Page 5 of The Forbidden Husband
I had been forced to sit back and watch them torture my mother for years.
I hadsat backwhen a feud between Alonzo Bianchi and Anton Petrov caused her death.
“I don’t have to like her,” I told him. “I don’t even need to tolerate her.”
“She is not her father just like you are not yours.”
I smirked at him to diffuse the tension of the combination. “What happened to all the comments of me being just like him?”
“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, but there will always be enough distance to separate the two.”
I snorted and shook my head. Dad had been the guns behind Giovanni’s wisdom, and I was no different. I had taken after my father in that department, yet somehow, Uncle Giovanni had rubbed off on me in other ways.
“Are you ready to meet her?” he asked as we pulled into the mansion where the Bianchis did most of their business. The lack of separation between home and work was enough to know they operated very differently than we did.
“I am.”
“If you change your mind after the meeting—”
“I won’t.”
I couldn’t. If this was what Uncle Giovanni needed, I would tolerate the consequences. I would deal with the girl. If all went according to plan, we would marry, and then I would lock her away and be rid of her company.
We left the car with four armed guards, all their hands resting on their holsters. As I stood, I straightened my suit jacket’s lapels. Uncle Giovanni did the same as he exited behind me. As I ran my hands down my chest, it paused on my stomach. My fingers lingered right above the gun in my holster, twitchingto pull it free as I spotted Alonzo Bianchi at the front door of his home.
He didn’t bother stepping outside and meeting us halfway.
Shocker.
Uncle Giovanni and I made our way to the door, and I stood behind him as he extended a hand. Alonzo accepted it.
“It’s good to see our families continuing their unity,” Uncle Giovanni said. “Just as the men before us had envisioned.”
Alonzo only nodded and gestured us to enter the house.
I hesitated at the doorway, knowing that this was a place of my enemies. A firefight or ambush wouldn’t have been unusual, but he risked too much by doing it here. With him in the room, he stood as much of a chance of being killed as either of us.
It was the only reason we would risk this courtesy visit.
“Your bride is in the study.” Alonzo gestured to the large oak door behind him, closed as if to keep us out of the room.
Or to keep someone else inside it…
“If she’s not suitable, let me know.”
I glanced at Uncle Giovanni, and he nodded once. I turned and walked toward the room.
Meeting her didn’t matter. All of these god-damned formalities didn’t matter. I would marry her because it was what needed to be done. I wouldn’t care for the girl. No matter what this marriage likely insinuated to her, I didn't do romantic attachments.
An itch in the back of my mind reminded me of what I had suggested to Uncle Giovanni when he had proposed the marriage.
We could use her to influence her father. We could send pieces of her back to her father if he didn’t do our bidding.
He had turned down the idea vehemently, but it would send a strong message.
It would put Alonzo back under our thumbs where he belonged.
I pushed down the handle and strutted into the room. My eyes immediately fixed on my target, standing right in the center with her arms crossed over her chest as if they would protect her from my gaze.
