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Just a quick note for those who have asked. This story is New Adult fiction maturity-wise, just like Omertà and Borgata!
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The rest of the day was a stressful blur of trying to shift my energy to college work. I had an exam the next day, and I was struggling to memorize what felt like a thousand psychology terms, when only one word was plaguing my brain.
Marriage.
What kind of father gave their daughter away to a criminal? I knew my dad was hardhearted when he needed to be, but this was another level. He was almost acting desperate for the La Notte's help and it made me wonder why.
Instead of torturing myself with my spiraling thoughts and trying to focus on flashcards any further, I decided to take a break and wandered downstairs into the kitchen to find Gemma filling the dishwasher.
"Hey," I said, starting to load the rest of the dish washer.
"Oh, stop it," Gemma said, swatting my hand away from the dishes. "You've been so busy with school, take a load off."
"Sorry I didn't come down for dinner. What'd you make?"
"Just gnocchi with tomato sauce. There's a big salad in the fridge and fresh grated parmesan."
I pulled open the fridge doors to grab the wrapped wooden bowl inside. "Did Dad and Mia eat?"
"Mia wanted to eat at her desk in her room and your father ate in his office." Gemma leaned against the counter and crossed her arms, watching me with a troubled expression
"He told you, didn't he?"
"Yes," she said. "You would be surprised how common arranged marriages are in Italy."
"This is not the same, Gemma." I filled my bowl with gnocchi and popped it into the microwave. I gave her the rehashed version of my own side of the story.
Gemma looked even more concerned by the time I finished telling her every detail of my encounter with Lucius. "This is so unlike your father," she said at last. "He loves you and Mia very much and yet he is giving you to a complete stranger. It just doesn't make any sense."
Gemma had been around for a few years, but she didn't know my father like I did. He was always different around Gemma. My father was a business man above all else and the La Notte's were an asset to everything he'd built.
A masculine laugh I didn't recognize sounded from the near distance.
"Is Papà in a meeting?" I whispered.
Gemma frowned and set the towel on her shoulder down. "I don't think so?"
Shit, I thought, quickly grabbing a napkin as I prepared to book it. Shit, shit, shit––
My father strolled into the kitchen. "There you are, Korinna."
My breath froze at the man who came up behind my father in the archway. The first thing I noticed was the way he walked into the room with an almost a swaggered stride, like he owned the place. He wore a black three-piece suit tailored to dangerous perfection. A white dress shirt, a black vest, a long black wool overcoat over it. His dark brown hair was a medium length and longer than I originally thought. It was slightly disheveled, like he'd run his fingers through it and messed up whatever prim style it had been in.
Lucius La Notte.
His features were different in the light, though he was still rugged-looking, a little rough around the edges, like he'd been in a quite a few fights, and I could now clearly a knife scar contouring his one cheek in a mean slash. Although I was certain this man had no problem with the ladies, he was not my type by a longshot. While he was harsh on the eyes and a little frightening, I wanted soft and kind in a partner.
As I scrutinized him, Lucius' eyes lazed their way around the kitchen, before their bold hazel depths connected with mine. Although I wasn't drooling on the floor after him, I did feel a little breathless as his lips turned up a little to one side.
"Korinna," my father responded to my silence, his voice suggesting I behave. "Lucius is here to talk to you."
I set my bowl of pasta down a little too quickly on the counter and it teetered, nearly falling to the floor, before Gemma came lunged to the rescue and grabbed it and right it onto the counter.
Please tell me that did not just happen.
I straightened myself with feigned confidence as if it didn't and directed my words toward my father. "I thought you said he was coming tomorrow?"
When I'd conveniently camp out at the library until forever.
"Tonight was a little better for my schedule," Lucius answered.
I dared to look him briefly in those deceiving pretty eyes. "Hardly recognize you without your pitchfork."
My father gave me a cross look, turning toward our guest with an apologetic expression. But Lucius lifted a tattooed hand out of his pocket and raised it an unconcerned way.
"No worries," Lucius said, his eyes still on me. "I have heard these jokes all my life. Have I come at a bad time, Korinna? I see you're eating."
What a phony idiota. "How considerate of you."
Never had a sentence come out so sarcastic from my mouth. Like he cared if I was eating or not. He hadn't considered how I'd feel about a fucking arranged marriage with him. In my peripheral, I could see my father was absolutely astounded by the way I was talking to Lucius, and honestly so I was I. I hated disappointing my father. But I also just hated my father in general right now and didn't care.
Gemma crossed the kitchen to my father and touched his arm, steering him from the kitchen. "Let them talk it out," I could hear her mutter.
Once alone, Lucius leaned back onto the counter behind him and sipped his drink, the large circular ice cube in the tumbler clinking a little against the glass. "Interesting scar," I said, not bothering to hide my loathing of him already. "Did you get that in a game of legal patty cake?"
His eyes swept loosely over my outfit of black leggings and a vintage faded lavender oversized pullover sweatshirt. "I didn't know there was an illegal game of patty cake. Can you teach me?"
"Depends, do you want this bowl of gnocchi in your face?" I countered, unable to reel in my next words before they came tumbling out. "Or was my gun enough?"
Lucius narrowed his eyes. "You sure now is a good time to talk? You seem preoccupied. I wouldn't want to bother you if you're otherwise engaged." I didn't miss the taunting flash in his eyes.
I feigned a laugh, my eyes skirting to the door where my father had just left with Gemma. "You know, I think we should talk somewhere else. Somewhere private."
"Agreed. Let me just finish my––" I already crossed the space between us and grabbed him by his smug sleeve, dragging through the kitchen and down a long hallway and up a staircase. Although he seemed to be playing along, considering he easily could have stopped my efforts. "Where are we going?" he asked at last. "Reenacting how we first met?" Grabbing him by both sides of his collar, I shoved him hard inside my bedroom, his drink sloshing a little on himself from the momentum. "Motherfu––was that really necessary, bella?"
"What is your fucking problem?" I demanded.
Lucius set his drink down on my dresser. "Do you have a few hours?" His eyes lingered on my mouth, before he wiped at his own lips. "You have pasta sauce on your filthy mouth."
My cheeks felt hot as I wiped where he instructed. "This isn't funny. Nothing about this is funny."
"I disagree," he said, blotting his jacket with a tissue. "Your face when I walked into the kitchen? Hilarious."
"I know you were up to something last night," I accused him, disregarding his taunting words. "You approached me in the dark, so I pulled my gun on you to protect myself. You only made me feel more comfortable as the conversation went on––"
"You seemed pretty comfortable when we were pressed against each other, no?"
My mouth popped open in shock. "Va' a farti fottere!"
Lucius tsked me with a shake of his head. "I'm already screwing you, fiancé."
I stared in disbelief at his arrogant, border-line menacing grin. "Oh, you're trouble," I decided, jabbing an accusing finger into his face. "You're getting off on this."
He swatted my finger out of his face. "You're the one getting all riled up and flushed."
"This isn't a game, Lucius. This is my damn life. If you think you can swagger into my house with your twenty-thousand-dollar suit and claim your prize, you've got another thing coming, stronzo!"
Lucius shrugged sharply out of his black wool coat and hung it on the drawer knob of my dresser, leaving behind his three-piece suit. I tried not to notice the way his muscles shifted underneath his shirt, or how he was so rugged and masculine looking that he made my bedroom look embarrassingly kiddish and feminine.
"It is strange," Lucius said, leaning his hand on the door frame. "None of your little meltdown so far has sounded like an apology."
I glanced at his arm braced next to me and the intimidating look in his eyes, feeling my ferocity smother a little. "I'm sorry," I grated out.
He put his hand to his ear. "For?"
My head tilted in annoyance. "For...aiming a loaded gun at your face."
His low laugh made my ears tingle. "Say it like you mean it."
My lips rubbed together to keep in the nasty words I wanted to unleash onto him. "I'm sorry, alright? I'm sorry."
A cruel smile curved one side of Lucius's mouth, and I could tell it still wasn't enough. He moved away from me, his eyes studying every inch of my bedroom. I could see the sick satisfaction he was having with all of this in his bright hazel eyes, as he lowered his towering frame onto my queen-sized bed.
"You seem a little tense," Lucius noted. He was making me feel so powerless, I hated feeling powerless. "Sure you don't want me to get you a drink downstairs before we discuss our engagement?"
Mentally, I was burning a hole through his head. "Why did you tattle tale to my father, Lucifer?"
"Now, now, Korinna. I'm a full-grown man. I don't tattle tale." He leaned back on my bed a little to stretch out his legs, his forearms braced behind him. "And you're not the first woman to call me Lucifer, so don't think you're clever or cute."
"Not a tattle tale, huh?" I asked, daring to move closer to him. "Then what should I call you, a full-grown man, who whined like a little baby to my father because his daughter held a gun to his face for five seconds?"
A muscle ticked in his jaw as he stared unflinchingly up at me. "A good negotiator. Your father tried to run one over my head last night while we were negotiating. Your lunatic behavior was the perfect opportunity to get a better agreement."
Lunatic. I wanted to punch this man in the face so badly. "Well, you got your damn wish. So now you can go talk my father and convince him you overreacted with the whole marriage thing."
Lucius feigned a short moment of consideration. "Nah."
I thought about taking my gun out of my underwear drawer and starting over with this stronzo.
"See, I am in a small predicament," Lucius admitted, raking a nonchalant hand through his dark hair. I briefly noted the sociopath had a great head of hair, before mentally smashing my raging hormones with a baseball bat. "My father is to retire from the business and pass it on to another. This leaves a few candidates to lead the La Notte family. I am his eldest son; it is my blood rite to take the throne. But my father will not let me forget mistakes I have made in my past. Even the conversations I had with your father last night were monitored by other personnel. I'm getting sick and tired of it."
I was only halfway listening to Lucius, as I realized my childish stuffed duck was right behind him on the bed. Lucius glanced over his shoulder.
"Could you summarize this boring story I don't care about in a sentence?" I asked in my bitchiest tone, drawing his gaze back to mine. "It's getting lengthy."
Lucius's head cocked at me, the flash of irritation that skirted over his face a little scary. "If I show my father I can commit to something as valuable to him as marriage, I believe he will allow me to take over."
Damn, I had not been expecting that. Now this whole arranged marriage thing made a little more sense at least on his end. This wasn't all out of pettiness or to get an apology from me, but for his own gain to run his father's empire.
"Wow, this is quite the predicament..." I put a hand to my chin, pacing in front of him back and forth a few times. "It's nothing personal, I'm sure you're an okay guy underneath all your "I-belong-in-prison" toxic alpha male energy. But I'm not the one. I'm not even involved in my father's mafia. In fact, I will get far, far away from my father's life once I am done with college."
"And what will do you once you get far, far away?" Lucius asked, his tone cruelly mocking. "Have a normal life?"
"I plan on being a licensed psychologist."
Lucius exploded into sudden harsh laughter. "You're joking. Now that's the funniest shit I've heard all week."
I crossed my arms over my chest, furious that my dreams were one big joke to everyone around me. Lucius had also managed to laugh harder than my father had when I'd declared my major.
For many obvious reasons, mafiosi avoided therapy like the plague.
Realizing I was serious, Lucius' laughter faded. "Okay, then. What type of psychology?"
"Cognitive," I muttered.
"I'm sure you could help a lot of people." I couldn't tell if he was being genuine or sarcastic . "What about Mia? You really think you could leave her behind?"
"I wouldn't be leaving her behind––"
"You think your patients or employees won't ever find out who you are?" Lucius probed, making me feel like I was in an interrogation. "You think nobody will discover who your father is while you're getting your license? I don't know you, but I have to think you are not that stupid, Korinna."
My fingers curled into my palm.
Lucius slid further back onto the bed and rested his head on the yellow stuffed duck I slept with, his expression darkly amused. "The reality is, no matter where you go, no matter who you pretend to be, you will never not be una princepessa della mafia."
I glared daggers at him, aggravated he had managed to find all the faults in my little plan in an instant. "You're wrong."
"Then why do you look like you're about to cry?" he asked with a cold expression, his fingers absently twisting a patch of fur from one of my fuzzy pillows. "To be clear, you will marry me, and there is nothing you can do about it." Then he folded his arm behind his head, getting even more comfortable. "Otherwise, I will do everything possible to shatter the valuable alliance between our families."
Those wicked eyes pierced through me with every storming step I took toward him.
"You really don't want to threaten me, Lucifer."
Lucius stood up from the bed and loomed over me, getting in my space. It didn't take long for me to get some sense that he could annihilate me with his bare hands, as my eyes grazed over his broad upper body.
"What are you going to do about it?" Lucius asked, his evil eyes working their way into my head.
My hands were squeezed so tightly into fists that they shook at my sides.
"Are you going to hit me?" Lucius fingers brushed the knuckles of my right hand.
I imagined clobbering him in the mouth right then and there.
"Are you going to raise a gun to my face again?" he continued to goad me. "I hope you do." Suddenly, he shackled both my wrists in his hands and moved his mouth to my ear, a rushing sensation of butterflies traveling to my stomach at his closeness and the whispered husk of his voice. "Because if there's anything that has run through my head over and over again since last night, it's how I should have done things very differently with you."
He made a point to knock into me a little as he strode past me, the dark ambiguity of his words echoing in my head well after the distance was laid out between us.
"Someone should really teach you how to fight, donnina," Lucius said, starting to snoop through my things on my desk and purposely push things to the floor, like my stapler and my pens. He flipped open my psychology text book, where I had a post-it saving the page. "You talk a big game, but you're just a scared little girl without your water gun. It's pathetic."
I watched his long-fingered tattooed hand pry open to the page I was studying for my exam. I stormed the space between us and slammed my textbook, his hand evading getting crushed by a hair. "You're the last person on the fucking planet I would marry."
His mouth curved. "Having another meltdown, are we?"
"You're not my type, and I'll never pretend you are," I said, getting in his face. "I'm attracted to men who have morals. Men who aren't so desperate and lonely that they try entangling women into marriage because they have an itty bitty little cazzo."
The vicious words came out of me so sharp and unbelievably mean that I almost felt guilty. But Jesus Christ, if acting like I was really that vain was the only way I would shake this guy, then so be it.
Lucius' jaw was clenched tight, as his gaze raked my body once. Why wasn't he saying anything?
I studied the short, dark facial hair on his jaw, how it somehow had grown on me in the most disturbing manner. "And I don't like beards," I added spitefully.
Lucius stepped into me. I had nowhere else to go but against the wall, as he stood as close as possible to me without us touching. I pressed my hands against his chest, but I couldn't seem shove him away. His head bent down for the kill; his lips hovering inches from mine and parting ever so slightly. My thoughts were madly corrupted by the dark intentions in his wicked eyes. When I turn my head away, his mouth only followed pursuit, his head tilting, gently shadowing my movement. His lips remaining a tempting breath away.
Right when I started to give in to this sick little game, right when I thought he might actually kiss me and break all my tightly coiled resolve, he suddenly pulled back. Any evidence of the intense, scorching moment evaporated from his features in an instant, while I was left burned.
I realized he'd somehow taken my phone out of my sweatpants pocket. He'd even lifted my hand in his to unlock the device with my thumb.
Lucius released my hand and let it drop to my side like a wet fish. He dialed a number into my phone and called it. His own phone went off in his pocket, before he silenced it.
"I see you are not ready to talk," Lucius said, placing my phone into my palm. A chill slipped down my spine as I looked down at tattoos on his left hand and the ruby gem on his middle finger. The gold intricate design around the band confirmed my suspicions all along.
Lucius was not just the son of mafia king.
He was also the notorious left-handed intimidator of the La Notte family.
La Mano del Diavalo.
The Devil's Hand.
"Understand my words carefully, principessa," Lucius continued, slipping into Italian as I looked back up at his devious eyes. "I don't give a fuck if you don't like me. You will marry me regardless. It is up to you how long you want to resist the cards you have been dealt but know this. I could make the next few months of your life very, very horrible, or I can make them worth your while."
Lucius turned to grab his jacket off the knob of my dresser, as I writhed internally with a rage I'd never felt before.
"Oh, and Korinna," Lucius said in English, just before he left the room, a smile curving his mouth. "Good luck on your exam."
***
THAT TENSION THO WEEEWWWW.
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