But for peace.
I look at the flame and I let myself have one final moment with the weight of it. The full reality of losing her. I let her go, not because she didn't matter. No, my mother mattered more than anything. She was the best person in this house and deserved a different life.
But she is gone, and I am not. I will marry Dáire Delaney. It will be what the Famiglia requires it to be, and it will not be anything more than that. It will not be loving. I will give her my name and my protection and my public loyalty, and I will build the alliance my father's meeting room demands, and I will do my job.
I will not love her. I will not love anyone. In this world, feeling is exposure. Every person you let matter becomes a point where the world can get to you. Every attachment is a door you leave unlocked. I will not leave doors unlocked. Dáire Delaney will be my wife. She will have my name and my household and my protection. She will stand beside me at every function the Syndicate requires. I will be civil. I will be fair. I will give her every material thing she needs. I will conduct this marriage the way my father conducted his, with discipline, with loyalty, and without sentiment. If she is intelligent, she will understand this. If she is her father's daughter in the ways that matter, she will take what is offered and not reach for more. That is the arrangement.
I watch the flame for a long moment, small and steady in the dark, and then I turn and walk out of the chapel, closing the door behind me.
I don't look back.
Chapter 1
Lorenzo
ONE YEAR LATER
My phone buzzes with an incoming call. I look at the screen and see that it's my father.
I pick up on the second ring, knowing better than to keep the boss waiting. "We have a visitor, meet me in the main room. Vittoria will be joining us too." He ends the call before I can respond.
I set down the report I've been reviewing and stand; I button my jacket, straighten my cuffs, and walk out of my office and into the hall.
Vittoria is my father's wife. When they first married, I was very skeptical of her. She's younger than I am. Hell, she's not much older than my youngest sister, but I slowly realized that there was a lot more to Vittoria than meets the eye. She may be young but she's extremely smart and she has learned to be a perfect wife for a boss of the famiglia.
What I hadn't expected was how my father would change when he married her. Somewhere along the way, Cesare Mariano softened. Not by much, but enough for those of us who know him to notice. It's obvious to all of us children that he cares about Vittoria. In fact, he loves her, and she loves him. I never thought I'd see the day when my father fell for someone, but he fell hard for Vittoria. Their son, Matteo, only made it worse, my brother is a few months old and my father acts like he hung the moon.
Having Vittoria join our family barely a year after our mother's death was hard on my sisters more than the rest. They assumed Vittoria was trying to replace our mother. They hated her on sight and were disrespectful. Both our father and Vittoria gave them space to grieve and time to come to terms with the death of our mother along with the fact that our father had a new wife, a wife who was barely older than them. But when Vittoria's father assaulted her, my sisters and brothers realized there was a lot more to her than they'd originally thought. Things changed after that; my sisters became protective of her, my brothers accepted her, and for the first time since she married our father, Vittoria stopped feeling like an outsider.
I like that for them. They need someone who isn't afraid to show affection to them and Vittoria offers them that along with friendship. They are safe to be who they are around her. We all respect and adore Vittoria and the way she cares for our father. She's a great mother to Matteo.
The main room is quiet when I walk in. My father is standing near the window, his jaw set, as he watches me walk toward him. I notice that Vittoria isn't here.
"What's going on?" I ask, trying to gauge his temper, but it's practically impossible, the man has an impenetrable poker face.
He glances at the door and then back to me. "One of the gate guards just called. Ronan Delaney is on his way in. He said it's important." A pause. "It's about yours and Dáire's union."
I hold my father's gaze for a moment. What about our engagement?
I don't ask anything else. There's nothing else he knows or he’d tell me. We're now waiting on Ronan to make his appearance.
Vittoria appears a few minutes later. Matteo's not with her, no doubt for safety precautions. Very few have met Matteo and that's the way that my father likes it, especially at such a young age. Vittoria crosses to my father's side without a word, her eyes moving briefly to mine. I see the worry in them and my stomach clenches. What the fuck is going on?
Heavy footsteps sound and I turn to see Ronan Delaney strolling into the room.
I have known Ronan Delaney my entire life. He and my father are very similar in the way they conduct themselves. He runs his Clann the way my father runs the famiglia; with precision, with authority, and with an iron fist. He's always composed just as my father is. However, he looks anything but that right now.
"I apologize for the intrusion, Cesare," he says. "But this couldn't wait."
"What's happened, Ronan?" my father asks.
Ronan runs a hand through his hair, his shoulders tense and his eyes filled with anger. "It seems my Dáire is pregnant," he says thickly, rage coating every word.
The room goes still and I grit my teeth as I realize what this means. Fuck. What the hell was she thinking?
My father turns to me, and I already know what's coming. "Pregnant?" he says, his voice dropping to an icy tone "Lorenzo, is this true?"
"It is not mine." The words come out flat and even, exactly the way they need to. "I haven't seen Dáire in months."
