"And what if Santos isn't the only one I want? What if Vanni and Marco won't step aside? You two besties gonna go circle jerk it together? Well, actually, that's probably not enough for a circle," I mused as Tony's cheeks faintly colored up. He wasn't fair enough for a true flush, but I was definitely under his skin now. "Or I could just say fuck all of you and leave. For good this time. No phone, no fake I.D., nothing for you to hold over my head." I crossed my arms and cocked a hip out, determined to stand my ground until he gave it up.
"Not happening. Pick one," he demanded with a glare.
"Uh, pick one, what? I literally just told you I don’t want just one of you." I was confused and didn't like that he'd found a way around answering me. I'd for sure thought I had him this time. When he whipped his phone out and rapidly started texting, I got downright pissed. "Excuse me, I wasn't done! You're not ignoring me, Antonio."
A quirk of a brow and the devilish glint in his eye were my only warning that he'd cooked up something I wasn't going to like. "Do you want the traditional hoopla with a white dress, or will a Justice of the Peace suffice?"
"Huh?" He's lost his damn mind. Good going, Eden. You broke him, alright, just not in the good way. Seriously, I could fuck up a wet dream if you gave me long enough.
"A wedding, Eden, keep up. Mama will probably insist on a celebration when she comes back home, but I'll let you choose the ceremony, if you want one, and of course which one of us you'd rather be with." He didn't even look up from his screen as he spouted his nonsense.
"What the fuck are you talking about? For one, I've never even met your mother, so why would she want to throw a party for me? And what in the actual fuck are you going on about because it sure as hell sounds like you're planning a wedding!"
"Shotgun wedding if you want to get technical, Eden, though it's traditionally the man who's being held accountable. Now, whose name do you want? Carlotti or DeLuca? Maybe I could get Santos to change his last name, so it won't matter," he muttered when I stood silent in disbelief.
"I'm not marrying anyone, Antonio. Practical jokes are Marco's and Vanni's schtick, so what are you playing at?" I was plain irate at being ignored and worried I was about to be shanghaied into a marriage I wasn’t at all prepared for.
"Oh, there will be a wedding, Eden," he hissed, eyes narrowed as he slipped his phone into the pocket of his slacks before advancing on me. "And there will be a marriage license signed and filed before midnight tonight. Now… Pick. One."
My feet hauled ass before my mind was made up to run for the door. I got it open and shrieked for the one I assumed could talk the crazy man off the ledge. This was not what I'd had in mind. "Santos! Get your ass in here!" I didn't manage more before I was yanked back and dragged to Tony's desk where he bent me over until my cheek rested on the cool, polished top.
"Santos it is then," he all but growled in my ear. With one hand pinning me down by my neck, his hips snug enough against mine that I could feel the growing length of his dick, he pulled his phone back out. "Congratulations, Mrs. DeLuca. You're officially a part of the family. And your ass isn't going anywhere! Don't you ever fucking threaten to leave again, understood?!"
All I could do was blink in shock until my mouth ran away with itself. "You seem to be missing a few things, Tony, like a lick of fucking sense." I took his grunt as him waiting for me to further enlighten him. "For one, you don't have a shotgun, so you can't exactly call it a shotgun wedding, and I don't know... How about consent? Now, get off me, you fucking asshole, so I can kick you in those big ass brass balls you seem to think you're packing."
I missed whatever he started to say as Santos burst through the door, rage and worry twisting his lips and scars alike into a mask of living violence. "What the fuck, Tony? Let her go. Now."
But Tony had no intention of letting me loose. "There's the groom now," he replied, completely ignoring the threat. "And I can get a shotgun if you'd like, Eden. But make no mistake, your signature will be on that license as soon as the courier arrives with it."
Half a step away, Santos came to a halt and reached for Tony, intent on removing him. Through the curtain of hair hanging in my face, I could see his confusion. "Let her go, Tony, and tell me what's going on in here before I kick your ass." When he pulled on Tony's arm, the crazy ass man curled it around my neck and yanked me up with him, twisting to use me as a shield.
Annoyed at being manhandled, I filled Santos in after blowing wayward strands of hair out of my face. "Your boss here has lost his ever loving mind and has decided we're getting married. Me and you, not me and him." To punctuate my irritation, I kicked my captor in the shin, barely earning a grunt in return.
"He's what? Tony, man, what the fuck?" Yep, that's the consensus. A whole lot of fucks, just not the one I was aiming for.
"She said she was leaving. Now, she's not. Problem solved,” he delivered succinctly. And then it was Santos' turn to glare at me.
"I did not," I argued, preempting the accusation that was surely about to come from him. It would echo the one he held in his hard gaze as he stared me down. "I said if he wanted to make my decisions for me, I could just leave. That, apparently, was his cue to get even more high-handed and resulted in this mess.”
"You don't want to marry me? You were going to leave?" Oh, fuck me in the ass, he's butthurt now?
It did result in Tony's arms relaxing around me enough that I slipped away; he stopped playing my shadow when I only perched on his desk instead of heading for the door. Like a sane person would. Tony's phone buzzed in the lull, and when he looked at the message, a scowl took over his features once more.
"You want her to keep her maiden name or not?"
"Yes!" came from me at the same time as Santos declared his vehement "No!"
"Excuse me?!" At the unrelenting stares, I threw my hands up in the air. "You know, now I understand exactly how you two are BFFs. You're both fucking nuts. Absolutely goddamned cuckoo for cocoa puffs and certified batshit crazy! No one else would put up with you two. It's like a defense mechanism...attract the lunatic or some shit. Thank fuck it isn't catching."
Thank god that Vanni and Marco chose that moment to come through the open door. "Hey, what's—"
"Going on?" I cut him off. At his nod, I hurried to fill him in, indicating Santos and Tony respectively, just in case the insanity was catching. "Nutjob just joined crackpot's lovely idea to marry me off. To him." My finger landed squarely on Santos, who had the grace to cringe a bit. "And before they start, I did not say I was leaving. I said I could if the mob boss in training here wanted to make my decisions for me. I won’t live in a goddamned dictatorship!" I got it all out, glaring at Tony before he could open his smug ass mouth, but he just stood there with a smirk like I was digging my own hole. And from their reactions...I had. Fuck my life. Wet dreams, Eden. Wet. Dreams.
"Why would you threaten it if you weren't considering it?" Marco demanded.
But it was Vanni's face falling before he steeled it and stalked out without a word that had me reconsidering my words. Not that I was sure what the fuck else I could have said that would have gotten through Tony's thick head. I just wished things had gone in a different direction, because as it stood, if I went through with Tony's plans, I was about to lose three of them.
But I couldn't deal with that at the moment. I had to go after Vanni, especially after all the time we'd spent together lately and the declarations we’d made. Yeah, I’d fucked up, royally. Now I had to go own up to it.
"Fuck!" I hopped off the desk and stalked the few steps to Tony, poking him in the chest with each word. "Had you just said you'd commit, you asshole, none of this would be happening right now. Just fucking pull that stick out of your ass for once and say what you actually want." I whirled on my heel and addressed the other two. "Santos, if you wanted to propose, that was a shitty way to do it, and Marco, I love you, please...sort these two out while I go grovel?" Marco quirked his brow, acting his normal self, but I could see the worry under his usual devil-may-care mien. I lifted up on my tip-toes to give him a brief kiss on my way out the door.
"Got it, Edie," he said with a wink, but he grabbed my arm when I was halfway out in the hall. "Fair warning, if you ever did try? I'd lock your sweet ass in the basement." As I blinked, trying to come up with a suitable reassurance, or any words at all, he turned me loose, smacking my ass with the order to "Go find Vanni. I'll rub your jaw better later."
I just nodded, not even a bit surprised he suggested giving Vanni a blowjob, but I knew it would take more than me choking on his dick to reassure him that I wasn't leaving…although it couldn't hurt to try.