Chapter 0003

EROS

Adonis stalked toward me as I entered the room. I hoped he wouldn’t start lecturing me in a room full of people, most of whom weren’t aware of my relationship with him. The very few who’d known who Adonis was to me would always know to keep their mouths shut. For their own safety. It had always been better this way, not knowing we shared the same father.

“Where the hell have you been?” he asked in a whisper-yell and looked around the room to make sure no one was looking. But the people who had eyes would always see—that was something he too believed in.

“I was tied up in business,” I answered with a straight face. If he knew what my tied up meant, he would kick me out of my own engagement party.

He raised a brow with a sceptical look. “Business on the day of your engagement? I told Malcolm to cancel your schedule for the rest of the week.”

Of course he had. “I had to handle some last-minute meetings that were impossible to cancel.”

He shook and tilted his head toward the table in one corner of the vast room, near the dais. My eyes fell on Bella, staring me down like a hawk. She wasn’t very fond of my attitude, but she cared for me all the same. As her brother-in-law, of course. Maybe we would’ve had a better relationship if I hadn’t flirted with her the first time we’d met.

“Where’s Alessia?” I asked, pulling my brother’s eyes on me. “Why didn’t you bring her?”

“I didn’t want to put her in the spotlight, besides she isn’t ready. Bella isn’t ready to bring her out,” he explained. “Alessia will be at the wedding, though.”

“She would’ve been the only one in the room who doesn’t absolutely hate me. To her, I’m the cool uncle.”

I adored Alessia more than I could’ve explained. She was so much like Adonis and me, yet so pure of heart and nothing like us in entirety. I’d been told that first nieces and nephews would have this effect on their uncles.

“You’re spoiling her,” Adonis chided.

I scoffed at him, my eyes rounded. “Are you fucking with me? Says the father who coddles her day and night.”

“I’m trying to make up for the time I’ve lost on her.”

There had always been times like this where I didn’t know what to tell him. My brother might not show it to his own wife, but he was struggling with his own demons ever since he’d learnt he had a daughter he hadn’t known about for eight fucking years. He had been struggling. Because, deep in his head, he blamed himself for the death of his daughter’s mother, as he did for our sister’s.

Adonis gave a terse nod and walked toward Bella’s table. I followed behind him, and, meeting Bella’s eyes, I shot her a grin. Her face remained neutral, but her eyes softened at my brother.

As much as I was happy for him, I hoped he hadn’t pulled me into this marriage crap so soon. When I became an underboss, I dodged every tradition, but that was the extent of my brother’s powers. Cosa Nostra was also ruled based on the majority of decisions. So if my marriage and initiation were all it took to shut these men off, I was willing to do it. For Adonis. For my position.

“You should try to be on time at least once,” Bella said as I reached her table.

Putting on a sly smile, I responded, “Well, I was held up in a certain position.”

“Gross.”

“Why, lady? With work, I meant,” I bit back, playfully, and she laughed. The only other person at the table was a blonde with striking features and a glum look on her face. She was a new face. Taking the seat on her other side, I commented, “There are lesser people than I imagined, which is unusual since Danilo enjoys playing host.”

“Danilo didn’t get the time to invite many people,” Adonis said, standing beside the only empty chair at the table, but not sitting.

“Yeah, I’m sure that won’t be the case at the wedding,” I gritted. “Few people would want to miss the pilot episode of Eros Castellanos’s demise.”

“Careful what you speak of in front of your fiancée, Eros,” Bella warned, tapping on the wineglass in her hand and carefully angling her forefinger at the blonde. “She may be forced to think you’re a man incapable of positive thinking.”

What? My eyes widened and my head snapped toward the girl. This was Mariella Romano?

I had expected her to look more childish with barely a womanly body, bangs perhaps. But the person beside me was a woman with an hourglass shape accentuated by the dress and a handful of breasts and ass. With a square face, thin pink lips, round eyes and a small pointy nose, she was the opposite of what I had imagined.

Batting her eyelashes slowly, she looked up at me, but the moment she noticed me examining her, she turned away. Shy and reserved like all the women of this fucked up world. They were forced to be quiet little toys for their husbands and adjust to the best of their abilities.

“I suppose beggars can’t be choosers,” I said, glaring at Adonis.

I fucking hated this. She was so fucking small compared to me. And young. No part of me was prepared to accept this woman as my fiancée, even though she was fucking beautiful and magnificently desirable.

“Look at the advantages,” Adonis muttered, lowering his head to my ears.

“Advantages,” I muttered to myself before rolling my eyes.

The disadvantages had rolled the advantages out of this game a long time ago. But I had different plans, ones I doubted this girl would understand. I had to do a proper character evaluation before I even proceeded with my diabolical motives.

“Sit here, Eros, and keep her company while we go back to our seats.” Bella stood up and tangled her hand around my brother’s arm.

“I’m pretty sure my seat is with you guys,” I said, trying to win some condolence. But who was I kidding? Neither Adonis nor his wife was capable of that.

Adonis kept a firm grip on my shoulder. A warning. “Sit,” was all he said before moving far away from us.

I looked back at Mariella Romano, her posture stiff with tension and eyes focused on the solid table cloth while she scratched on her transparent nail polish.

“You’ll tear off your nail if you keep doing that,” I said calmly. She jerked and pulled her hands over the table.

“It’s just . . . I’m nervous.” Her voice was low and soft. The way she looked, so tamed and in control that I doubted the vibrato of her voice could go any lower or higher or quieter than this.

“This is the first time I’ve made someone, anyone, nervous.” She lifted her head and met my eyes and I noticed the colour of them. It was a light brown shade. “I’m the outgoing type, so everyone just assumes I would start talking shit the moment I walk into the room.”

“Doesn’t it make you uncomfortable?” she asked.

“Define it.”

“I meant the frankness. Doesn’t it feel weird?”

I shook my head. “It never really mattered because even if I were like every other man in this room, with brooding expressions, or none at all, and terse composure, they would still see me as an outsider, someone who can never fit in. So . . . why bother?”

“And how does their reaction make you feel?” I stared at her, a little shocked, but moved at the same time. No one had ever asked me this. Seeing me stunned, she said, “Forgive me. I have a tendency to ask too many questions.”

Before I could speak, a voice cleared their throat behind me. I twisted my head to meet an identical pair of eyes to Mariella, the light brown shade. The girl had long dark brown waves and even her skin was olive, like Mariella’s. There was no mistaking she was the sister I had heard about.

“Um, this is my seat,” she said, crossing her hands over her chest and angling her head toward my chair.

“There are plenty of seats, Ara,” Mariella gritted at her sister.

“Nah, I’ll just shift.” I shrugged.

As I was about to sit on the next chair, she voiced, “That’s my papa’s seat.”

Her eyes sparkled with a high attitude, one I didn’t particularly like. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen, but the confidence in her made her look older than her sister. All she needed was a mature body and she could easily pass for a nineteen-year-old.

I arched a brow at her and looked at the only seat left. “Let me guess, that’s your mom’s?”

The corner of her lips tugged upward as she nodded. Victory. That was what she revelled in. But she was trying to budge the wrong man. Because if she was a smart-ass, I was smarter.

“In that case . . .” I adjusted the chairs at the table to make space for an extra one and pulled an empty seat from the next table. Placing it beside Mariella’s chair, I sat and grinned back at the sister. “Now we’re good, right?”

I would’ve taken this as a chance to shift back to my brother’s table, but oddly enough, I didn’t want to. It was all because of the snobby look on the brunette’s face. She wanted me to scoot away, and that was a pleasure I wouldn’t give her.

Her mouth hung open and brows remained drawn as she examined my face. She blurted, “Who are you again?”

“Eros Castellanos. A pleasure to meet you. If I’m guessing right, and you’re the sister,” I pointed between Mariella and then her sister back and forth, “then that would make me your brother-in-law.”

“Last I checked, that’s how relationships work. I’m Arabella Romano.” She slowly took a seat and leaned into Mariella’s ears. “Do I need to do something?”

I couldn't believe that this girl was related to Mariella in any way. There was something wild about her aura and her voice was louder compared to my bride-to-be. Even though she whispered, I could clearly hear it from across the table.

And that something sounded anything but normal and more like a carefully laid out plan.

I tilted my head and waited for Mariella’s response, which I sincerely doubted I could hear, unlike her sister’s, but I was very well at noting people's expressions, something I’d honed while being a part of the underworld. My fiancée didn’t utter a word and simply shook her head, her eyes alarmed.

“So, my future brother-in-law, where do you come from?” she asked. “What do you do? Who are your parents? What are your intentions for this marriage?”

Lifting my lips upside down, I questioned back, “Is this some sort of interview?”

She snorted. “It wouldn’t have been if you’d been decent enough to pay my sister a visit before this party and gotten yourself a bit acquainted with us.”

“I would have if this weren’t so sudden.”

She rolled her eyes as if she didn’t believe me. Her audacity was surprising and good that my brother wasn’t here to witness it.

“So, you’re saying that you didn’t have five minutes to spare her?” The scepticism in her voice made me want to scoff, but I controlled myself. She was just a kid with opinions. Nothing bad with that.

“I live in Manhattan,” I clipped. “Geography isn’t my best suit, but it takes about three hours to get to Minneapolis. And if you’re familiar with mathematics, three hours isn’t five minutes.”

She snapped her mouth shut and narrowed her eyes at me. Of course, she hadn’t expected me to give a reply to that. But I didn’t have any guilt that I hadn’t been more involved in making this marriage work. I didn’t want it to work.

And I had no intention of being the picture-perfect husband Mariella was probably dreaming of.