𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐊𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐒

𝟐𝟔 || 𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐓

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"So you and my brother, huh?" Lena's curiosity had finally gotten the better of her.

Central Park was beautiful at this time of year; the leaves were vibrant shades of green, the grass was freshly maintained, the flowers were bright, and the sun casted a nice glow over the pathway that we walked on.

We'd been strolling for about an hour, and she hadn't brought up anything about me and Dominic until now. We had gotten coffee, and then had a few long conversations about whatever came to mind.

She was hesitant to tell me about what she did for work, but ended up telling me anyways. The information that she shared probably should have scared me, but it didn't, I wasn't exactly fazed by it anymore.

After the auction, seeing her and how she handled a gun, I wouldn't have expected anything less.

She explained to me that she wasn't a part of the Italian Mafia, and she did her own thing. Though on certain occasions, she would attend galas and auctions for the sake of publicity, and maybe to get out a little bit more.

"What?" I asked her in response to her question, my voice tinged with confusion.

"Are you two a thing?" She inquired.

"No. God, no," I replied firmly and quickly.

Her eyebrows raised, and she leaned in closer. "What was that in the bathroom at the auction then?"

Right.

"We were trying to make it look like we did something so that people wouldn't be suspicious of our marriage," I explained, my voice low. "But nothing actually happened."

Lena didn't seem satisfied with my response. "And last night?"

I had been about to continue walking, but her question made me stop in my tracks. I turned to face her, a puzzled expression on my face. "Sorry?"

She laughed softly, turning to face me. Her light blonde, almost platinum hair looked even lighter in the sunlight. "You came out of his room this morning."

How the fuck did she know? I had come out of Dominic's room for a good split second, just to see who he was talking to, but I wasn't aware that she was saw me. "That wasn't anything, nothing happened," I defended.

"You can't walk and you have hickeys on your neck." Her claim to my inability to walk shocked me more than it should have. Each step I took was slower than my usual pace, and I had to push back a wince. I thought I had hidden it fairly well, but I guess she was more observant than I thought she was.

Though her last comment surprised me even more, because I thought I hid those decently well too. "Shit."

"All over." She smiled, her hands gesturing to my neck. "Like everywhere."

I glared, refusing the urge to pull out my phone and check on how much of the concealer had disappeared. It wasn't my fault that Dominic was able to make my skin the darkest shades of purple. "Yeah, yeah."

"You're telling me nothing happened?" Lena teased.

"It didn't mean anything." The lie tasted strange on my lips; deep down, I knew it meant something, but the complexity of our situation left me uncertain.

She scoffed, waving her head side to side. "You've probably realized, but Dominic is extremely private, and closed off. He avoids any and all sorts of distractions, and he's been that way since he was a kid. For him to look at you for just a second too long means something—a lot," she corrected herself, emphasizing the depth of Dominic's actions. "But for him to actually let himself be with you? You're pretty special."

My body essentially froze at her words. I had never truly considered the significance of Dominic's actions before. The only time he seemed to refuse interacting with me was after I punched him at the restaurant, after that he seemed to not try to hide whatever he felt for me.

"What are you saying?" I asked, my curiosity and confusion evident.

"I'm saying that whatever happened, or has been happening with you guys, I doubt it means 'nothing' to him."

I shook my head, still grappling with my own feelings. "He doesn't like me, if that's what you're implying. I don't particularly like him either, we're just..." The words caught in my throat, unwilling to be voiced. "I don't know, attracted to each other."

Lena's response came with a hint of amusement. "You think he's attractive?"

I hesitated for a moment before conceding, "I don't think he looks bad." A reluctant smile crept onto my lips. "Yes, fine, I think he's attractive."

"And why don't you two 'like' each other?"

"I don't dislike him either, it's kind of confusing. We see a lot of things differently, and I try to put myself in his perspective a lot, but he just makes it so damn hard sometimes. I don't know." "We're just too complicated."

I chuckled lightly, attempting to soften the mood, and realizing that this was her brother we were talking about. "Sorry, is this weird for you?"

"It's fine," she reassured. "I mean, as long as you don't go into the full details of your sex life then it's all good."

"We don't have a sex life together." Would that be a lie too? Did we? We'd had sex twice, among other things too, but did that really meaning something in terms of our love lives? Plus, the first time we actually did anything barely counted.

"Sure you don't."

"We don't, I'm serious. It isn't even allowed between us."

"Dom's never been one to follow the rules," she pressed. "And I don't think you are either."

I ignored her comment about Dominic and I, attempting to change the subject by aiming a question towards her. "How's your relationship with men? Or women?"

"Men," she confirmed. "And nonexistent at the moment; the vast majority of them would rather my head on a stick than my clothes off."

I laughed softly, recalling the night where we first met and how both her and another man looked like they were in desperate need of some alone time together. "I don't know, I mean, I saw a man eyeing you down at the auction. Looked like he wanted to see you without your clothes on."

"What'd he look like?"

I tried as best as I could to remember, but to be honest, I was paying more attention to Dominic than any other man in that room. "Brown hair, dark eyes, nose piercing."

She groaned. "Matthew Madeira, a menace to society."

"I thought the same about Dominic."

"Did Dominic also attempt to kill you?"

Oh. "I'm just saying, he doesn't look half bad either, if you need some adult content in your life.

"I have plenty of adult content in my life that doesn't involve sex," she told me, and I could only assume that she meant something to do with violence. "And I would rather eat glass than breathe the same air as that man."

"Have you ever been in a relationship that didn't involve the two of you attempting to murder each other?"

"Once, briefly. Didn't end well."

I grinned. "I can relate to that."

"How'd yours end?"

If I would have had to bring this topic up a few weeks ago, my eyes probably would have started watering. Now? I almost laughed. "He cheated."

Lena's eyes were as wide as the world. "On you?"

I nodded, lips pressed into a thin line.

"Men." She rolled her eyes. "They're complete fools when it comes women; like mutts, they'll eat up anything handed to them without thinking twice about what they already have."

Her comparison made me smile. "I might agree if I didn't like dogs."

_______

Lena and I basically spent the rest of our time together making fun of the men we had been with, showing each other pictures and telling each other jaw dropping red flags.

Most of the pictures I had shown her were of Nathan; selfies that we'd taken dating back to our high school years. Her photos were much different, taken illegally from a professional camera. She managed to get some good one's too.

We ended up stopping at a few jewellers to run and errand for me as well. It took me awhile to find a good wedding ring for Dominic, especially due to the custom adjustment I needed to have after making a certain discovery while getting ready.

Lena and I got back to Dominic's a little over two hours ago, and she left shortly after she dropped me off. I hadn't had the chance to actually interact with Dominic yet though; he'd been busy yelling on the phone and at a few random men, who I assumed worked for him, in his office.

But those men were gone now, and I was finally able to discuss what was very desperately needed. "I've been thinking," I mentioned when I saw Dominic in the kitchen, working on a sauce on the stove.

"About?"

"Last night."

The simple two words coming from my mouth made all of the memories flurry back into my head. The feeling of his mouth on mine, of his thick hands on my ignited skin, of him filling the space of emptiness inside of me. "What we did, it was illicit. We can't.. and we can't just be reckless about it. What's going to happen if somebody finds out?"

There was a time, just a matter of weeks ago, where I could have never imagined me in this situation. Now, I had realized how much of a lost cause that contract was in the first place. Were our fathers so naive to think that nothing would ever happen? Did they think that in the sixty or so years we still had together that it would be a marriage of nothingness?

Dominic's voice was still. "I wouldn't let anything happen."

"What would happen?" I asked again with seriousness, but I never gave him the chance to respond. "I'll tell you what'll happen, your father will kill me, Dominic." I spoke with a tremor in my voice, the fear of repercussions probably evident in my eyes.

I knew of this fact before Dominic and I slept together, but I had never really thought about it. However, now? Now that I knew what Antonio did to his own son, I had no doubt that he would do worse things to a girl who disobeyed the one rule of the contract he made.

"Red," he said, his voice cold as he turned away from the stove. "You're forgetting that there are many advantages for when you've tied yourself to a Don— to me, specifically."

His attention had focussed on me, and me only. His words sparked something in me, and I suddenly remembered everything that he was capable of. "Do you want to know the first one?"

My heartbeat fluttered in my neck as he approached me. "I know three hundred and seventy five ways to kill a man," voice unwavering, "none of which exclude spilling the blood of my father."

My eyes narrowed, idly shaking my head. "You couldn't kill your own family."

Dominic chuckled in an almost defying way. "If Antonio ever posed a threat to you, believe me, I would have no reluctance about erasing that bloodline, no matter how deep it may run through my body," he hesitated slightly before finishing, "Antonio's last drop of existence ends in me."

His words cut through the air like a bitter wind, his voice deathly cold as he made no effort to conceal the undying hatred he harbored for the man who happened to be his father. "You can't... you can't kill people for me," I stammered, my head shaking with disbelief.

"Can't I?" he replied, his tone heavy with the weight of a conversation that had haunted us before. "We've had this conversation before, Red."

"Yes, but there's a drastic difference between caring about someone and sacrificing your morality for someone," I argued, my voice quivering with a mix of frustration.

"You're my wife, Red," he asserted, his words devoid of warmth. "Marriages are bound to have sacrifices."

Honestly, sometimes I forgot we were married, the idea was still surrealistic. I never forwardly addressed Dominic as my husband, and he only addressed me as his wife while in public. Now, we weren't in public, we were standing in the middle of his kitchen, with no one else in the room. "You don't even like me."

"Like has nothing to do with this," he retorted, a touch of exasperation in his voice. "We've established that before too."

Drawing a deep breath, I decided to confront the issue head-on. "There's a difference between liking someone and being attracted to someone. I recall you saying that, isn't that true?"

Heat ran through every inch of my body as he quoted me. I had said that to him in the bathroom at the auction, and the memories of our tension back them spilled over all of my thoughts, coating them with a strange cloud of fog. "Yes."

"So what do you suggest we do about this recklessness?"

"I think we should keep our distances until next Friday, after dinner." The words came out of my mouth before I could even think. It was the most reasonable suggestion.

If we allowed ourselves to.. repeat what happened last night, it would just make things hell for us when we had to be put on a pedestal in front of people who would be judging our performances.

"That's what you want?" His hand smoothed down my arm, stopping at my wrist, the other wrapping around my waist. He was so close to me that I was scared he might be able to hear all of the dirty thoughts I was thinking.

I swallowed hard, gaping up at him. "It's what I think is best."

"But is that what you want?" He questioned carefully, eyes scanning every emotion that I offered him. My lips parted, daring to speak.

No. "Yes."

Dominic wasn't disappointed—no, he was the complete opposite. His lips had curved upwards into a smile, his head nodding slowly with respect. He placed his hand on each of my hips, and passed beside me slowly. "Smart girl," he whispered into my ear, his breath like wildfire on my skin.

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