all of it craved by many while none of them dared to fight for their own. I despised them all for it.

None of them wanted me for who I was. They wanted me for what I came with. A high place in the underworld, sweetened with more damn money than one could spend in a lifetime.

So hearing the rumble of anger in this stranger’s chest as he cussed out the man who had accomplished to claim me lit a fire deep inside my core.

“Watch your step.” He said, tearing me away from my thoughts.

I looked ahead, my eyes rapidly climbing the stairs in front of me before they landed on an old stone building.

A church. A damn church!

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“What I told you. We’re getting married, Fiore mio.”

“Like hell we are.” I yanked my hand, breaking myself free from his hold before bolting down the stairs.

I had come to escape my sentence, not to swap executioners.

My steps were too slow and small for his, and before I could get too far, he was sweeping me off my feet and throwing me over his shoulder.

“I wasn’t asking, Elena. We are getting married tonight. Isn’t that what you came for? To escape your new husband? This is it, Baby. This is how you fix it.”

“Are you insane? Put me down.” I thrashed as hard as I could, banging my closed fists on his back and kicking my feet with all the strength I had in me. It seemed like none of it fazed him. Like he didn’t even feel it. His muscles were too dense for my flimsy punches to hurt him.

“You’re mine now, Elena.” He said, spanking my ass for emphasis and shocking me in the process, just before opening the large wooden doors of the church.

He set my feet on the ground, looking deep into my eyes with an expression that had that fire in me raging to uncontrolled flames. Something else I had never felt before.

It seemed like, in just a couple of minutes, this man was claiming a bunch of my firsts.

“I am not marrying a stranger.” I whisperer-shouted, trying to show some respect for the house of the Lord. “I don’t even know who you are.”

“Giancarlo Moretti.” He replied, stretching his hand for me to shake, a devilish and sly smile spreading his lips.

I stared at him and then at his hand before returning my gaze to those big eyes that looked like winter. Condescendingly, he picked up my hand and shook it when I didn’t make a move to greet him.

“Now can we get this over with?”

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