Page 20 of Snowed in with the Mafia

“No, you don’t. And if you talk about our bride like that again, I’ll cut your tongue out and feed it to your wife and daughter. Do you understand me?” Luca says.

My uncle’s outrage reaches new heights. He’s so shocked at their words, his eyes are going to bulge out of his face.

“Your bride?” Aunt Martina squeals, clearly thinking she misheard. “You married her?”

“Yes,” Vince replies, offering my aunt a killer smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Tony, what’s going to happen?” Aunt Martina cries.

“Papa, what are we going to do? Fix it, Papa,” Bianca orders, stamping her feet. “She can’t have that power. I hate her. They should have married me.”

Silence falls over the room. I can see the silent questions in Gianna’s eyes, but I squeeze her hand, promising to tell her everything later. Even Manny looks at me with curious eyes.

My uncle takes a long look at me and then starts to laugh.

“You think they married you because they love you?” he asks. Embarrassment colors my cheeks at the question. I know they don’t love me. How could they? But his words sever me in half, leaving me gasping for breath. Why does this affect me so much?

“They married you to punish you for being a Moreno,” he says, laughing hysterically. “Ah, I see it now. When I devised my plan to get in with the Falchi, I expected some pushback, but not enough to ruin my whole scheme. There were bound to be some small repercussions, but the money would still come to me. I just never thought you, Alessia, of all people, would fall for them.”

A heavy frown settles on my face. What does he mean? I didn’t fall for them.

“This is part of their plan to get back at me. You think you’re going to live a nice life? You’re not. You think you made a deal with them to get back at yourhorrible uncleand you would be spared their vengeance. They aren’t that kind of men, you stupid girl.

“When their heir is born, they’re sending you to some remote place in Tuscany, where you will be imprisoned—possibly tortured—until the day you die for being part of a scheme against them to get back at me. They think you mean something to me. If you hadn’t married them, you would have been free. You should have just done as you were told. Fifty million dollars, and all you had to do was slut yourself to them. I fucking needed that money.”

My gaze lifts to the three men who look like kings. I feel sick. Is that why they married me in the first place? The ultimate counter revenge? Oh god. Is there more truth to my uncle’s words than my signature making me their bride?

They’re not denying it. They’re not saying anything. Their gazes remain fixed on me, as if they’re analyzing every micro-emotion that crosses my face while their features are masks of marble—unreadable, unreachable.

Oh god. Oh god. Did I really fall for their false promises? Yet it doesn’t make sense.

“Oh,” my uncle continues, “you thought they would help you get your silly farm back? Well, they can’t. No one can. I own it all. The deed is in my name.”

“But the clause with the elders…” I say, stunned. I’ve taken too many hits already. My heart feels broken, which is so stupid. But now I’m going to break Gianna’s heart as well.

Why did I think my uncle would honor the contract set out by the elders of the Passero? Did he blackmail the two elders who were on my side into changing their stance?

“But the clause…” Uncle Tony mimics me, reminding me how pathetic I really am.

“This farm is mine. And I will burn it, and I will make you watch it burn. As powerful as they are, even they can’t take it from me. They can’t even harm a strand of hair on my head. They signed the treaty by the Reale Dorato. All heads of the families in the realm of theReale Doratohave internal immunity. With your father dead, I get that privilege. We can’t harm each other. They’ll lose everything. They’ll lose every single thing they own to theReale Doratoif they so much as leave a scratch on me.”

Of all the things my mother told me about theReale Doratoand the Falchi, she never mentioned any of this. But her words, "There is honor among thieves," echo in my mind and suddenly make sense.

I lift my gaze to them, desperate for them to say it’s not true. But they remain silent. That’s why my uncle felt bold enough to try to extort fifty million dollars from them. If there was an heir already, if I was pregnant, the Falchi would not have been able to do anything to him. I would have suffered the consequences, but the joke would have been on them because I mean nothing to my uncle.

“If only you had done as you were told, girl. Given them your virginity, gotten pregnant, and I would have had my money.” My uncle sneers his words at me.

Tears well up in my eyes, but I can’t stop looking at them. I want to scream at them for lying to me, but I can’t move because my heart has just disintegrated in my chest, and I can’t speak.

Chapter Nineteen

Vincenzo

Well fucking, fucking hell.

Luca was right all along. He warned us, Nico and me. He told us if we brought this woman into our lives, were we prepared to fall head over fucking everything for her. Because he knew she would make us do that. He knew right from the start that one look at a picture of her was enough to confirm she would capsize our lives and become our queen.

Nico is a stone-cold bastard. Love would weaken him. Love would weaken us all, for that matter. We weren’t meant to be so vulnerable—not in our positions. He was determined no woman would crack him. But Alessia did. Luca and I saw it in the way he touched her, held her, and how he was barely holding onto his restraint not to kill her uncle, his wife, and their daughter.

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