Standing, we move, my father gripping my upper arm as the five of us walk into the dining room and occupy the table there. My father sits at the head. Sean Fitzpatrick at the foot. I am to my father’s left, Ivan to his right. Darragh Connelly sits to Sean’s left, and there is one seat between him and Ivan and two empty seats beside me.
Sean Fitzpatrick and Darragh Connelly study me far too often for comfort. I turn my eyes to my soup. Smoked ham hock and bean soup, a traditional Romanian recipe.
The conversation and the cigar smoke flow around me. Occasionally offhand comments are made about my looks, but I ignore them.
This was my entire life growing up. Women aren’tpeopleto these men. They are objects, so a passing comment about my breasts or lips is neither here nor there.
Finally, after papana?i is served for dessert, the Irish, Ivan, and my father disappear while I sit in the parlor by myself. I mess around on Instagram until my father finally appears with an inscrutable look on his face. He hands me a tumbler of brandy, seating himself in the armchair across from me.
“Draga.”
He smiles at me. That’s how I know he wants something. He only calls me “darling” in Romanian when he wants something.
“We can end this war.”
The blood in my veins turns ice cold. I’m not involved in their shady as fuck business dealings. I haven’t been since I graduated high school and walked out of this house with my middle finger held high.Wecan’t end fuck all.
My silence speaks to him, and he sighs.
“You will marry the Fitzpatrick boy next month.”
Excuse me? I will do fuckingwhat? My gaping mouth and incredulous expression have my father rushing to convince me.
“I have already signed the contract,draga.”
My eyes are cold as they rest on him.
“If you walk away from this, the Irish, they will come for me. For you.” He doesn’t need to say anything more. He has signed a marriage contract between myself and the son of Sean Fitzpatrick, the head of the Irish mafia. If I refuse, the Irish Mafia will execute my father and me. Such is the price of dishonor.
This is the life and future I walked away from at eighteen. And somehow, my father has dragged me straight back into this world.
I have spent the last six years proving I am more than a puppet to be playing in this game, yet I didn’t actually have a say at all when things came to a head.
“I’m not getting married,” I manage to spit out, but my father looks at me sadly, shaking his head.
“If you do not agree to this, it will be all-out warfare. The Irish outnumber us. They have alliances with the Russians and the Italians. My life will be forfeit.Yourlife will be forfeit.”
I stare at my father, open-mouthed in shock, tears of disbelief filling my eyes.
“I don’t understand. You hate the Irish.”
“This is what is needed,draga. We make this deal, and the incursions with the Irish will disappear. We will have -.”
“An alliance?” I sneer, anger welling inside me, my hands clenched tightly in my lap.
“Not as such,” he sighs, rubbing his hands over his eyes, looking tired. “We are too small for them to benefit from that.”
“Then what? What is the point? What does everyone gain from this?” Because I’m the only one who will be losing – that couldn’t be more clear.
“The Irish will get you. We will have a truce. We will no longer have to look over our shoulders or avoid certain parts of the city. The Irish are larger than us. They are more powerful. They have alliances with the Italians and the Russians. They could annihilate us if they chose. We are buying our way out of that scenario with you as the currency.”
“And you get to have dinner with the Wolf Pup every Sunday? That gives you…what? Bragging rights?”
Father sighs, reaching over and patting my hand sadly. “There will be no weekly dinners. There will be no dinners at all. No contact.”
My heart thuds. No. No contact? I must have misheard him. That can’t be right.
“N-no contact?”