Page 35 of Nikola
“I’m not marrying my daughter off,” I gritted.
“Ourdaughter,” Sasha corrected, and the urge to kill him was back on.
Enrico released an exasperated sigh. “Enzo’s marriage to Penelope can kick it off.”
“No.” Luca’s one word cut through the air like a sharp blade. “She’s only twenty-one. Your boy is what… thirty-two, thirty-three? He’d had time to enjoy his youth and freedom. Penelope has barely started living.”
“And she had twenty-one years to get ready for this marriage,” Enrico reasoned, refusing to take the bait. Then thefucker dared to look at me. “And we can marry your daughter to Amadeo.”
My jaw clenched to the point of cracking. “Over. My. Dead. Body.”
“And mine,” Sasha hissed.
And here I thought it’d be Sasha who’d push me over the edge.
A clock ticked. Ice clinked in a glass. Windows fogged.
We were in Sasha’s St. Regis hotel suite in Rome, fuming and scheming on how to end Enrico’s ludicrous marriage proposition. The old man must have lost his goddamn mind.
I leaned back with one elbow on the armrest, watching Sasha Nikolaev and his nephew Nikola, who’d apparently accompanied him on this trip.
“Are Italians too cheap to serve snacks?” Nikola asked, his boots on the oak coffee table that had probably been around for hundreds of years. It’d be lucky to survive a night with these two idiots. “I made some popcorn if you want some…”
“Less worrying about the fucking popcorn and more about where you left your shirt, boy.” My lips curled in distaste. The boy had some serious beef with clothing. It was bad enough that he seemed to wear the suits all wrong, but for fuck’s sake, he could at least put a T-shirt on.
I didn’t need to be looking at the angry ink covering every inch of his skin.
“Forget Nikola’s shirt,” Sasha cut in, slamming his own feet on top of the coffee table and causing it to rattle. “We need totalk about killing Enrico, because he isn’t marrying off my…ourSkye.”
I flicked a dark look at Amon, who was watching on with a self-satisfied smirk. Easy for him to be fucking amused, Marchetti didn’t dare put his kids on the marriage market. Yes, they were too young, but still… fuck this bullshit.
“What the fuck?” Nikola asked, straightening, although he didn’t look too surprised. “What marriage? And to Skye?”
“Calm down,” I gritted. “And I didn’t agree to Skye marrying Amadeo.”
“But Marchetti always gets what he wants.”
“Not today.”
“And we’re not killing Enrico,” Amon chimed in, pinning Sasha and Nikola with a look that saidRein it in. “We don’t need a war within the Omertà, so strike that out of your vocabulary.”
Sasha pulled a cigar out of somewhere and lit it up, filling the room with smoke.
“Well, fuck, I was looking forward to killing an Italian.” Nikola sighed as if truly troubled by the thought. “I’d start with shredding that stupid Italian suit he’s so keen on wearing.”
“Enough,” I barked. My gaze found Sasha’s through a haze of smoke. “If you must start a killing spree, locate those organ traffickers and focus on them. That will save Skye from this ludicrous marriage arrangement.”
Nikola let out a sardonic breath, shaking his head. “You all are too temperamental.”
My jaw clenched. That little fucking shit. Nobody was as temperamental as these two fuckers sitting opposite of me, and he dared put that trait on us—the Italians.
Sasha puffed on his cigar one last time before putting it out, his expression contemplative. “We’ll eliminate those bastards, but in the meantime, we need to come up with a faux marriage contract for Skye and ensure it’s dated before today.”
My eyebrows shot to my hairline. “Excuse me?”
“That way Enrico can forget about marrying Skye off to his son,” Sasha explained. “The faux marriage agreement would trump Marchetti’s idiotic suggestion.”
I rolled my eyes. “As if that would work.”
