“In fact, a gracious invitation.”

We trade just a few extra pleasantries earlier than the Guerras excuse themselves to move to the buffet desk, and I flip my consideration again to Tia.

“What do you say? Will you honor me with a dance?” I counsel.

Tia’s eyes gentle up. “In case you’re fortunate, I would simply be prepared to bounce with you twice.”

Chuckling, I information my bride onto the dance flooring, discovering an open spot because the band pauses between songs. Then, because the music begins as soon as extra, I take up a ballroom body and information Tia right into a foxtrot.

Tia smiles, her arm resting flippantly on high of mine as she grasps my shoulder with one hand and clasps my palm with the opposite. Her neck arches elegantly to the aspect as she strikes with flawless grace throughout the ground.

It brings me again to our first dance, how calm and poised she was from the very begin of the day, how regally she’d carried herself. My spouse is a surprise, a treasure I can scarcely imagine I used to be fortunate sufficient to have fallen into my lap. All as a result of she waltzed into my home one night time searching for an journey.

Then, right away, the magic of the second is shattered.

Gunshots ring by way of the open ballroom, the sound distant, as if coming from down the corridor. However the sharp cracks are unmistakable. As are the panicked screams that observe.

The band falls silent, all eyes shifting towards the door, and Tia stumbles into me. Clinging to my arms, she leans in opposition to my chest as a frightened gasp rushes previous her lips. And I instinctively wrap an arm protectively round her shoulder.

The violent photographs come to an abrupt cease, and for one single, suspended second, it’s as if the world has gone fully silent. Then, a deep voice bellows down the corridor.

Fuck. That’s Johnny. One thing’s positively incorrect.

“Tia, discover your father and conceal,” I command, pushing her gently towards the buffet desk as I flip to make a beeline for the ballroom door.

Annoyed that my males haven’t managed to maintain the battle quiet and livid that we now have one thing to cope with in any respect when tonight is meant to solidify my relationship with the mayor, I intend to crush the disturbance earlier than it may well get any additional out of hand.

39

TIA

Regardless of Leo’s orders—and the clear hazard ready within the course he’s headed—I race after him, following him from the ballroom and down the corridor towards the public sale room. As a result of I can’t cease the horrible sinking feeling in my intestine.

My father’s power was off tonight. He barely checked out me once we spoke. His gaze was distracted, his thoughts clearly some place else. And as quickly as I attain the doorway of the public sale room, my suspicions are confirmed.

A number of of my cousins and plenty of of my father’s males—males I’ve identified since I used to be slightly woman—are actually within the custody of Leo’s males.

Maria should have instructed Father concerning the deal Leo made with the mayor—and the importance of tonight’s occasion. I shared the knowledge with my sister in confidence, after I was nonetheless making an attempt to formulate a plan to destroy the Moretti household. However in her worry for my security, my sister should have thought it greatest to move my ideas on to my father.

And apparently, he took the knowledge and ran with it. He selected tonight because the opportune second to betray Leo—simply as I had initially meant to do. Like father, like daughter. Solely my father didn’t belief me sufficient to inform me about his plan.

And immediately, I’m confronted with choosing sides after I desperately don’t wish to have to decide on.

“What the fuck is occurring right here?” Leo growls, his presence intimidating as he appears to develop bigger, extra bearlike in his fury.

I hover simply past the door’s threshold, immediately scared to enter on the expressions of fierce violence on the lads’s faces.

“The Guerras thought it’d be a good suggestion to come back in weapons a-blazing through the charity occasion and heist the public sale gadgets,” one man growls, a person I believe I’ve heard Leo handle as Johnny as soon as earlier than. “Idiots didn’t even attempt to be refined.”

The tendons in Leo’s jaw pop as he clenches his tooth in fury. “Does Don Guerra find out about your imbecilic plan?” he calls for, pinning his gaze on my cousin Maury. “You do understand he’s a visitor at tonight’s occasion. You’ll be able to’t presumably suppose it will shed a constructive gentle on your loved ones. And what provides you the best to make use of the 2 mind cells that make up your intelligence to provide you with a plan anyhow? You’re employed for me now, Maury. Or did you neglect? You don’t get to a lot as sneeze with out my permission. So, what the fuck are you doing right here tonight?”

I’ve by no means seen Leo so offended. Even when he shot that Valencia man within the woods, he did it with a chilling calm. This new rage is one thing to behold, and it makes me tremble deep in my bones.

However like a real Guerra, Maury’s too cussed to again down from a combat. He simply sneers, clearly oblivious to what’s at stake. “You play such a giant man, however you haven’t any concept what sort of sport you’ve set in movement. The Guerras are a strong household that has dominated this city for hundreds of years. You’ll be able to’t simply waltz in and anticipate us to step apart due to one marriage ceremony.”

My coronary heart stops on the scathing phrases, and immediately, my understanding of all the scenario shifts. Not simply the standoff however the whole lot. My being pregnant. The marriage. The strain between our two households, which appeared to fade in a single day.

My father by no means meant to observe by way of with the alliance. He offered me to the Morettis with each intention of utilizing the short-term peace to put his entice.

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