Expecting Dante or Lucca to tell him why he was called in, he was surprised again it was actually Vinny who spoke. “While you were in a coma, I made a suggestion in order to bring long-term peace between the two families, and both Dante and Dominic agreed.”
The hairs stood up on Drago’s back. By now he’d been told everything that went down about the meeting between them and the Luciano brothers while he was out, but he was beginning to figure out that they left out an important part of the deal.
Lucca reached for a cigarette, then flicked his Zippo open quickly to light the end as he took a long, deep hit.
Fuck, they did.
“It was agreed that we would pick a woman from the Luciano family to wed a Caruso. So blood could mix and trust could be earned once again.”
The feeling of dread washed over him.
Their consigliere continued setting his fate in stone. “And we all agreed on you.”
“What?!” Was he hearing them fucking right? “You can’t be serious.”
Three silent men met his eyes, showing just how serious they were.
His mouth went dry. “Absolutely not. I am not marrying a fucking Luciano!”
Again, no one sympathized.
Frustrated, he stood up. Keeping his voice calm, he spoke each word clearly. “They almost fucking killed me, and you expect me to marry one?”
The cigarette he had just lit hit the ashtray as Lucca smashed it deep into the glass, suffocating the fire. A small trail of smoke floated into the air, it all just showing exactly how fucking serious he was. “I do.”
“Is this an order?” he asked, the words coming out slowly. Looking back at the man he had gotten closer to, he would almost call that psychopath his friend. It was him he looked at for the answer, his underboss, even with his boss in this very same room.
It was Dante who answered angrily from the disrespect. “It’s a Goddamn order.”
Flexing his jaw, he waited for Lucca to save him from his fate in some way, but he never did. Knowing him, it was probably his sick idea. He took calming breaths for several minutes, coming to the conclusion there was nothing he could do as clearly their minds were made up. No Caruso, let alone a De Santis, denied an order from the boss unless they wanted to lose a finger. He figured they had picked him because he was a De Santis, one of the most loyal members in the family since the mob had been formed. Not to mention his personal status within the family being the boss’s personal bodyguard. His age of twenty-nine with no woman in sight of possibly marrying one day probably sealed the deal. No matter how much he didn’t want this, he did understand it in a fucked-up way, and if the roles were reversed, he would have made the same decision.
So, nodding his head, he bit the bullet, giving the approval they didn’t even need. The mafia hadn’t had an arranged marriage in a long time, and he believed he was going to be the first one in the twenty-first century.
“Glad you could see it our way.” Vinny smiled.
Like I had a fucking choice. Quickly, he began to realize something else... “Who did you pick for me to marry?”
Dante’s ice-blue eyes glowed. “We realize this is a lot for us to ask of you, so we are giving you the choice.”
“Hmm.” Leaning back in his seat, he was almost tickled. Drago should have known it would be his boss to take care of him. He supposed he could deal with that. He would pick the hottest one with the least amount of ties to that fucking family, fuck her every now and then, and continue on with his life and make his bosses happy. It didn’t matter much, anyway; he’d never wanted to get married, so it wasn’t like he was losing out on finding the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. That shit didn’t exist for him. “When do I get to choose?”
“They are ready for us to come today,” Lucca answered with a thin air of smoke escaping from the new cigarette he’d just lit.
He clapped his hands together, ready. “Line ’em up.”
There was something Drago missed, however, what he completely overlooked. The slight smile… that held Lucca’s lips.
Three
I Beg of You
Drago walked down the line of the Luciano women who were lined up perfectly in a row. Each one was different to the next, giving him many options, but none of them had sparked an interest in him so far. He reached the last one in the row; she was easily the hottest one in the bunch. The right age, the right face, and the right fucking body. Hell, the bitch was practically asking to get picked the way her red bra and big tits popped out of her shirt, not to mention the way she kept eye fucking him.