Carlo
Marriage.
The word keeps echoing in my head like a curse, bouncing around my skull until I think I might actually lose my mind. Giovanni Torrini intends to marry me. Tomorrow. He’s talking about booking a celebrant, planning a ceremony, like this is something normal people do instead of the ravings of a completely unhinged lunatic.
I watch in mounting horror as he flits around the room, pulling dress after dress from his wardrobe with the excited energy of someone planning the social event of the season. Not someone who’s just announced his intention to force a kidnapped man into marriage.
“This is not happening,” I mutter under my breath, testing the restraints for the hundredth time. The metal bites into my wrists, as unforgiving as ever. “This is absolutely not fucking happening.”
But even as I say it, I know it’s a lie. Everything that’s happened so far has been impossible, insane, completely beyond the realm of normal human behavior. And yet here I am, chained to a bed in a basement while a beautiful psychopath plans our wedding.
How the fuck did my life become this nightmare?
Three days ago, I was Carlo Benedetti. Respected capo. Right hand to Dario Ajello. Owner of the most successful nightclub in London. Men crossed the street to avoid me. People whispered my name with a mixture of fear and respect. I had power, influence, control over every aspect of my carefully ordered existence.
Now I’m a captive audience to a deranged fashion show, watching my best friend’s little brother try on wedding dresses while he chatters about flower arrangements and guest lists.
And there are so many dresses. Too many. This isn’t something he just thought of today. The sheer volume of white silk and lace hanging in his wardrobe tells a story I don’t want to understand. Full ballgowns with cathedral trains, sleek modern sheaths, traditional gowns with intricate beading… enough options for a dozen different weddings.
How long has he been buying these? How long has he been standing in front of this mirror, trying them on, imagining our wedding day? The thought makes my skin crawl and my pulse race in ways I don’t want to examine.
“What do you think of this one?” Ginni asks, twirling in front of the full-length mirror in a creation that’s more suggestion than actual clothing. The white lace clings, nearly see-through, to every curve of his body, leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination, all the way down to more than half-way past his hips, where it then flares out into a beautiful skirt. And the way it moves as he spins makes my mouth go dry despite my terror.
He looks fucking incredible. Like something from a wet dream, all pale skin and sharp angles and delicate beauty that shouldn’t exist in the real world. The dress transforms him into something ethereal, otherworldly, and I hate how my body responds to the sight of him.
He’s a man. A very young man. My best friend’s little brother. It doesn’t matter how breathtakingly beautiful he is. The fact that he is a femboy doesn’t excuse me at all. I simply should look at him and feel nothing but brotherly.
“It’s...” I start, then clear my throat when my voice comes out as a croak. “It’s very white.”
As much as I’m still trying to cling onto my denial, I can’t escape the truth. My feelings towards Ginni are in no way brotherly. And haven’t been for a while.
“Too racy for a church wedding,” he decides, completely missing the strangled quality of my voice. “Even though we’re not technically having a church wedding. I want something that says pure and innocent.”
Pure and innocent. The boy who drugged me, stripped me, and chained me to his bed is worried about looking innocent on our wedding day.
I test the restraints again, more frantically this time. The handcuffs are solid metal, police grade, attached to a bed frame that’s been bolted to the floor. The chains now have enough give to let me sit up, but not enough to reach anything useful. No weapons within range, no tools, no way to get leverage on the cuffs.
How long have I been down here? Two days? Three? Time has become meaningless in this windowless basement, marked only by Ginni’s increasingly deranged behavior and his casual discussions of our future together.
By now, people must know I’m missing. Dario will have noticed my absence, he will be asking questions. But Ginniwas right about one thing. Everyone will think I’m taking time off after the Petrov situation. It could be weeks before anyone realizes something is actually wrong.
Weeks of this. Weeks of being fed and bathed and treated like some kind of prize pet while Ginni plans our domestic future.
“Or maybe this one?” Ginni has changed into something more traditional, a full ballgown with a sweeping skirt and modest neckline that somehow makes him look even more beautiful than the scandalous number he just discarded.
The white silk catches the candlelight, making him glow like something divine. His dark hair falls in soft waves around his face, and his blue eyes are bright with excitement and happiness. He looks like a painting come to life, like something that should be hanging in the Louvre rather than standing in a basement planning a forced marriage.
My chest tightens with something that definitely isn’t attraction. Can’t be attraction. I’m not gay, and even if I were, this isn’t romance. This is kidnapping. This is insanity.
But watching him move in that dress, seeing the pure joy on his face as he imagines our wedding day, I feel something crack inside my carefully constructed defenses. Some part of me that’s been locked away for years, buried under responsibility and reputation and the need to be what everyone expects me to be.
“What about the guest list?” Ginni continues, apparently taking my silence as approval. “I was thinking small and intimate for tomorrow’s ceremony. Just us and the celebrant online. But then later, when you’re more comfortable with everything, we could have a proper celebration. A big church wedding with all our friends and family.”
The way he says it, so casually, like he’s planning a dinner party instead of discussing a fantasy that will never happen, makes my blood run cold. He’s not just talking about tomorrow’s insane online ceremony. He’s planning a future where I’m hishusband, where we have a social circle that accepts us as a married couple, where this nightmare becomes our reality.
“Dario and Molly would love to be there,” he continues dreamily. “And Nicolo and Liam, of course. Oh, and Marco will want to give me away, won’t he? Though he might need some time to adjust to having you as a brother-in-law.”
The casual way he mentions Marco makes my blood pressure spike. My best friend. The man who’s trusted me with his family, who’s considered me a brother for more than half our lives. What’s he going to think when he finds out about this? What’s he going to do when he discovers the truth?
