Page 5 of Dangerous Deception

Adelina Castiglioni. Twenty-five years old and the only daughter of Pascal Castiglioni. Her mother died when she was ten years old, cause unknown. Her family dabbles in construction, but their main dealings involve luxury vehicles and counterfeit luxury goods. Not exactly big fish in the grand scheme of things, but Pascal knows a threat when he sees one. They’re the kind of family that gets swallowed up by organizations as large as mine, and it seems Pascal saw that in his future. When he reached out to me, I decided to toy with him before doing exactly that.

I certainly didn’t expect him to agree to give me his only daughter and heir to save his family name and what little value he holds.

On the next page, several pictures slide down the paper, and I catch them with a press of my fingertips. My heart skips faintly.

Adelina is beautiful. Striking, ocean-blue eyes gaze up at me from a family photo and several social media posts. Her oval face is framed by thick auburn curls that burn like fire in the sunlight of one picture. Her smile is large and wide, with a perfect row of teeth and plush lips that make her look like she’s smiling for all the people incapable of doing so.

Does she know that her father has given her up? Did she agree?

The next page details how she spends her time volunteering at several hospitals across the city, but she favors one in particular. She leads a few arts and crafts sessions and spends a lot of time painting with the children and for her own pleasure. Her socials are filled with recordings of her work, as well astimelapses of how she paints. I look her up on my phone and find her within a few seconds, then let one of the videos play while I continue to read.

She briefly studied nursing in college but it didn’t last, although the reasoning is unknown. Perhaps she realized her passion was creation rather than nursing, although her time spent at hospitals is endearing. It seems the one she favors is the hospital where her mother spent her last few months. She must feel some kind of connection to that place.

The last page is the most surprising. Adelina was set to marry Carlos Giordana, and that name sticks out to me like a beacon. I slaughtered the Giordanas a week ago, maybe a little longer, due to their theft of several drug shipments. I recovered my shipments and caught them red-handed, and I have only one rule for the smaller families that work for me.

Don’t steal my shit.

They didn’t take me seriously, so I made sure that history will forget the name Giordana.

“Interesting,” I murmur aloud, returning to the page with her pictures as the Instagram video comes to an end.

So, my new wife is an artist with a penchant for helping sick children and she was due to marry a man who stole from me.

Isn’t this an interesting twist?

“Vito?” I dial his number, and he answers instantly.

“Sir?”

“Call Pascal. Tell him the deal is set.”

“Understood. Anything else?”

I close the file after taking out the picture where Adelina’s hair looks like it’s on fire. “Tell him we’ll be married in May, so I’ll need her dress size.”

“You’re planning the wedding, sir?”

“Of course I am.” I chuckle softly. “How else will I welcome my new bride?”

3

ADELINA

“He doesn’t want to meet you.”

“What?” My hands are buried in my hair in the process of braiding the wild mess of my auburn curls into something more manageable when my father drops that bombshell over the edge of his morning paper.

“I said he doesn’t want to meet with you.”

“Papà, you expect me to marry someone I have never met?”

“Addie, I have no control over this.”

“Of course you do!” I rapidly twist my fingers back and forth, ignoring the burn in my knuckles and the ache in my shoulders. “You’re Pascal Castiglioni. Your name demands respect. Surely, you can do something to make him meet me?”

“And he is Raffaele Varricchio,” my father replies dryly. “You know their reputation. Do you really think I would be marrying you to him if I had the kind of power he would listen to?”

He has a point, but that doesn’t stop the twist of discomfort in my gut. I know Raffaele is a dangerous man and the hatred I hold for him burns through my chest daily, but I at least wanted to let him know about that hatred to his face before we tied theknot. I don’t want him to have any illusions that this is anything other than a business deal.

---