Born in Blood Collection Volume 1 - Cora Reilly Page 0,2

he cruel?

He’d crushed a man’s throat. He’ll be the head of the New York mob.

“Father,” I whispered. “Please don’t force me to marry that man.”

Father’s expression tightened. “You will marry Luca Vitiello. I shook hands on it with his father Salvatore. You will be a good wife to Luca, and when you meet him for the engagement celebrations, you’ll act like an obedient lady.”

“Engagement?” I echoed. My voice sounded distant, as if a veil of fog covered my ears.

“Of course. It’s a good way to establish bonds between our families, and it’ll give Luca the chance to see what he’s getting out of the deal. We don’t want to disappoint him.”

“When?” I cleared my throat but the lump remained. “When is the engagement party?”

“August. We haven’t set a date yet.”

That was in two months. I nodded numbly. I loved reading romance novels and whenever the couples in them married, I’d pictured how my wedding would be. I’d always imagined it would be filled with excitement and love. Empty dreams of a stupid girl.

“So I’m allowed to keep attending school?” What did it even matter if I graduated? I would never go to college, never work. All I’d be allowed to do was to warm my husband’s bed. My throat tightened further and tears prickled in my eyes, but I willed them not to fall. Father hated it when we lost control.

“Yes. I told Vitiello that you attend an all-girls Catholic school, which seemed to please him.” Of course, it did. Couldn’t risk my getting anywhere near boys.

“Is that all?”

“For now.”

I walked out of the office as if in a trance. I’d turned fifteen four months ago. My birthday had felt like a huge step toward my future, and I’d been excited. Silly me. My life was already over before it even began. Everything was decided for me.

* * *

I couldn’t stop crying. Gianna stroked my hair as my head lay in her lap. She was thirteen, only eighteen months younger than me, but today those eighteen months meant the difference between freedom and a life in a loveless prison. I tried very hard not to resent her for it. It wasn’t her fault.

“You could try to talk to Father again. Maybe he’ll change his mind,” Gianna said in a soft voice.

“He won’t.”

“Maybe Mama will be able to convince him.”

As if Father would ever let a woman make a decision for him. “Nothing anyone could say or do will make a difference,” I said miserably. I hadn’t seen Mother since she’d sent me into Father’s office. She probably couldn’t face me, knowing what she’d condemned me to.

“But Aria—”

I lifted my head and wiped the tears from my face. Gianna stared at me with pitiful blue eyes, the same cloudless summer-sky blue as my own. But where my hair was blonde, hers was red. Father sometimes called her “witch;” it wasn’t an endearment. “He shook hands on it with Luca’s father.”

“They met?”

That’s what I’d wondered as well. Why had he found time to meet with the head of the New York Famiglia, but not to tell me about his plans to sell me off like a high-class whore? I shook off the frustration and despair trying to claw their way out of my body.

“That’s what Father told me.”

“There has to be something we can do,” Gianna said.

“There isn’t.”

“But you haven’t even met the guy. You don’t even know how he looks! He could be ugly, fat and old.”

Ugly, fat and old. I wished those were the only features of Luca I had to worry about. “Let’s google him. There have to be photos of him on the Internet.”

Gianna jumped up and took my laptop from my desk, then she sat down beside me, our sides pressed against each other.

We found several photos and articles about Luca. He had the coldest gray eyes I’d ever seen. I could imagine only too well how those eyes looked down at his victims before he put a bullet in their heads.

“He’s taller than everyone,” Gianna said in amazement. He was; in all the photos he was several inches taller than whoever stood beside him, and he was muscled. That probably explained why some people called him the Bull behind his back. That was the nickname the articles used, and they identified him as the heir of businessman and club owner Salvatore Vitiello. Businessman. Maybe on the outside. Everybody knew what Salvatore Vitiello really was, but of course nobody was stupid enough to write about it.

“He’s with