83

Sunlight hit my face. I tried to reach out, but an arm was thrown across my waist and a firm chest pressed against my back. It took me a moment to remember where I was and what had happened yesterday, then I stiffened.
“Good, you’re awake,” Luca said in a voice gruff with sleep.
The realization hit me. Luca. My husband. I was a married woman, but Luca had kept his promise.
He had not consummated the marriage. I opened my eyes. Luca’s hand grabbed my hip and turned me onto my back. He was propped on one elbow as his eyes stared into my face. I wished I knew what he was thinking. It was strange to be in bed with a man. I could feel Luca’s warmth, even though our bodies were not touching. In the sunlight the scars on his skin were somewhat less obvious than the night before, but his muscles were just as impressive. I wondered how they would feel to the touch.
He reached out and took a lock of my hair between two fingers. I held my breath, but he released it after a moment, with a calculating expression. “In a little while my stepmother, my aunts and the other married women in my family will be knocking on our door to collect the sheets and take them to the dining room where no doubt everyone else is already waiting for the damn show to start.”
A blush spread across my cheeks and something in Luke’s eyes changed, some of the coldness was replaced by another emotion. My eyes found the small cut on Luca’s arm. It was not deep and was already forming scabs.
Luca nodded, “My blood will give them what they want. It will be the foundation of our story, but we will have to fill in the details. I know I am a convincing liar. But will you be able to lie to everyone’s face, even your mother, when you tell them about our wedding night? No one can know what happened. It would make me look weak.” Her lips tightened in regret. Regret that he had spared me and put himself in the position of depending on my ability to lie.
“Weak because you didn’t want to rape your wife?” I whispered.
Luca’s fingers on my side tightened. I hadn’t even noticed they were still there. Make him want to be good to you, Bibiana’s words crossed my mind. Luca was a monster, of that there was no doubt . He couldn’t be anything else to survive as a leader in our world, but maybe I could have made him keep the monster in chains when he was with me. It was more than I had hoped for when he had led me to the bedroom last night.
Luca smiled coldly. “The weakness for not taking what was mine had to be taken. The tradition of bloody sheets in the Sicilian Mafia is as much a testament to the purity of the bride as to the implacability of the husband.
So what do you think it will say about me that I made you lie half-naked in my bed, vulnerable and mine, and yet here you are intact as you were before our marriage?
“No one will know. I won’t tell anyone.”
“Why should I trust you? I’m not in the habit of trusting people, especially people who hate me.”
I rested my palm on the cut on his arm, feeling his muscles flex under my touch. Make him good to you, make him love you. “I don’t hate you.” He narrowed his eyes, but it was mostly the truth. I would have hated him if he had imposed himself on me. I certainly hated what marriage to him meant to me, but I didn’t know him well enough to really hate him. Maybe it would come with time.
“And you can trust me because I am your wife. I did not choose this marriage but at least I can choose to make the best of our bond. I have nothing to gain from betraying your trust, but everything to gain by showing you that I am loyal.
There was a glimmer of something, perhaps respect in his expression. “Men who wait in that living room are predators. They prey on the weak and have been waiting for more than a decade for a sign of weakness from me. As soon as they see one, they will pounce.”
“But your father…”
“If my father thinks I am too weak to control the Familia, he will gladly let them tear me apart.”
What kind of life was it to always have to be strong even with the closest family? At least I had my sisters and my brother, and to some extent also my mother and people like Valentina.
Women were forgiven weakness in our world.
Luca’s eyes were hard. Perhaps that would be the moment when he would decide that it wasn’t really worth the risk and take me, but when his gaze finally landed on my face again, the darkness was at bay.
“What about Matteo?”
“I trust Matteo. But Matteo is a hothead. He would get himself killed trying to defend me.”
It was strange to talk like this with Luca, with my husband, almost as if we knew each other.
“No one will doubt me,” I said. “I will give them what they want to see.”
Luca sat up and my eyes were drawn to the tattoo, then I watched the muscles in his chest and stomach. My cheeks flamed as I met Luca’s gaze.
“You should wear something more than this ugly excuse for a nightgown when the harpies come. I don’t want them to see your body, especially your hips and upper thighs. It’s better when they wonder if I’ve left marks on you,” she said. Then he smiled. “But we can’t hide your face from them.”
He leaned over me and his hand came up to my face. I closed my eyes, wincing.
“This is the second time you think I would have hit you,” he said quietly.
My eyes widened. “I thought you said-” I interrupted myself.
“What? That everyone expects you to have bruises on your face after a night with me? I don’t hit women.”
I remembered when he had stopped my father from slapping me. He had never raised his hand against me. I knew that many men in the Chicago Outfit had a strange code of rules to follow. You couldn’t stab a man in the back, but you could slit his throat like that, for example. I wasn’t sure what made one better than the other. Luca also seemed to have his own rules. Crushing someone’s throat with your bare hands was acceptable, hitting your wife was not.
“How am I supposed to believe that you can convince everyone that we have consummated our marriage when you keep evading my touch?”
“Believe me, wincing will make everyone believe the lie even more because I certainly would not have stopped wincing from your touch if you had taken what is yours. The more I gasp, the more they will take you for the monster you want them to believe you are.”
Luca chuckled. “I think you might know more about the power game than I expected.”
I shrugged. “My father is Counselor.” He tilted his head in acknowledgement, then raised his hand and grabbed my face. “What I meant before is that your face doesn’t look like you’ve been kissed.”
My eyes widened. “I have never…” But of course he already knew that.
His lips collided with mine and my palms came up to his chest, but I did not push him away . His tongue teased my lips, begging to enter. I relented and hesitantly touched my tongue with his. I wasn’t sure what to do and looked at Luke with wide eyes, but he took the initiative as his tongue and lips ravished my mouth. It was strange to allow that kind of intimacy, but it was not unpleasant. I lost track of time as he kissed me, demanding and possessive, his hand warm against my cheek. His beard rubbed against my lips and skin, but the friction made me tingle instead of bother. I could feel the restrained force as his body pressed against me. Finally he pulled back, his eyes dark with desire. I shivered, not only from fear.
An insistent knock was heard, and Luke lowered his legs off the bed and stood up. I held my breath at the sight of the bulge in his briefs.
He smiled. “A man is supposed to have an erection when he wakes up next to his bride, don’t you think ? They want a show, they’ll get a show. He nodded toward the bathroom. “Now go get a robe.”
I quickly leapt out of bed with the stained sheet and ran to the bathroom where I took the long white satin robe and put it on over my nightgown before picking up the remains of the corset I had dropped the night before.
When I returned to the bedroom, I saw Luke wearing the gun and knife holster on his bare chest, another strap with a longer hunting knife on his forearm to cover the small cut and reposition his stiffness so that it was even more noticeable.
With hot cheeks, I moved further into the room and tossed the corset next to my ruined wedding dress. Luca was a magnificent sight with his tall figure, muscles and holster, not to mention the bulge in his pants. A pang of curiosity filled me. What was he like without pants?
I leaned against the wall next to the window and hugged myself, suddenly afraid that someone would notice that Luca had not slept with me. They were all married women.
Would they see that something was wrong?
I braced myself as he threw open the door, standing before the assembled women in all his half-naked glory. There were gasps, giggles, and even a few muttered Italian words, which could have been prayers or expletives, were uttered too fast and low for me to hear. I had to hold back a snort.
“We’ve come to pick up the sheets,” Luca’s stepmother said with what was barely concealed joy.
Luca stepped back, opening the door even wider. Immediately several women came in, their eyes darted to the bed and the stain, then to me. I knew my face was red, even if it was not my blood on the sheets. How could these women seize the opportunity to see the proof of my virginity? Did they have no compassion? Maybe they thought it was okay that I had gone through the same things they had gone through. I looked away, unable to bear their scrutiny. Let them get what they wanted out of it. Most of the guests had left, mostly politicians and other non-Mafia people; only immediate family members were supposed to testify at the presentation of the sheets, but from the number of women gathered in the hallway and in the bedroom they would not know.
Only women of marriageable age could be present when the sheets were removed, so as not to frighten the pure, virgin eyes of the younger girls. Among the spectators I could see my aunts, but also my mother, V alentina and Bibiana, but the women of Luca’s family were in the front row because it was their tradition, not ours. Now it’s yours too, I reminded myself with a twinge. Luca briefly met my eyes across the room. Now we share a secret. I couldn’t help but feel gratitude toward my husband, even if I didn’t want to be grateful for something like that. But in our world you had to be grateful for the smallest kindness, especially from a man like Luca, especially when he didn’t have to be kind.
Luca’s stepmother Nina and her cousin Cosima began to strip the bed. “Luca,” Nina said with mock indignation. “Did no one tell you to be nice to your virgin bride?”
This made her burst out a few embarrassed giggles, and I lowered my eyes, though I wanted to look at her frowning. Luca did a great job, then gave her a wolfish smile that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “You are married to my father. Does that sound like a man who teaches his children to be nice to anyone?
Her lips thinned but she didn’t stop smiling. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me and I squirmed under the attention. When I risked a peek at my family, I could see shock and pity on many of their faces.
“Let me through!” came Gianna’s panicked voice. My head snapped up. She was struggling to make her way through the assembled women and avoid the mother who was trying to stop her. Gianna wasn’t even supposed to be here. But when did Gianna ever do what she was supposed to do? She pushed a very thin woman away and staggered into the bedroom. Her face lit up with disgust when she saw the sheets that Luca’s stepmother held up and spread over Cosima’s outstretched arms.
Her eyes found my face, lingering on my swollen lips, ruffled hair, and my arms, which were still wrapped around my waist. I wished there was a way to let her know I was okay, that it was not as it seemed, but not with all those women around us. She turned to Luca, who at least no longer had an erection. The look in his eyes would have scared most people away. Luca raised his eyebrows with a smirk.
He took a step in her direction. “Gianna,” I said softly. “Will you help me get dressed?” I dropped my arms along my sides and headed for the bathroom, trying to wince from time to time as if I were in pain and hoping I wasn’t overdoing it. I had never seen a bride, or anyone else, after supposedly losing their virginity. The moment the door closed behind Gianna and me, she hugged me . “I hate him. I hate all of them. I want to kill him.
“He didn’t do anything,” I muttered.
Gianna pulled back and I put my finger to my lips. Confusion filled her face. “What do you mean?”
“He didn’t force me.”
“Just because you didn’t fight him doesn’t mean it wasn’t rape.”
I covered her mouth with my hand. “I’m still a virgin.”
Gianna stepped back so my hand fell from her lips. “But the blood,” she whispered.
“It’s cut.”
She looked at me incredulously. “Do you have Stockholm syndrome?”
I rolled my eyes. “Shh. I’m telling the truth.”
“Then why the show?”
“Because no one can know. No one. Not even Mother or Lily. You can’t tell anyone, Gianna.
Gianna frowned. “Why would she do that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t like to hurt me.
“The man would kill a baby deer if he looked at it the wrong way.”
“You don’t know him.”
“Neither do you.” He shook his head. “Don’t tell me you trust him now. Just because he didn’t fuck you last night doesn’t mean he won’t soon. Maybe he’d rather do it in his penthouse overlooking New York City. You are his wife, and any man with a working cock would like to get in your pants.
“Dad has really wasted all his feminine comments on you,” I said with a smile. Gianna continued to stare at her. “Gianna, when I married Luca I knew I would have to sleep with him sooner or later and I accepted that. But I’m glad to have the chance to at least get to know him a little better first.” Although I wasn’t sure I would like the parts of him I would get to know. But his kisses had not been unpleasant at all. My skin was still warm when I thought about it. And Luca was certainly good to look at. Not that good looks could erase cruelty, but so far he hadn’t been cruel to me, and somehow I thought he wouldn’t be, at least not intentionally.
Gianna sighed. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” She dropped onto the toilet lid. “I didn’t sleep all night because I was worried about you. Couldn’t you have sent me a message saying that Luca didn’t pop your cherry?
I started to undress. “Sure. And then Dad or Umberto check your cell phone and see it, and I’m a goner.”
Gianna’s eyes searched me from head to toe as I stepped into the shower, probably still looking for a sign that Luca had roughed me up.
“You still have to act like you hate Luca when you see him later, otherwise people will get suspicious, ” I told her.
“Don’t worry. It won’t be a problem because I still hate him for taking you away from me and for being him. I don’t believe for a second that he is capable of kindness.
“Not even Luke can know that I told you.” I turned on the shower and let the hot water wash away the last hints of tiredness. I had to be fully alert for the show in the living room later. My tense muscles began to relax as the jet of water massaged them.
“You can’t come in,” Gianna said angrily, surprising me. “I don’t care that you are her husband.” I opened my eyes and saw Luca enter the bathroom. Gianna stood in his way. I quickly turned my back to them.
“I have to get ready,” Luca growled. “And there’s nothing here that I haven’t already seen.”
Liar. “Now go away, or you’ll see your first cock, girl, because I’m going to undress now.”
“Arrogant asshole, I-”
“Get out!” I shouted.
Gianna left, but not without calling Luca a few choice words. The door slammed shut and we were left alone. I wasn’t sure what Luca was doing and wouldn’t turn around to check. I could not hear him because of the splashing of the water. I knew I couldn’t stay in the shower forever, so I turned off the ‘water and faced the room.
Luca was lathering shaving foam on his chin with a brush, but his eyes were looking at me in the mirror. I resisted the urge to cover myself, even though I could feel a blush spreading over my body. He put down the brush and took one of the soft bath towels hanging over the heated towel rack, then walked over to me, still in my underwear. I opened the shower and took the towel from him with a quick thank you. He did not move, his eyes impenetrable as they roamed my body. I wrapped myself in the towel and then stepped out. Without high heels, the top of my head reached only to Luca’s chest.
“I bet you are already regretting your decision,” I said quietly. I didn’t need to explain; he knew what I meant.
Without a word, he went back to the sink, picked up the brush and resumed what he had done before. I was on my way to the bedroom when his voice surprised me, “No.” I turned and met his eyes. “When I claim your body, I want you to writhe under me for pleasure and not fear.”