Chapter 29

She took a step back, and then another. I wanted to reach for her, but really, there’d been no other way for this to end. The moment my father had called me, it had been written in stone.

“I’m afraid I’m going to need you to stay with us, signorina,” my father called to her. His tone was polite, but the undercurrent of steel was unmistakable.

She paused, stealing a glance toward the door. “Why?”

I cringed. Fuck, don’t do it. Don’t say it. But I kept my mouth shut because I knew the stakes. The time to woo Fallon into believing this was some sort of romance had come to an end.

“Because you have a very important role to play, Miss Moore,” my father said then motioned for her to take a seat at the table.

She eyed the chair like she thought it might have been rigged to explode, and her feet remained firmly planted where they were.

“Sit down, Fallon,” I said in a tone that brooked no refusal, remembering that she wasn’t as opposed to following my commands as she liked to think.

Her feet moved slowly, almost grudgingly, but she obeyed, pulling out the chair opposite my father and perching at the edge of the seat.

I looked at my father, and a silent exchange took place. Let me do this, I told him.

Are you sure? he asked.

I nodded then crossed the dining room to the liquor cabinet against the wall. I grabbed a bottle of scotch and three shot glasses. I filled them up and downed my own in one gulp.

“Drink up,” I told Fallon. She was going to need it as much as me.

She picked up the glass, eyeing it just as warily as she had the chair, but took a tentative sip and then another. Fortified for the moment, she placed the glass on the table and looked up at me.

“What role?” she asked, swinging her gaze back and forth between me and my father. Her blue eyes had turned a shade darker when it landed on me, but when she spoke, her voice came out as little more than whisper.

I straightened my shoulders, stiffened my spine, and met her gaze. “You and I have to get married,” I said, not bothering to mince words. She stared at me like I’d spoken gibberish then blinked slowly.

“Like an arranged marriage? You’ve got to be joking.” She scoffed, but the sentiment didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“My son isn’t joking in the slightest, signorina,” my father said.

Fallon blanched. All the color drained out of her face. Even her lips got paler. I’d always thought that cheesy thing where women fainted in old movies was bullshit, but she looked on the verge of passing out.

“A marriage between a Luca and a Moore solidifies our… relationship with the police force,” my father explained, but I knew there was no point. His words might have been making it to her ears, but they weren’t getting inside her head.

“You want me to just marry you? You want me to just hitch myself to some guy in the mafia?” she said, her voice an octave higher than usual.

“It isn’t a matter of ‘want’, signorina. It is what must be done.”

But she wasn’t listening, and I had to hand it to her. The woman had nerve to sit across the table from Vincent Luca himself. Fortunately, my father was fierce, but never cruel. He sat back, sipping on his scotch, and waited for Fallon to come to her senses.

But instead, her eyes widened. She looked up at me. The fear was gone. The confusion. All that remained was the sharp, piercing glare of betrayal.

“The Godfather… all that bullshit about family… it was all an act. You were just feeding me lines.” She paused then added with a roll of her eyes, “Investment bankers my ass.”

“No,” I said. “It wasn’t an act, Fallon.”

On the miniature golf course, it had been an opportune moment to press my point, but I believed every word I’d said about loyalty. It was the most important thing in the world. It was the only reason I was standing here, willing to tie myself to a woman who dared to look at me like that. No one else who dared to question my loyalty would have lived to tell the story.

She grabbed the glass in front of her and tipped it back, draining every drop, and while my father sat back in his chair and his shoulders began to relax like the storm had just ended, I knew better. The storm hadn’t even begun. This was Fallon just getting warmed up.

“No,” she said, slamming the glass down on the table. “Absolutely not. I am not a thing that you can claim for your own purposes. I will not marry you.” Her eyes snapped with fury, and color had come back to rise high on her cheeks, like angry slashes from a painter’s brush.

“You don’t have a choice in the matter,” I said matter-of-factly. It was better to dispel whatever notion

of free will she was holding onto now. It was less cruel in the long run.

“Really? What are you going to do, Dominic? Drag me kicking and screaming down the aisle?” Fallon pursed her lips.

“Yes,” I said, squaring my shoulders.

Her jaw dropped open. “You… you can’t be serious.”

“Dead serious. You thought all that loyalty talk was an act, but it wasn’t. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for my family, Fallon. Nothing.”

It hadn’t escaped my notice that my father was near bursting at the seams, biting down on his lip to hold back his laughter, but it shone in his eyes. Glad my misery could be so damn amusing.

Fallon shot to her feet. The chair scraping across the marble floor reminded me of the first long rumble of thunder. The storm had begun.

“There’s no way in hell I’m going to marry you. That’s just insane,” she railed, throwing out her arms. “What’s insane is thinking you have any say here, Fallon. Your life has been decided for you, the same

as mine,” I said with a shrug that belied my real feelings on the subject. “Like hell it has,” she spat.

And then she ran. She stumbled at first, giving away the fear that was making her legs tremble. But still, she was fast. Across the living room in three seconds flat, she threw open the front door, but jerked to a stop when the two men there pointed their pistols at her face.

“Stand down,” I roared, but the sight was surreal. The glint of steel so close to the lips I’d kissed. “For fuck’s sake, get the goddamned guns out of her face.”

I batted their guns away from her while my stomach roiled like I’d been punched in the gut. I couldn’t remember crossing the room. She’d opened the door, and then I was there, ready to rip the two men apart limb from limb if they fucking dared to threaten her again.

I grabbed hold of her arm and led her back across the room. Her body was trembling, and the color had drained out of her face again, zapping her fight, at least for the time being.

At the table, she sat down with nothing more than a gentle press on her shoulder. I poured her another glass and thrust it into her hand.

“Drink,” I said, and she obeyed, tipping it back while she cast furtive glances at the closed front door. I could only imagine how that moment had been burned indelibly in her mind, and it had come because of me.

The room was silent until my father sighed and placed his hands down on the table.

“There’s been enough commotion for one day,” he said then turned to address Fallon. “You’ll stay here where you’ll be safe, signorina. The outlook may be bleak now, but the sooner you come to accept what is, the sooner you can move on, at peace with what must be.”

She looked at him but didn’t say a word. “When?” I asked.

Fallon’s shoulders stiffened.

I didn’t want the answer any more than she did, but I didn’t bury my head in the sand. Ever. It never kept the bad shit from happening.

My father glanced at Fallon then back at me.

“One week. With Tony ready to wage war, we can’t wait any longer than that.”

I nodded. It didn’t sound like much time, but my father was giving Fallon a gift whether she wanted to acknowledge it or not. There was no reason he couldn’t proceed with a wedding this very day, so if he was offering up seven days, he was giving her time to come to terms with this abrupt turn in her life.

I looked down at her. Her lips were pressed in a flat line, her hands were clenched in her lap so tight her knuckles were white, and I could feel the hatred rising off of her like steam.

She looked up to meet my gaze. Her eyes were blue flames, ready to combust at any moment—seven days or not.