Married to the mafia boss Series

I scream at the top of my lungs. Arabella is the first to rush into my room, it’s dark, but the light from the hallway makes me able to make out her worried features.

“What happened? What’s wrong?” She asks frantically.

“Nothing. Just, just a nightmare,” I place my hand over my erratic heart and take fast, panting breaths. “I just… I just thought about how,” tears begin to stream down my cheeks, “how Antonio killed that man.”

“Not killing the man would’ve made Antonio weak. He has to ensure his dominance and make sure everyone knows they will pay if they disrespect anything related to him and his life.”

“I’m so scared,” I hug her and bury my head into the junction where her neck and shoulder meet. “He’s going to kill me.”

“He’s not going to kill you,” Arabella strokes my hair. “Tony wouldn’t kill you… unless you betray him-then he must make an example out of you. You wouldn’t betray him though.”

“Yes, I would.”

Arabella’s body goes tense. “What do you mean?”

“I’m going to betray him on his wedding night, I can’t go through with tradition. I can’t sleep with him! I can’t do this marriage!”Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

“Shhh,” Arabella rocks and soothes me. “No more worrying about your wedding night. Everything will be okay.”

Arabella lulled me to sleep after minutes of comforting me and whispering nice thoughts in my ear. She must’ve left sometime after.

I wake up alone in the pristine, white guest bedroom. The room feels empty to me, no personality, it makes it feel less like home. Back in New York I put up pictures, magazine clippings, twinkle lights, my comforter had patches of different design, I made that room a part of me. Even my room in the Chicago penthouse I have my own little touch. This room is unfamiliar, a mean to stay in until I move into the master bedroom and endure whatever horrors my future husband plans to do with me.

At the top of the stairs I listen to Arabella cry from down below. Heart-wrenching sobs escape her lips and makes me think the worst possible scenario. Maybe her mother died, maybe she’s sick and dying. All I know is a cry like that is from pain and despair, I know it all too well. My heart breaks slightly and I hope to God there is a way to fix whatever is happening.

I peek my head around the corner and see Antonio and Rocco sitting with her. Her hand is over her face and Rocco is rubbing her arm while Antonio is pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I don’t want to!” Her voice is hoarse from all the crying.

“Don’t be a brat,” Antonio says in his deep baritone voice. He sounds even more annoyed than usual. He is doing nothing to comfort his own cousin, unlike Rocco.

“He’s a monster!” She screams in his face shocking me with her fierceness.

“We all have a duty. Aren’t you the one who spent much of your time trying to convince Liliana that I’m not a monster?”

“You aren’t!” Her face is wet with tears.

“I am. I’m more of a monster than Luca Ricci. He is the next Capo, you’re lucky you aren’t going to die a single widow with no children. Luca will give you the best possible life in New York.”

Luca? She’s marrying Luca? She can’t be, Arabella is too nice for someone as evil as my brother.

“But I don’t want to live in New York! I want to stay here in Chicago with you, and Rocco, and Liliana!”

“The wedding isn’t until a year…” Rocco attempts to console her.

I take a step down one of the stairs and make a creaking noise, all their attention is startled towards me. “Arabella is marrying my brother?” I interrupt.

“Yes, now will you tell her it isn’t so horrible,” Rocco motions for me to take his place on the couch next to her.

Arabella’s face is flushed and her eyes bloodshot from all the crying, I can even make out a little bit of snot running from her nose.

When talking to me about an arranged marriage, she was so cool and collect constantly tell me it won’t be as bad as I think.

“I wish I could tell her the same lies she told me. It won’t be a happy marriage. Luca is incapable of feeling anything, he’s ruthless and vicious and will treat her terribly! You can’t let them go through with this! Arabella deserves better!”

“Deserves better than the next Capo?” Rocco snorts and rolls his eyes at me.

“We can and we will, I am not starting war between New York and the Outfit just because Arabella shouldn’t be marrying a vicious man. Arabella’s pick is all Made Men, we are all vicious and ruthless. She dealt with her first husband, and she will deal with her second husband just the same.” Antonio stands and looks down at his cousin. “Clean yourself up, I can’t stand seeing you crying. You’re marrying a soon to be powerful Capo of the mafia. You should be grateful. You both should fucking be grateful!” He sends daggers my way and my heart skips a beat. His temper causes him to leave the room. Which is good because another minute with me and his crying cousin and I was afraid he’d pull out his knife and end both our misery.

“He’s right, I’m just being overly emotional. My life with a future Capo will be one with honor. I have his protection and with him I will have children,” she hiccups on choked sobs trying to break through. I can tell she doesn’t mean it. She doesn’t want to marry Luca just as much as I don’t want to marry Antonio.

“I’m sorry,” I hug her long enough that the Moretti brothers exit.

“It’ll be…” Arabella tries to find the words, “at least he’s not fat and ugly,” she forces out a chuckle.

I laugh with her for her benefit. “At least there’s that.” I stand up from the couch and hold out my hand for her to take. “Let’s go watch a sad movie and cry over some ice cream.”

“That sounds perfect actually,” she sniffles and takes my hand squeezing it in thanks.

In the entertainment room was a large white couch, fluffy and full of pillows. I grabbed us two blankets from a basket in the corner of the room and we wrapped up in it. We each grabbed our own little container of Häagen-Dazs and grabbed the remote to the ninety-something inch plasma screen television. Arabella put on Netflix and clicked on the account labeled “Antonio” on his account in the recommended section were a bunch of cliché romance movies. I raise my eyebrow and she giggles.

“He doesn’t use Netflix. I begged him to get one so I could watch whenever I come over.”

We decided on watching an Anne Hathaway movie called “One Day.” We sobbed into each other’s arms and I never realized how much I needed this. My best friend Gia and I never had a friendship like this. We were only allowed to socialize during parties-Father didn’t want anyone to know the location of our mansion so she was never allowed over. I cry over the movie, and I also cry over my new friendship and how I’ll lose her in a year to my cruel brother, and New York. I cry knowing I am soon to be a terrible man’s property. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if every day were like this, him gone at work and me able to watch movies and cry into my ice cream with Arabella-at least I’ll be able to be with her for a year.

Who knows how I’ll feel about the arranged marriage in a year?

Who am I kidding? I’ll probably be just as miserable if not more.

***

Loud bangs came from downstairs. I check the clock on my bedside; three-forty in the morning. It doesn’t sound like gunshots, more like furniture being thrown around. I grab my robe and sneak my way downstairs to see what the commotion is about.

I spot Antonio in a fit of rage growling and smashing things with what looks like a broken broomstick. His veins are bulging out of his muscles and his chest is rising in fast shallow breaths.

“Antonio!” I trudge down the steps and toward him.

He’s so blinded by fury he doesn’t even hear me.

“Antonio! Stop! You’re destroying the place!” I reach out to tap on his shoulder.

Before I can process what happened, he has me pinned to the ground. His chest is heaving and his eyes are dark and dilated. He drops his head to my shoulder and inhales. His hands have my wrists pinned over my head leaving me completely helpless, he lowers his body and I can feel his erection rub against my thigh. Soft lips touch my neck and I begin to squirm under his weight.

“Stop,” I say forcefully. My body tenses as a result of being terrified.

He doesn’t stop, in fact it only seems to provoke him more. His tongue runs up the column of the throat causing me to shiver. He uses one hand to pin both of mine and his now free hand snakes between our body and to my thigh. From there his big, calloused hand goes up my thigh, under my robe and towards my cotton underwear.

“Stop!” I shout louder. It’s like he doesn’t even hear me. His eyes are glazed over and he appears to be a lust filled fog. I wish I could smack him out of him. His finger crooks against my underwear and he begins to rub. I inhale a sharp breath and begin to panic.

Suddenly, he becomes rough no longer touching me, but now trying to free himself of his suit pants. I hear the zipper and begin to fight with all my might. He’s far too strong to remove him, no matter how hard I try it’s no good.

He relents for just a moment and I see it as my opportunity to knee him in the balls. He rolls off me and doubles to the floor to coughs. He cups himself and groans. “What the fuck,” he says breathlessly.

“That’s what I should be saying! What the… what the heck, Antonio!” My father forbids me to swear back when I lived under his household. I guess old habits never really die.

“Fuck, Liliana. What happened?” His eyes are once again hazel, and his blank fear is now masked with pain.

“You tried to rape me that’s what happened!” It could’ve been so easy to kick him while he’s down.

“Just get away from me, go in your room and lock the door.”

“No, I want an-”

“Jesus Christ, go to your fucking room, Liliana!” He shouts and Carmelo comes down the stairs. “Take her to her room and make sure she doesn’t leave it until morning.”

Carmelo picks me up and puts me over his shoulder-like he has done before-and carries me upstairs.

“I can walk you know,” I growl and punch at his back. “What is going on, why was he acting like that?”

“Capo has seen some dark stuff, that’ll do something to a man.”

“It’ll leave you heartless,” I murmur under my breath and Carmelo says nothing in response on the way back to my bedroom.

That night is sleepless, I can’t get the look of his dark eyes out of my head. The way his body moved against and how I actually felt heat between my eyes and the evidence of my arousal made my panties stick to me. I wanted him-I actually wanted him, but he scared the crap out of me. He was rough, where I want gentle and I fear it’ll always be like that. Antonio will dominate me every night, no sweet kisses, no words of love whispered in my ears, no happily ever after like you read in the fairy-tales. Just a marriage where I’ll only see him at night, where he will force sex, and the only reason for our union is political and for the conception of heirs I will be forced to bare for him.

I weep into my pillow and wonder if Arabella cried herself to sleep earlier. I also start to wonder who will be worse husband, Luca or Antonio?