Page 23 of Taken In Trade
I nod at Hawk.
He has his orders and an official copy of mine and Vanessa’s marriage certificate with the special seal. His job is to hand deliver it to Julian.
While he does that, I turn to Vanessa.
“My wife and I would like to thank you for taking the time to come out to celebrate.” My hold on her hip tightens, and I bring the other to cup her cheek, dipping my head. My lips dance over hers as I whisper, “Congratulations. You’re officially a Moretti. You’d better kiss me like you mean it.”
Vanessa gasps as my lips crash against hers, but she doesn’t pull away as I fuck my tongue into her mouth. She melts into my front and wraps her hand around the back of my neck.
Thank fuck for the sky-high heels, otherwise, I’d have to bend practically in half to get to her lips. Her electric scent hits my system every time I breathe, and it makes my chest flutter.
That can’t be healthy.
Perhaps all the stress is getting to me.
I had carefully laid plans for how the next three years would play out. Now my entire life has been flipped upside down. She’d better be goddamn thankful I put my neck on the line for her.
Her pillowy soft lips push against mine as our tongues dance, and the urge to slam her against the wall to officially claim her here and now washes over me from nowhere.
While the rest of the world will recognize our marriage certificate, the mafia families will only accept our union following a public claiming ceremony.
It’s part of the pact between the original seven families, marking the participant as off-limits. Along that same vein, if any of the other families should come across Vanessa in a dire circumstance, it would be their responsibility to protect her as one of their own in the same way I’m now obligated to do for Charlotte since her claiming ceremony with the O’Connors.
There are strict sanctions against attacking the partner of any of the family heads. Stricter, in fact, than outright attacking another family head. That’s the entire reason a claiming ceremony is worth it. It marks them as untouchable.
I briefly contemplated going ahead with it tonight, but I’d prefer to schedule that for some point in the next few weeks. There are too many moving parts that need to be set up. My team is here, but they weren’t in charge of the initial security, and I don’t trust that Chapman did his due diligence.
Vanessa moans, and I pull back from our kiss to avoid taking things too far. This announcement was to make the masses aware, not to put a target on our backs.
Well, as soon as Grigoryan is done with the fire department, and likely Boston PD, I’m sure he’s going to bemightypissed that I stole his intended fiancée out from under his nose.
That, however, is a problem for later.
I hope he enjoys the lesson I’m in the process of teaching him.
As soon as we step off the balcony and into the upstairs office, Vanessa spins to face me. I still have hold of her hand, but she pokes a finger from the other at my chest.
“What the fuck was that?” she hisses, jabbing her finger into my pec painfully.
I would have been disappointed if she hadn’t had something to say about my little display. Swiping her hand away, I reach into the pocket of my coat, pulling out the certified copy of our marriage license.
“I believe this is your signature, is it not?” I ask as she rips the paper from my hand.
“You fucking dick,” she whispers, examining the very real marriage license. “You stole my signature off the NDA. That’s why you wanted me to sign it.”
“Would you have preferred I left you to rot with Grigoryan, like everyone else planned to do?” I ask, genuinely interested in what she has to say about that.
“No,” she snaps, shoving the marriage certificate at my chest.
“Exactly. I understand the kidnapping rattled you, but you came to my house that day for a reason.” I take the document, fold it up, and tuck it into the inside pocket of my coat. “We both know you wanted to make a deal. Why are you playing coy now?”
“Playing coy?” Her eyes narrow. She looks like she’s thinking about stabbing me in my sleep, and who the fuck knows why it makes my cock rock hard. “You’re unbelievable. What if I had another plan in place? At the very least, you should have given me a heads-up.”
“I didn’t want to risk things going sideways if your father caught wind of my plans.”
“Yeah, well, it still makes you an asshole.” Vanessa slams her heel into the top of my dress shoe, and a half second later, her left fist connects with my kidney.
A lowwhooshleaves my lips as my body responds by bending in half.
