Arranged Mafia Marriage

Michael

I pace the length of the conference room in my office above Venom. How dare she question me about my actions? What right does she have to make me feel sorry about what I did? I will not regret it. She deserves it. She is mine to do with as I want, after all. I will do what I want to her, and she’ll damn well take it.

After that scene last night Beauty, had returned to my room, picked up her clothes, then stomped out. I had almost called out to her and told her to stay, but thankfully, for once, my brain had won the war over my dick… Okay, not really. My cock had wept to see her go, and I hadn’t stopped myself from watching the sway of her butt, or the flow of her hair down her back as she had marched out without a word.

I had gotten dressed, then decided to get the hell out of there. I hadn’t wanted to spend the night in my own house. If I had, nothing would have prevented me from going to her room, throwing her down on the bed, and rutting into her… That’s the only word for the intensity with which I want to fuck her. Only, I can’t, because of some stupid notion that I won’t allow her to come. Nor myself, for reasons I cannot begin to articulate.

F-u-c-k! I grab my hair and tug, and the wound at my temple protests. The wound that she inflicted on me. The almost healed one on my chest itches and I curl my fingers at my side to stop myself from worrying it. I had spent the night in the apartment adjacent to my office, which I have used in the past when work was so intense that I didn’t have the time to make it back home.

Not that it helped my disposition, to be honest… Or my shaft, which still tents my pants. I glare at my crotch. Get a fucking life, you complete cock. I frown. Great, now I am talking to my dick. Something I would never have done in the past. But then, I never had her to contend with in the past either. This is what she does to me. Ties me up in knots, then twists, just to ensure that I realize how much of a mess my life has become since I chanced upon her.

The door to my office opens and Sebastian saunters in.

“Whatever happened to knocking?” I scowl.

“Whatever happened to your demeanor?” He smirks. “Not that you’d ever be caught dead in a good mood, but this,” he looks me up and down, “your frame of mind leaves much to be desired, brother.”

“What-fucking-ever,” I grunt.

He laughs, “Very eloquent of you, Mika. I take it things are not going well on the home front?”

You can say that again. Clearly, I have backed myself up into a corner, where I won’t let myself come and I will not allow her to come either. The result is that not only am I sporting a raging erection since I walked out of my house but I also have no way of alleviating it. No way, am I going to back down from my position of not allowing her to orgasm. But why is it that I am unable to satisfy myself either? Is it out of some sense of solidarity with her? Which, considering I am the one who decided to leave her unsatisfied-is poetic justice. Or is it because I want to punish myself…?

Not that I regret one bit that I took her in the first place. Or that I forced her to marry me. Or that I marked her in a way that I knew would upset her. Make her feel a little bit of what I had gone through when I had realized that she had left me.

Only she returned.

After you pretended you were dead.

And then you had to go screw it up again. Why the hell can’t I forgive her for what she did? Why can’t I be more normal with her? And that would bore her. My Beauty has a soul as dark as mine, her tastes as perverted as mine. Her need for the extremes that turn me on were clear to me from the first time I looked into her eyes. It had thrilled me as much as it had frightened me.

And in a way, I have been running from facing those thoughts ever since. It had stopped me from sharing all of myself with her… For if I do that, there will be no turning back. I’ll be lost to her. I’ll be vulnerable in a way that I have never been before. Hell, I am already vulnerable to her. If anything were to happen to her… If I lost her again, I wouldn’t be able to take it. It’s something I need to figure out how to manage… Just as I need to come up with a solution for the problems that have been plaguing the Cosa Nostra.

“Michael?” Seb frowns, “I asked you a question.”

I glance at him. “I heard you,” I growl, “doesn’t mean I have to answer you.”

“But you have to answer to us.” The door opens wider to admit Massimo, followed by Christian and Xander. Adrian brings up the rear, as Antonio shuts the door behind him.

“Figlio di puttana.” The day hasn’t even started and I wish it were over already. Since when had I become so disinterested in work? The one solace that has kept me going all these years, the only focus of my life so far, the one thing that I value more than anything else, the key to underwriting my future… That’s what my role as Capo has been to me so far… And now…? I am not so sure.

I stalk toward the bar, grab a fresh bottle of Macallan. I twist open the top, pour out a generous amount in a glass, then toss it back. The liquid burns its way down my gullet, and I slam the glass back on the counter.

“Replacing coffee with whiskey, are we?” Massimo drawls. “Didn’t take you for a quitter, fratellone.”

“Quitter?” I pivot and level a glare at him. “What do you mean?”

“You’re here weeping into your whiskey, while she is there weeping into her pillow, no doubt.”

“Weeping?” I scowl. “Who’s weeping? Not me, and certainly not her. I promise you, she’s undoubtedly figuring out yet another way to bring me down.”

“Have you spoken to her yet?” Xander walks over to the coffee station in the corner of the office. He tops up the coffee beans in the machine before switching on the grinder. Once the coffee is ground he taps the handle, tamps down on the coffee powder, before scraping off the excess coffee. He inserts the handle in the brew head and proceeds to extract the espresso. He places the cup on a saucer, then reaches into the jar next to it to and takes out a biscotti that he places on the saucer. He tops off a glass with water, then places it all on a tray. He turns and walks over to the couch, “Sit, fratellone,” He gestures to the settee.

I walk over, seat myself, and he places the tray in front of me.

“Drink.” He stabs a finger at the espresso, and I arch an eyebrow at him.

“No one tells me what to do, not even my favorite brother,” I murmur.

He laughs, “At least, you admit that I am your favorite.”

“Che cazzo!” Christian frowns. “Just because stronzo here is the most creative of the lot of us-”

“Also, the most handsome,” Xander chuckles.

“If you like the cookie cutter definition of handsome.” Christian counters. “I have the rugged good looks, don’t forget that.”

“And I have-”

“A talent for brewing espresso that tastes better than what I make, and that,” I nod in Xander’s direction, “is not praise I give lightly.”

I take a sip of the espresso and the dark complex notes of coffee laced with chocolate and cinnamon fills my senses. I take another sip, and my sinuses seem to clear. Another and my brain cells finally seem to start firing. I place the espresso cup back in the saucer, dip the biscotti in the coffee and crunch down on it. “These are good.” I scowl at the baked item, “Different from what I normally have, but really eccezionale.”

“New supplier,” Massimo, who is also in charge of procurement, offers. “They are homemade, and sold only through our coffee shops.”

Yep, we also run a coffee shop chain. One of our many businesses through which I launder the not-so-legit money. The coffee shop chain is one of the more successful ones.

I crunch down the rest of the biscotti, then drain the last of my espresso. My muscles relax, and whether it’s the effect of the baked good or the coffee… Or perhaps, a combination of both, I don’t know, but I feel almost human.

“So, what are you guys doing here?” I glance between them, “Don’t you have enough work to take care of? Do I need to rebalance the systems and make sure you all get more to do?”

“Whoa!” Massimo blinks. “You don’t remember?”

“Remember what?”

“You, fratellone, who never forgets a work gig. You don’t remember why we are here?”

I blink around at them, “I still remember all my work appointments-”

“Except why we are here?” Christian smirks.Content rights by NôvelDr//ama.Org.

“You guys going to spill it, or what?”

“May I?” Seb glances at the rest of the guys, who nod.

“Go right ahead,” Massimo acquiesces. “Enlighten fratellone, here, about what has slipped his mind completely.”

“Enough with the fucking drama.” I scowl. “The hell are you guys trying to imply?”

“That you are right.” Seb tilts his head.

“I am?”

“You bet.” Seb’s grin widens, “You don’t remember there being a meeting this early in the morning because it wasn’t planned.”

“It wasn’t?”

He shakes his head, “However you did miss a meeting.”

“I did?”

“Last night.” Adrian adds.

“The fuck you mean?”

“Last night, we had a meeting scheduled with the Russians, which you didn’t turn up for,” Seb informs me.

“I didn’t?” Shit, I am repeating myself, but clearly, these guys are fucking around with me. “Get out of here,” I murmur. “You guys could do better if you wanted to play a trick, which by the way, is something so juvenile I’d have expected it of the twins.”

“Hey,” Both Christian and Xander protest, for once, sounding exactly like the twins they are.

I continue, “It’s not something I’d expect the possible future Capo to be after me to say.”

Seb blinks, then laughs, “Now, you’re the one yanking my chain, brother.”

“Am I?” I allow my lips to tilt up. “You stepped in when I was out of commission.”

He opens his mouth and I raise my hand, “I know it was only for a couple of hours, but you stepped in, took up the reins like you were born for it. And given Luca is, clearly, not the person we thought him to be-” I raise my shoulder, “I can’t think of anyone better succeeding to become Capo after me.”

“But,” Seb frowns, “I am the bastard child-”

“Who was more loyal to me than my own blood brother.” I rise to my feet, walk over and grip his shoulder, “I confess, I doubted your loyalties to me, but you came through for me when it most mattered, Seb.”

He opens and shuts his mouth, then shakes his head, “But the rules of the Cosa Nostra-”

“I am the Cosa Nostra,” I draw myself to my full height, “and as soon as I am Don, I will ensure that these archaic rules are overturned. We need to move with the times if we hope to survive in a fast-changing world.”

“And her?” Xander’s voice has me glancing at him over my shoulder.

“What about her?” I scowl.

“You want to modernize the Cosa Nostra, but what about your views toward women?”

“What about them?” I draw myself up to my full height, “What are you trying to tell me, fratellino?

“That you need to treat her more as your peer and less as your possession.”

Silence descends on the gathering. Adrian shifts his weight from foot to foot. Seb glances between us, turns to me, opens his mouth as if to speak, then seems to change his mind. Massimo tenses, and Christian… He’s the only one who doesn’t seem bothered. He watches his twin with something akin to admiration on his face but he stays silent. Thank fuck.

Bad enough, one brother is trying to tell me something which my subconscious, perhaps, even recognizes as the truth…but fuck that. No one tells me what to do. Not her…and definitely not, my youngest sibling… So what, if he’s always been the conscience among the group? Only I decide how I manage my wife, and no one else.

“You advising me on how to run my domestic life?” My voice is soft, yet it seems to echo back from the walls of the room.

“Of course, not.” Xander’s lips quirk, “All I am saying is that you might want to do the one thing that most couples don’t seem to master even after years together, which is tell her the truth.”

“Thus says the man who hasn’t been able to come out and share his truest feelings for the woman he’s spent most of his life loving from afar.”

Xander pales. His features take on a stricken look. He glances away, and when he looks back at me, his features are once more composed into that angelic face that all of us associate with him. “You’re right.” He lowers his chin, “I have never managed to tell her how I feel, probably because I suffer from the same issues as you when it comes to women. Apparently, our father’s treatment of our mother screwed all of us over enough that, when it comes to the opposite sex, we have only one use for them.”

I stare at him. “Now, that is not what I was expecting from you, I confess. You surprise me often, little brother, with your insight into human nature.”

“Not as much as you surprise me with your empathy.”

“Me? Empathetic?” I laugh, “Surely, you are talking about someone else?”

“If you weren’t, you would have killed her as soon as she showed up in that chapel-which you didn’t.”

“Thought you said you didn’t like how I treated her.”

“I wouldn’t dare butt into a relationship between a Capo and his wife, but when it comes to my brother and his soulmate…”

“Whoa, hold on.” I raise my hand, “Who said anything about a soulmate?”

“It’s not what you say as much as your gestures that indicate that you love her.”

“No, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” I smirk, “All this emo shit is not in my vocabulary.”

“Maybe it’s time you made it. Maybe it’s time you actually shared what’s going on in your mind, in your heart, how your soul feels about her. I-”

Seb’s phone pings just then. He glances at it, then back at us. “Don’t mean to cut in on this touching family scene,” he drawls, “but the Russians are here for the meeting.”

“Why the fuck are they here for a meeting?”

“As I told you,” Seb chides, “you didn’t make it to the meeting with them last night.”

“A meeting in which the rest of us covered for you, by the way,” Massimo adds.

“But, of course, they need to meet the Capo to confirm the deal we struck is legit.” Christian raises a shoulder.

“Merda.” I rake my fingers through my hair. “How the hell did I miss that meeting?” I walk toward where my jacket is hanging over the back of a chair. I slide my hand in the pocket, pull out my phone, which is dead. “Porca miseria,” I growl. My phone had run out of battery at the office, and I hadn’t bothered to plug it in when I got home…because I had been otherwise distracted. Nor had I once checked it throughout the night, thanks to my infatuation with one feisty woman who had, clearly, pushed herself to the forefront of my mind. I have never once not made it to a meeting on time in all the years since I joined the Cosa Nostra. Apparently, there is a first time for everything. Apparently, my brain is going to shit because I can’t even remember to charge my phone anymore.

“Fucking fuck.” I slip the phone back in my pocket, then turn to Seb, “Let’s get the Russians in here and get this over with.”