Page 4 of The Forbidden Husband

In his eyes, only one person could be running the Italian mafia. The split territories weren’t enough for him, and they never had been.

None of it mattered. Not as long as my sisters were safe.

“Who will I marry?”

“Enzo Rissi.”

I didn’t know what to expect, but it wasn’tthat.

The fear that I had managed to suppress came barreling to the surface as my breathing sped up, and my heart rate pounded through my body once again.

There weren’t many Rissis in the immediate family line, so I had assumed I would be married to someone right outside the family. Maybe a loyal soldier. A close family friend.

I never, in my wildest dreams, would have imagined being married to a man who had more notorious kills than I had contacts in my phone. He had skinned a man alive for looking at him wrong.

Skinned himalive.

And my father’s smirk told me he knewexactlywhat he was doing.

“Either you or Livia…”

“Me,” I said immediately. “I’ll do it.”

For my sisters, I would do anything.

Chapter Two

Enzo Rissi

“Keeping the peace is a wiser move than sacrificing hundreds of our men in an unnecessary war,” Uncle Giovanni declared as he held my gaze.

I bit back a harsh reply. Fuck the scumbag Alonzo, and fuck his entire damned empire.

I shook my head vehemently. “He’s getting greedy, and you know it. We should deal with him and leave him to rot rather than bring him back into the family. You saw the way he treated my mom. I won’t forgive him for that shit.”

Giovanni didn’t bother bringing up that she wasn’t my mother. Not really.

But my biological mother didn’t matter, and he knew that. Lia had raised me as one of her own, and she hadearnedthe title.

“Not all problems can be solved with brute force. Especially not this one.”

I had to disagree. “He has only ever responded to large shows of power.”

Uncle Giovanni shook his head and sipped water before resting it in the cupholder. He wouldn’t say anything more on the matter, so I reclined back and exhaled slowly to calm the temper that only the Bianchis were able to bring out of me.

And now, I was going to have theprivilegeof marrying one of them.

“I can find someone else to forge this alliance if you can’t control your anger regarding the Bianchis.”

I glanced at my uncle’s sincere expression and was immediately reminded of why I had never questioned working for him. He wasn’t a don like Alonzo Bianchi. He knew people, their motivations and breaking points, and he wasn’t always cruel when using information.

He knew that I never intended to marry a woman for love and that worldview would never change. Marrying for an alliance was the most practical way to use me.

Marrying a Bianchi, on the other hand…

Nobody had more reason to hate them than I did.

I had watched my mother suffer the hatred and past abuses of her brother, Alonzo. She had drowned herself in alcohol most of her life to forget the life she had before us. Still, despite everything they did, she never sacrificed being a fantastic mother.

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