Page 174 of The Wrong Brother

It doesn’t.

“This won’t take long,” the woman says briskly. “We just need signatures. I’ll spare you both the poetics.”

“Signatures for what?” I ask.

My father steps beside me and rests a hand on my shoulder, heavy and possessive. “A partnership,” he says smoothly. “A very important one for our future.”

My heart races harder, like it already knows.

“A marriage license and certificate,” the woman adds, not even bothering to look up. She seems as though she orchestrates surprise marriages every day of the week.

“Excuse me?”

She adjusts her glasses. “Between yourself and Mr. Demsky. The ceremony will be brief. Legal recognition tonight, formalities later. Names and,” she gestures between us, indicating apparently ‘everything that goes along with marriage,’ and “whatever else.”

For a moment, the world tilts.

The church seems too bright, too warm, and it suddenly feels like I’m breathing through a straw.

“A marriage contract?”

“Your marriage,” my father says slowly, like he’s talking to a child. I am his child, but I’m also twenty-four and the leader of his entire intelligence and tracking team. “It’s the smartest move, Cariño. Bratva and us, united. Miami, Savannah, everything connected. You’ll be safe. Powerful.”

He smiles like he’s giving me a gift.

I stare at him.

“You’re marrying me off,” I whisper.

His hand tightens slightly into a fist. “Don’t be dramatic, Ryder. You were always going to get married, of course.”

Was I? Somehow, I’d never really considered the possibility. After graduating, going home to Miami, coming to Savannah and straightening out the mess that was my father’s cartel, I assumed someday he’d hand it over to me.

Not to some man who would tack his last name onto me and hog all the blankets.

My gaze snaps to Liev. He hasn’t said a word.

He looks tense. Not smug. Not pleased. Just tightly controlled, like this isn’t what he expected, but he’s still following some unspoken rule.

Heat rushes up my spine.

“No,” I breathe.

My father’s smile falters. “Ryder?—”

“No.”

The word tears out of me louder this time, echoing off the vaulted ceiling. “I’m not going to marry some cabrón just because you want more territory. Fuck you.”

I stumble back, shaking my head, and dragging air into my lungs as they tighten with panic. “You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to decide my life like I’m a shipment or a piece of land.”

“Ryder,” Liev says quietly, stepping forward.

Fight or flight?

I only make it two steps before a hand clamps around my wrist. Strong. Unyielding. I whirl, and it’s him.

His grip isn’t cruel, but it’s iron.