“There’s my college-educated, stupidly-blowing-up-people brother.” He clapped a heavy hand on my shoulder when he passed.
I gave him the middle finger.
“Heard you blew up a frat house,” he said, unimpressed. “Next time, don’t get caught on camera.”
I glared at him. “It wasa carat a frat house.”
He sank into the chair beside me, his attention shifting to our father. “You tell him yet?”
“Tell me what?” I asked, my back straightening.
Benny started humming “Here Comes the Bride” obnoxiously and off-key. My father shot him a sharp glare. My asshole brother might’ve been pushing fifty, but sometimes, he played too many fucking games.
“We’re looking for a wife for you,” my father said, snapping his fingers to stop Benny’s singing.
My head started spinning. “Excuse me?” I choked out.
“Don’t give him any details,” Benny cut in, standing from his chair and walking toward the bar cart. “He might go blow up her house next.”
This was a part of this world I hated. The one I’d prayed would skip me, even if I’d bitched about Seraphina getting out of it.
In this life, marriages weren’t about love.
They were negotiations.
You married to secure power. Not happiness.
I shook my head as dread sank in my belly. “I’m not happy about this.”
“None of us ever are,” Benny fired back, pouring himself a glass of bourbon. He and my father were the ones who shaped my drink preferences. “But it’ll work out eventually. I mean, look at Neomi and me.”
The stories I’d heard about their engagement sounded less like romance and more like two sociopaths trying to drive the other insane. There were even rumors that at their engagement party, Neomi had dragged another guy into the billiards room where Benny was to provoke him. In response, Benny had blown his brains out.
I had zero interest in dealing with a wife who didn’t like me.
“It also worked out for Gigi,” my father added.
“Oh?” I asked with more attitude than was smart toward myfather. “Antonio didn’t murder Gigi’s first fiancé? The one selected for her?”
His nostrils flared. “A, your sister selected that fiancé. B, Antonio proved to be the better man. Not a coward who let himself get kidnapped and killed.”
His dark glare stayed on me as he pushed out his chair and stood. He motioned for me to do the same.
“Don’t mention this to your mother at dinner,” he instructed me. “We don’t need her upset.”
I slipped my hands into my pockets, rocking back on my heels. “Don’t arrange a marriage for me, and she won’t be upset.”
“Your mother never stays angry with me for long.”
Dinner with my parents went exactly how it always did.
Seraphina wasted no time announcing that I was terrorizing a new girl at the university. I returned the favor by informing them she was sneaking out of her dorm at night with her little group of girlfriends.
She responded by throwing a dinner roll at me from across the table.
I smirked, lifted my drink in a mocking salute, and drained the glass.
At the head of the long table, my father remained composed. He also neglected to mention the small detail that he was currently shopping for a contract wife for me.
