“Don Toscani and his son.” Papà scrubbed his hand over his face. “It’s time.”
“Time for what?”
His face tightened. “Time to make yourself fucking useful to the family. You were seen the other night in a casino with Nico Toscani, dressed as a whore. You dishonored the family. You disrespected me—”
“I was working.” She dared to interrupt him. “I was doing a penetration test—”
“Shut the fuck up,” he barked. “You got yourself involved with the fucking Toscanis, now you’re gonna be involved with them for life. You gave me an opportunity to contact Don Toscani and negotiate a truce to end the war between our families. I offered a marriage to seal the deal. We’ll combine our drug-trade operations to push out the cartels and the street gangs for once and for all, not just here in the city but across the state to L.A. Not only that, we’ll finally be able to get into the gaming industry through his nephew’s casino. It’s the perfect place to launder our money.”
Shock stole her breath away. “You’re asking me to marry Nico Toscani?”
“I’m not asking. I’m telling.” He slicked down his hair. “And it’s not that bastard son who put a price on my fucking head that you’re going to marry. It’s Tony. A son by marriage. He wants to have a look at you tonight. You aren’t ugly. You’ve made yourself a marketable commodity. You’d better hope he can see past the ridiculous clothes.”
“You think I worked hard in school and built a business so I could be a marketable commodity?” Her voice rose in pitch even though she knew it would rile him.
“Why the fuck else would you do it?” He leaned back in his seat, his silk shirt straining against his barrel chest, huge stomach hanging over his belt. “You’re a woman. Your only value to me is political. We need this alliance to end the faida and increase the power of la famiglia. Once you marry Tony, his bastard of a cousin won’t be a threat—he’s not gonna be able to whack family and he won’t have the power to challenge Santo anymore. I’d be surprised if he’s still alive when you get back from your honeymoon.”
All those years of trying to prove herself, to gain her father’s approval, to show him she was good as a son, had been for nothing. He had never seen her as anything more than a piece of property to be maintained and traded away. In her heart she had always known it, but to hear the words from his lips made her feel sick inside. She wanted done of this, of him, of their sick, twisted, broken family, of Cosa Nostra rules and codes and culture. She had fought hard for her little piece of independence, and she wouldn’t survive if he took it away.
“I am not marrying Tony Crackers.” She looked over at Dante for help, but he continued to stare out the window. Her bad. Dante had never stood up to their father. Clearly, he wasn’t about to start now. “I have no interest in getting married, and certainly not to a psychopath. The newspapers are now calling him the Butcher. Every time he has a dispute with someone, they wind up not just dead but massacred.”
Her father waved a dismissive hand. “You’ll marry who I tell you to marry, and you’ll do what I tell you to do. We all have to make sacrifices. This is yours. We’ll sit down, have a nice dinner, make the plans … I have invited Don Falzone, don of the Vegas faction of the New York Falzones to be there as a witness to the end of the faida and the marriage promise. The Falzones are the only other family strong enough to challenge us for control of the city, but once he realizes the might of our alliance, he will think twice before trying to push his way into our territory.”
Did his greed have no end? She could read between the lines. Once he took out Don Toscani and Tony, the Falzone family would be next. Well, she refused to be a pawn in his game. “I have a business to run and a life to live away from la famiglia. I’m not getting involved.”
His dark eyes grew cold and hard. “Forget about your little hobby. You’ll be looking after your husband, having his kids, decorating your house, fixing that mop of hair … Doing all the shit the women do to make the men look good. If your business is making money, then Dante will take over.”
Disbelief became anger in a heartbeat. “That’s my business. I set it up. I paid for everything. I made the contacts. I brought in the contracts. No way am I handing it over to Dante. He doesn’t know a damn thing about hacking or security. He can’t even turn on his own damn computer.”
She should have known what was coming, braced herself for the impact, but anger overrode instinct, so when he struck, there was nothing to protect her from his fist.