Page 15 of Mafia Men Need Love Too
“You’ll have it,” Nico said casually.
And then, he was gone, and she was alone with a mafia boss who’d just claimed her as his fiancée. This was as weird as her life would ever get.
Or so she thought.
Until Feather Locklear, a bird who had never liked a single man she’d ever met in her life, hopped over to Nico’s shoulder and rubbed the top of her head against his chiseled jawline. “Pretty bird,” she cooed.
For the first time in her life, River Lang was speechless.
Chapter 9
The bird resisted River’s attempts to transfer it off his shoulder, so after a few moments, Nico waved her off. “It’s fine,” he muttered. “She can stay while we discuss this.”
“Pretty bird,” Feather Locklear repeated, staring up at him with more than a little hero worship in her eyes.
Meanwhile, her owner was staring at him like he was a roadside bomb that might blow up in her face at any moment.
She sat back down on the loveseat, and he took a seat next to her with the bird still perched comfortably on his shoulder. He didn’t like how quiet River was. He’d already learned she spouted random facts when she was nervous. She was chatty when she was sad and annoyed, too. So, this silence was unnerving.
“Talk,” he encouraged. “I know you have concerns and questions. Let them out, fiorellino. Speak freely.”
She sucked in the biggest, longest, deepest breath he’d ever seen a human take before emptying the contents of her brain on him.
“I thought I knew a lot about the mafia because I saw Mean Streets when I was ten and was fascinated with it, so I read everything I could find. I mean, I learned that Lucky Luciano purposefully contracted gonorrhea to avoid the draft, and one time, Al Capone accidentally shot himself in the groin, and his friends used to call him Snorky, which sounds bad but is actually just slang for a well-dressed gentleman. And I know historical stuff, like the mafia here in America came to power during Prohibition. I’ve even read my share of mafia smut books, which are pretty freakin’ awesome. But nothing—not any books I’ve read or anything I’ve watched—prepared me for any of that.”
His brain got a little hung up on the fact that there were mafia smut books and that River read them. But he shook it off. That was information he could save and unpack later. He nodded. “It was a lot to take in.”
“And honestly,” she went on, “the mafia stuff wasn’t even as overwhelming as all the marriage talk, because that would basically be an arranged marriage—or is it a marriage of convenience?—and I don’t know as much about the history of arranged marriages, except that most marriages in medieval times were strategic, and after the ceremony, newlyweds had to consummate the union in front of all the wedding guests.”
No way. No way would he ever let a bunch of random wedding guests see his bride like that. The mere thought of Alexi and his goons seeing River naked made him want to crush their skulls with his bare hands.
Which probably wasn’t a normal reaction to have about a woman he’d just met. He realized that. But realizing it wasn’t enough to make him stop feeling it. So…here he was.
“My first marriage didn’t work out so good,” River went on. “I assumed I just wasn’t the marrying kind. I wouldn’t have thought you were either, until you told him I was your fiancée. Not that you’d ever really want to marry me. I mean, I realize that was just a ploy to get Alexi out of here, because you’d never expect me to?—”
He grabbed her hand to stop her nervous spill of words. “I promised I’d never lie to you, and I don’t intend to start now. Make no mistake, fiorellino, you will marry me. Soon.”
“But…but…but…you don’t even know me!” she sputtered. “Worse yet, what you do know about me includes kidnapping and verbal diarrhea! Why on earth wouldn’t you just, I don’t know, force me to leave town, or something? Put me in some kind of mafia WITSEC?”
The idea of River—bringer of the only fun he’d had in years—disappearing forever caused an uncomfortable tightness in his chest he’d rather not analyze. Not yet, anyway. “Leaving wouldn’t work. I have a man working for me, a hacker, who could find you, wherever you went. I’m sure Alexi has someone who could do the same. He’d find you.”
Her smooth brow furrowed. “He has his money, though. Why would he care about me anymore?”
Because he wanted you for himself. “It’s a matter of pride. He suspects I lied to him. If he had proof I did—say, you disappearing, for example—he’d be honor-bound to retaliate. Besides, I’m sure he still wants to teach your ex-husband a valuable lesson about what happens when you fuck around with the Russian mafia. Keeping tabs on you is probably their only potential lead on him.”
She bit her lip. “Why would you want this?”
Because I want you for myself. But he wasn’t going to say that part out loud just yet, either. Why terrify her more than she already was? “You fascinate me,” he admitted. “You’re actually the only thing that’s fascinated me in a long, long time, and I’d prefer the Russian mafia not kill the only person who has fascinated me in years.”
“The fascination will wear off quickly. It did for my ex,” she said quietly.
“I’m not your ex.”
She snorted. “Once again, you are not lying.”
“Then it’s settled,” he said, knowing good and well they hadn’t settled anything. She just didn’t have a choice in the matter. Not if she wanted to survive. “We’ll marry as soon as possible.”
“I…you’re truly going to force me to marry you?”
