Too Late, I Married The Mafia King

ted cruelty, believing it was the only way to pay

king to his secret lover-

a in a fortified apartment as my personal

l Feast, Silas put his r

ress open from collarbone to shoulder i

ey across the dirt and forced me to draw the White Carna

ing to protect me, while Silas and h

, thinking I was making a noble sac

e pawn in his sick game, kept on a leas

before, I had taken the last of my

ged myself to Dante, the terrifying, new

hands reached into my vision holding a flawless Crimson Rose. And in the heavy silence that followe

pte

ia

ge of an overdue medical bill pressed a white line into the side of my index finger, the paper emitting a

tudy door when the sound of my own name froze me in place. I arrived just in time

how many days they had to wait for my father t

her his official Capo's wife-and consign me to a f

etary sound that I had spent six ye

Silas murmured, his voice low and thi

y morning. The syndicate doctors

s in the ground, Ar

town. She will be a quiet, obedient little secret

ut a soft, s

e former Underboss, a fact which made her

ose again this year,

ily laws say my status is elevated. I can

s promised, a smirk I could hear

Matriarch to swap Aria's

omorrow. She will be the laughingstock of the Feast, and n

and acidic, clawed

arch to make sure a Crimson Rose was placed in my d

man had si

up rattled in its saucer as she confessed that m

d with terror, unable

ears clicked into place, forming

s in my hand, its tremor a visible sign o

He had delayed our wedding with an endless procession of fabricated excuses. I had swallowed my pride. I h

a pawn, to be discarded in

d walked away from

thick pile of the expensive carpet

and walked straight into the gritty,

cold numbness had already settled deep in my

and retrieved the last roll of ca

es, but a different kind of survi

by a single, fly-specked bul

silver Vend

even the sunlight struggled to penetrate,

t to pledge herself to a new protector, a pu

ht to his shadowy, imposing study, I offered him the rosary. I begged him to claim me at the Feast tomorrow-to put on an act of taking me as his own, just long enough to break Silas's hold and secure my father's safety. Dante had stared at me, his pupils two pools of darkness that swallowed t