Vicious Promise by M. James
Sofia
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
The words explode from my mouth before I can stop them as I back away, intent on edging around him towards the door. “I’m not going to marry you! I don’t even know you! Why on earth would you think—”
“I know this is a shock,” Luca says smoothly, cutting me off. “But it isn’t a question, Sofia. I’m not asking you to marry me. I’m telling you that you will marry me. You don’t have a choice in the matter.”
I stare at him, uncomprehending. “Look, like I said before, I appreciate you rescuing me. Those men were awful, and I’m really grateful that you got me out of there. But right now all I want to do is go back to my apartment, let my best friend know that I’m still alive, and then report the fucking human trafficking ring that’s being run out of a hotel in downtown Manhattan!”
Luca takes a deep breath, and I can see the irritation beginning to spread over his features. “Sofia. You can’t leave. Those weren’t just any men, they were Bratva. Enemies of your father, and mine, and the man that I work for. My enemies, and yours. They won’t stop, and they won’t leave you alone. There is no going back to your old life.”
I hear what he’s saying, but it doesn’t sink in. I can’t believe it—I won’t. This morning I was just a student at Juilliard, a violinist, an orphan. I wasn’t anyone important, or anyone of note, beyond my spot as first chair in my class.
“I don’t have enemies,” I say, my voice beginning to shake a little. “If they were my father’s enemies, fine, but my father is dead, Luca! He’s been dead for eight years! This has nothing to do with me!”
For a second, I almost see a flicker of sympathy in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Sofia. This wasn’t my choice either,” he admits. “But it has everything to do with you, and me. And they aren’t going to stop just because you don’t want to be a part of this. You were born into it, just like I was.”
I pause, considering. “So you don’t want to marry me?”
That unreadable expression passes over his face again. “I didn’t want to,” he says, and his use of the past tense doesn’t escape me. “But the choice is made, Sofia. We will be married.”
“If you don’t want to, then don’t,” I whisper. My heart is pounding so hard that it hurts. “Just let me go.”
“I can’t do that.”
“This isn’t my plan for my life!” I snap at him, the anger suddenly returning at his complete and utter intransigence. “I’m supposed to graduate in two months, and leave Manhattan, just like my father wanted me to! I’m going to Paris, and then I’m going to audition for the orchestra in London, and then—”
I stop suddenly, remembering the first thing he said, when he explained how he knew me. “You said there was a promise—that our fathers made a promise. What did you mean by that?”
Luca lets out a long breath. “Will you sit down?” He motions to the bed.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I shake my head firmly. “No.”
“Fine.” His jaw clenches, and I can see the muscles there working as he considers what to say next. “Your mother never told you about it?”
“No.” I glare at him. “Just tell me what’s going on.”
“This has to do with how your father died, Sofia. I’m guessing you don’t know the details of that, either?”
I shake my head mutely.
“It’s possible that your mother wasn’t told much, either. The family that our fathers—and now I—work for, didn’t care much for your mother. She was Russian, and so they were suspicious of her. Your father’s boss didn’t approve of him marrying her.”
“I guessed that much.” I’d gathered that from the fact that my mother wasn’t allowed to speak Russian, even at home, the way my father encouraged her to try to blend in, the way she stayed in the kitchen or in my parents’ bedroom whenever the men in suits came to the house. The way the women at the funeral looked at her.
“So it’s possible that she was never even told. She was called to the Don’s office after your father’s death, and questioned about it.” Luca pauses. “You don’t need to know much about that.”
A memory comes back to me then, something that had slipped away in the trauma of the days following my father’s death. My mother leaving me with a neighbor, telling me that she’d be back soon—but she’d been upset. I can remember now that she’d looked as if she’d been crying.
If I don’t come back, call this number. They’ll take her.I remember hearing that whisper, and not understanding it. I remember the sympathetic look on the neighbor’s face.
But my mother did come back. She’d had a bruise on her face and a swollen eye, and when I’d asked her about it, she’d smiled and said that she tripped and fell.
I can feel my blood turning to ice as the realization hits me of what really happened that day.
“No,” I say coldly, staring at Luca. “They didn’t tell her anything. I was just a child, and traumatized, but I remember now. My mother came back with a swollen jaw and a black eye. They thought she had something to do with my father’s death, didn’t they?”
Luca says nothing. He just stands there impassively, his hands in his pockets as he watches the emotions flicker across my face.
“Didn’t they?” I almost scream it, my voice filling the room.
“I don’t know,” Luca finally says. “I was twelve.”
“But you work for him now, you said. The same man my father worked for. What are you, some kind of criminal organization?”
Luca snorts. “We don’t talk about what happened back then, Sofia—what happened to your father and mine—very often. What was done is done. I’m sure they determined that your mother had nothing to do with it, or—” he stops then, abruptly.
“Or what?” I feel as if I can’t breathe. “What would have happened to her?”
His face is emotionless. I don’t know how he can be so calm, while I feel as if my entire world is spinning out of control. “I’m sure you can guess,” he says, his voice impassive.
“He would have killed her. That’s what you’re saying, right? Your boss would have killed her?”
Luca’s jaw clenches again. His hands slip out of his pockets as he strides towards me, his entire body tense once again. “Yes, Sofia. Is that what you want to hear? If your mother had been working with the Bratva, if she had betrayed your father, the Don would have had her killed. As well he should have. There are rules to this life, Sofia, rules that govern your life, and mine, and everyone who is a part of it! And this marriage is a part of that, too.”
I swallow hard, trying desperately not to cry. And then it hits me.
Don. He’s called the man that he works for the Don, twice now. “You’re mafia,” I whisper, disbelievingly. “And that means—”
“Your father was, too,” Luca says tiredly. “And mine. Sofia, your father was third in command to the Don. He was an important man. The only ones above him were my father, and Don Rossi. And he was my father’s best friend. So when the Bratva attacked, and your father knew he was close to death, he did the only thing he could think of to do for his family. He turned to his best friend, and he extracted a promise.”
The world seems to slow down around me. “What was it?” I ask again in a whisper, my throat tightening. But I think I already know.
“Your father asked mine to make sure that his family was provided for. That you, in particular, would always be provided for financially, enough to ensure that you would never have to worry about housing or food or necessities and then some.”
The money. One huge mystery of my life, cleared up in an instant. “The money was from you?”
“Not me, specifically,” Luca clarifies. “From the family. But those are bank accounts that I will inherit, once I become the Don.”
I feel as if I might pass out. “You?” I croak, taking a step back. “You’ll be—”
“Yes. My father was underboss. He died avenging your father, Sofia. And he made sure, before he went after the men who killed his best friend, that I was aware of the promise that he’d made years before—that I was to marry you, if the Bratva ever became a danger to you. If they ever tried to use you to take our family down, or hurt you in any way. Until that day came, however—if it came at all—you were to be left alone. The money would be sent anonymously, your tuition and rent paid anonymously, etcetera. Your father hoped that it would never be necessary.”
“He used to tell me that he wanted me to leave Manhattan after college. Maybe even to go to college overseas in Europe—” It hits me then, all of it. The plan that I’ve always had, to go to Europe and play in an orchestra there, the plan that my father planted the seeds of all those years ago—it was to get me away from the life he lived. To keep everything that’s begun to happen now from happening at all.
“I shouldn’t have gone to that club with Ana,” I whisper. I’ve never regretted something so much in my life.
Once again, I see that flicker of sympathy. “It would probably have happened anyway,” Luca admits. “The Bratva isn’t known for forgetting about the cards they have to play—and you have always been a card, Sofia. A chess piece in a game that is bigger than you or I. Your father hoped that it wouldn’t, but he was being optimistic. In those last moments before his death, I can’t blame him. He wanted to believe that his family would be safe, despite everything he knew to the contrary.”
I can feel my stomach tightening, and for a second I think that I’m going to be sick. Luca is still between me and the door, but the only thing that I know in this moment is that I’m getting the fuck out of here, one way or another.
“I’m not a card,” I say tightly, glaring at him. “I’m not a chess piece. And I’m sure as hell not marrying into the mafia!” I can feel my chest heaving now, my breath coming faster. “The people that you work for hurt my mother. My father is dead because he worked for them. And now you tell me that you’re going to be the head of this organization one day, and yet I’m supposed to marry you, whether I want to or not?”
I lean towards him, my eyes blazing angrily as I spit the next words into his face.
“Fuck that.”
Before Luca can respond, I dart around him, running for the door. I’m still barefoot, but I don’t care. I’ll replace Ana’s shoes, there’s no time to stop and grab them, or get them on. I’m not going to stay here another second with this man, who thinks that he can tell me what I’m going to do, who I’m going to marry—that he can change my entire plan for my life in a few minutes because of something that happened years ago.
I’m sorry, papa,I think as I make a break for it, snatching the bedroom door open and careening out into the hallway. If this is really what you wanted, I’m sorry. But I just can’t believe that.
I don’t have time to take in my surroundings. I slip a little on the smooth wood of the hallway floor, steadying myself against the wall before racing for the stairs that lead down to the main floor. I can hear Luca’s footsteps behind me, and I’m so terrified that I can hardly breathe. For the second time tonight, all I can think of is that I have to escape.
Luca almost catches up to me, close enough to grab my hand while I’m still on the stairs. He tries to pull me backwards, to turn me around, but I have a death grip on the banister as I yank my hand out of his, lurching forwards.
I’m still dizzy from the drugs that the Russians gave me, and I slip, tumbling down the last few stairs to the floor. The air rushes out of me as I land, and I catch a glimpse of Luca’s worried face in the seconds before I manage to scramble to my feet again, ignoring him as I make a break for the front door of the apartment.
Why would he be worried about me? He doesn’t even care about me personally. I don’t believe for a second, either, that he really cares about a promise made by two dead men, however close he and his father might have been. I’m valuable to him in some way—he did call me a chess piece, after all. That’s the only real explanation I can come up with for his insistence that we go through with this.
For a brief second, I think that I’m going to make it. I’m reaching out for the handle of the front door when I feel Luca’s strong hands on my waist for the second time tonight, and he drags me backwards, spinning me around to face him.
“No!” I scream, clawing at his face, but he grabs my wrist effortlessly, backing me up towards the door. When I try to slap him with my free hand, he grabs that too, and pushing me back against the door and pinning my hands above my head. His body is nearly touching mine, and I realize that he’s breathing hard too, his chest heaving as he looks down at me, his gaze fastened on mine as surely as his hands are fastened around my wrists.
I twist in his grasp, but he’s too strong. He’s stronger than he looks, even, and I can feel the power in his grip on me, see the way the muscles in his arms flex as he holds me there, like a butterfly under a microscope, fluttering uselessly. I stare up at him, feeling the last bit of fight in me drain away as he watches me. “I won’t marry you,” I whisper, but I know it’s useless. For some reason, nothing I say seems to change his mind, even though he claims he didn’t want it either.
He said he didn’t want it, I recall. And as I look up at him, I wonder what he meant by that.
“You said that you didn’t want to marry me.” I lick my dry lips, and I see his gaze flick downwards, drifting over my mouth. “Not that you don’t want to marry me.”
Luca is silent for a long moment. “None of that matters, Sofia,” he says quietly.
“Why?”
“Because regardless of what I want, or what you want, we will be married.”
“But—why?” I press again, knowing that I sound for all the world like I’m twelve again, begging for a different response to a question that I don’t like the answer to.
“Because,” he says simply. “You’re mine.”
And then he bends his head, my hands still pinned above mine, and his lips come crashing down onto my mouth.
