"Take down?" Colten cuts in.
Romeo glares at Colten. "Gianna is far too smart to waste on a body count. The kind of mafia boss she's becoming, that's exactly what Enzo's organization needs. If she proves useful, she could be brought in. But don't let her fool you. Just because she's a beautiful woman doesn't make her any less ruthless than the rest of us. If anything, she's worse. Because she has something to prove."
Colten groans quietly beside me.
"You need to get laid, brother," I say.
He clears his throat as Romeo glances at us. "Yeah. I do. And so do you."
I roll my eyes. The same thing Jett has said to me every day since Harper left.
All I can think about is a blonde-haired girl who taught a mafia princess what friendship meant.
And I wonder if she's okay.
And I hate myself for wondering.
And I wonder anyway.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Harper
Three weeks later. July Sixteenth.
"Harper, let's just go. Turn around, get an Uber, and stop this fucking circus," Emma hisses beside me in the back of the limo.
I clutch the bouquet of red roses tighter. The stems are digging into my palms, and I welcome the sting because it gives me something to focus on other than the fact that I will legally become someone else's wife.
Not just any wedding. Hudson wanted a spectacle. A performance piece for his dying father. Every family friend, every business associate, every name that matters in LA society, packed into a country club. A three-tier cake I didn't choose. A guest list I've never seen. An entire wedding designed by a man who is blackmailing me into attending my own ceremony.
All I have is Emma. My parents refused to come. My mother cried on the phone for forty minutes and then said she couldn't watch her daughter marry a man she didn't love and pretend to be happy about it. My father just went quiet. That silence wasworse than any words he could have said. Again, I had to lie to Hudson’s father and pretend it was branding season and my parents couldn’t possibly leave their ranch.
I know they're disappointed in me. I know Ace is beyond disappointed. And I'd rather have every single one of them hate me for a fake wedding than have them see my body on a screen. Have them hear the sounds I made. Have them know that the most intimate moments of my life were stolen by a man I trusted enough to work for. And then I think about that list of other women, who will have their lives trashed because of me. I can’t live with myself knowing that.
Another hot flash crashes over me. I suck in a shaky breath and hit the button to lower the window. The LA air hits my face, and it does nothing.
"I can't, Emma," I whisper.
She's been the only thing keeping me upright these last three weeks. Calling every morning. Sitting with me every evening. Holding my hair back when the nausea gets bad enough to send me to the bathroom floor. She is not okay with this wedding, and I hate that I can't tell her the real reason I'm walking into it.
"I know it's not real," she says carefully. "But it kind of feels it, doesn't it?"
I nod. It does. Sickeningly so.
"Is there something else going on, Harper?" She turns to face me. "You can tell me. I know you're torn up about Ace. And honestly, I kind of see where he's coming from. But this wedding isn't real. Right?"
"It's not. Just business."
"And you swear this will be over soon?"
"I swear."
The words taste like ash.
The driver pulls the limo up to the entrance. I swallow down the bile rising in my throat. I think it's stress and the fact that Ihaven't eaten a proper meal since Ace walked out of my parents' house and slammed his fists into the dashboard.
I can't eat. I can't sleep. My life has been derailed, and I can’t figure out a way to fix it yet.
