Page 7 of The Wrong Mafia Bride
I don’t react. I don’t shift. I let the moment pass through me untouched. Intimidation is a language I learned before I could shave.
“Of course,” I say evenly.
“Good,” he replies, pulling back at once, the threat evaporating behind a broad, public smile. His voice lifts, warm and almost jovial. “Then as long as my daughter smiles, your heart will keep beating.”
A statement. Not a joke.
“You are a good father, Mister Seamus,” I say, withdrawing my hand from his grasp.
He nods once, pleased. “It is one of my small joys, Dante. You’ll understand when you’re a father.”
I run my tongue slowly across my teeth and return the nod, because the future of two syndicates rests on me bedding his daughter and producing peace where there has only been blood. It’s a truth I don’t bother voicing. It would be crude, and Seamus prides himself on being a gentleman before he is a gangster.
I don’t share that luxury. And he knows it.
“Mister Seamus,” Luca bellows, his easy smile and warm voice cutting through my rising tension. “Thank you for meeting with us on such short notice. I trust you’ll be celebrating the nuptials.”
“There will be endless Guinness,” Seamus replies, a smile stretching across his mouth that feels practiced rather than genuine, the skin around his eyes crinkling anyway.
“Perfect,” Luca says, already stepping forward. He pulls Seamus into an enthusiastic hug. “Dante’s mother has been talking about it endlessly. She’s very excited to have a daughter.”
Seamus nods, but his attention shifts back to me, his gaze lingering just long enough for a question to pass through it—whether he feels the same about gaining a son. I already know the answer.
“You have a good evening, Dante,” he says, tipping his chin toward the dramatic golden doors across the hall.
I’m about to call out the disrespect in his dismissal when Gabriel slides up beside me, his hand settling on my shoulder. He’s wearing that familiar smirk, the one balanced somewhere between friendliness and violence. He slipped out of the meeting almost thirty minutes ago. I don’t want to know what trouble he found in that time, but it can’t be anything that would jeopardize the future marriage between Erin O’Connor and me.
“Thank you for your hospitality, Mister Seamus,” Gabriel says, nodding his head into a modest bow, and I follow, before turning towards the doors.
“See you next week,” Seamus calls out after us, as we make our way out of the O'Connor estate.
Once we're outside, it feels like we can breathe again.
“That fucker is intense,” Luca groans, rubbing his hand across the nape of his neck.
“I am marrying his daughter,” I counter, unbuttoning my cuffs and rolling up my sleeves. “He has a right to intensity.”
“Yes, the perfect Irish Princess,” Luca snorts. “Good luck with that.”
“I doubt she is perfect,” Gabriel adds, keeping up with me as I race down the grand, marble stairs.
“I know she is,” I mutter under my breath and I am sure they don’t hear me.
I’ve heard enough about her to know the version of her that’s been carefully prepared for this life—red-haired, beautiful, polite, well-mannered, a little dramatic, and raised from birth to be a mafia wife. Perfect on paper. And it already sounds like a suffocatingly boring existence for both of us, endured solely to hold together an alliance that will likely shatter the moment one of us gains control of Harlem again.
“Hey, we’re leaving,” Gabriel alerts the valet boy, who nods rushing in the direction of where he parks the cars.
“That meeting was pointless,” Luca murmurs as he slips his hands into his front pockets and rocks on the heel of his feet.
“Save it for the car,” I murmur under my breath. The soft sound of crying carries across the driveway, just barely audible over the night air. My eyes sweep the extravagant space—the stone fountain murmuring at the center, polished cobblestone gleaming under the lights, everything manicured and excessive. Nothing like our main estate in Brooklyn.
But I don’t stop searching for the light whimpers until they land on the opening to gardens across the driveway. A gorgeous girl sitting on a bench just in view.
She’s dressed in a dark green blouse cut low at the chest, a narrow collar framing her throat, the fabric tucked neatly into skin-tight bell-bottom jeans that cling to her hips like they were sewn on. A handful of flower necklaces hang loose around her neck, soft and careless, brushing bare skin every time she shifts. Her hair tumbles in thick, light-brown ringlets that catch the light like dark gold, framing her shoulders in soft spirals. A faint frizz breaks their polish, hinting that her fingers have worried through the curls one too many times, leaving them imperfect in a way that feels lived-in rather than unkempt.
She’s crying, and I can’t take my eyes off of her. I just watch the way her shoulders hitch when she inhales, enough that she swipes at her cheeks with the heel of her palm like she’s angry at herself. It shouldn’t be striking, but it is.
She looks up like she feels my attention on her.
