“Will you cry all night?” came Luca’s cold voice out of the blackness. Of course, he wasn’t asleep yet. For a man in his position, it was best to always keep an eye open.
I buried my face into the pillow but now that the floodgates had opened, I couldn’t close them again.
“I can’t see how you could possibly have cried any worse, if I’d taken you. Maybe I should fuck you to give you a real reason to cry.”
I pulled my legs up against my chest, making myself as small as possible. I knew I needed to stop. I hadn’t been beaten or worse, but I couldn’t get a grip on my emotions.
Luca moved and a soft light flooded the room. He’d turned on the lamp on his nightstand. I waited. I knew he was watching me, but I kept my face pressed against the pillow. Maybe he’d leave the room if he got fed up with the noise. He touched my arm, and I jerked so violently that I would have fallen off the bed if Luca hadn’t pulled me toward him.
“That’s enough,” he said in a low voice.
That voice. I stilled immediately and let him roll me onto my back. Slowly I uncurled my legs and arms, and lay as unmoving as a corpse.
“Look at me,” he ordered, and I did. Was that the voice that had made him notorious? “I want you to stop crying. I want you to stop flinching from my touch.”
I nodded numbly.
He shook his head. “That nod means nothing. Don’t you think I recognize fear when it stares back at me? The moment I turn out the light, you’ll be back to crying as if I’d fucking raped you.”
I didn’t know what he wanted me to do. It wasn’t as if I enjoyed being scared out of my mind. Not that fear was the only reason for my breakdown, but he wouldn’t understand. How could he possibly understand that I felt like my life was ripped away from me? My sisters, Fabiano, my family, Chicago; they were all I had ever known, and now I had to give them up.
“So to give you peace of mind and shut you up, I’m going to swear an oath.”
I licked my lips, tasting the saltiness of tears on them. Luca’s fingers tensed on my arm. “An oath?” I whispered.
He took my hand and pressed my palm against the tattoo over his heart. I exhaled as his muscles flexed under my touch. He was warm, the skin much softer than I’d anticipated.
“Born in blood, sworn in blood, I swear that I won’t try to steal your virginity or harm you in any way tonight.” His lips quirked and he nodded toward the cut on his arm. “I already bled for you, so that seals it. Born in blood. Sworn in blood.” He covered my hand with his over the tattoo, looking at me expectantly.
“Born in blood, sworn in blood,” I said softly. He released my hand and I lowered it to my stomach, stunned and confused. An oath was a big deal. Without another word, he extinguished the light and returned to his side of the bed.
I listened to his rhythmic breathing, knowing that he wasn’t asleep. I closed my eyes. He wouldn’t break his oath.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sunlight hit my face. I tried to stretch, but an arm was thrown over my waist and a firm chest pressed against my back. It took me a moment to remember where I was and what had happened yesterday, and then I stiffened.
“Good, you’re awake,” Luca said in a voice that was gruff with sleep.
Realization hit me. Luca. My husband. I was a married woman, but Luca had kept his promise. He hadn’t consummated the marriage. I opened my eyes. Luca’s hand gripped my hip and he turned me on my back. He was propped up on one elbow as his eyes took in my face. I wished I knew what he was thinking. It was strange to be in bed with a man. I could feel Luca’s heat, even though our bodies weren’t touching. In the sunlight the scars on his skin were somehow less prominent than last night, but his muscles were just as impressive. I wondered how they’d feel to the touch.
He reached up and took a strand of my hair between two fingers. I held my breath, but he released it after a moment, his face becoming calculating. “It won’t be long until my stepmother, my aunts and the other married women of my family knock at our door to gather up the sheets and carry them into the dining room, where undoubtedly everyone else is already waiting for the fucking spectacle to begin.”
A blush spread over my cheeks and something in Luca’s eyes changed, some of the coldness replaced by another emotion. My eyes found the small cut on Luca’s arm. It hadn’t been deep and was already scabbing.
Luca nodded. “My blood will give them what they want. It’ll be the foundation of our story, but we’ll be expected to fill in the details. I know I’m a convincing liar. But will you be able to lie to everyone’s face, even your mother’s, when you tell them about our wedding night? Nobody can know what happened. It would make me look weak.” His lips tightened with regret. Regret for having spared me and gotten himself in the position of depending on my lying skills.
“Weak because you didn’t want to rape your wife?” I whispered.
Luca’s fingers on my hip tightened. I hadn’t even realized they were still there. Make him want to be good to you. Bibiana’s words flitted through my mind. Luca was a monster, there was no doubt about it. He couldn’t be anything else in order to survive as a leader in our world, but maybe I could make him keep the monster in chains when he was with me. It was more than I’d hoped for when he’d led me toward the bedroom last night.
Luca smiled coldly. “Weak for not taking what was mine for the taking. The tradition of bloody sheets in the Sicilian mafia is as much a proof of the bride’s purity as of the husband’s relentlessness. So what do you think it will say about me that I had you lying half-naked in my bed, vulnerable and mine, and yet here you are untouched as you were before our wedding?”
“Nobody will know. I won’t tell anyone.”
“Why should I trust you? I don’t make a habit of trusting people, especially people who hate me.”
I rested my palm against the cut on his arm, feeling his muscles flex beneath my touch. It felt as if I were touching stone. How was it possible that muscles could be unyielding like bone? Make him be good to you, make him love you. “I don’t hate you.” He narrowed his eyes, but it was mostly the truth. I would have hated him if he had forced himself on me. I certainly hated what marriage to him meant for me, but I didn’t know him well enough for real hate. Maybe it would come with time. “And you can trust me because I am your wife. I didn’t choose this marriage, but I can at least choose to make the best out of our bond. I have nothing to gain from betraying your trust, but everything to gain by showing you that I’m loyal.”
There was a flicker of something, maybe respect, in his expression. “The men waiting in that dining room are predators. They prey on the weak, and they’ve been waiting more than a decade for a sign of weakness from me. The moment they see one, they’ll pounce.”
“But your father—”
“If my father thinks I’m too weak to control the Famiglia, he’ll gladly let them tear me apart.”
What kind of life was it to have to be strong all the time, even around your closest family? At least I had my sisters and my brother, and even to some extent my mother and people like Valentina. Women were forgiven weakness in our world.