Mafia Boss’s Arranged Bride by Bella King
Chapter 1
Annika
“Annika, are you listening?”
I’m snapped from my trance as my mother’s voice breaks my focus. This is the fifth conversation we have had this week regarding wedding plans, and I had spent four of those conversations staring out the bay window at the pigeons fighting on the building across from my bedroom.
My mother grabs my hands and studies my fingernails. “For Christ’s sake, Annika, your nails are splitting and paper-thin. You need to start taking supplements now, so they don’t look like this for the wedding. These are a man’s fingernails!”
My mother’s Russian accent ripples throughout her statements the more flustered she becomes. She knows I am entirely uninterested in this wedding, my own wedding. I can see her patience growing thinner than my disgraceful nails as I hesitate to respond.
“I’m sorry, I’ll try to take better care of them,” I reply, deflecting as to avoid any more needless confrontation.
Without missing a beat, my mother examines my face, touching and pulling my skin like a blind plastic surgeon. “And these dark circles, Jesus. It’s like you are trying to become unattractive!”
An exasperated sigh escapes me. I have had weeks to prepare, to obsess, and I have been completely unable to resign myself to my fate.
Arranged marriages are common in the mafia. With so many families forming, alliances are integral. I have been sworn to a stranger like a princess, and while this would have elated me when I was younger and more naive, my stomach turns as I imagine the manifold possibilities that come with marrying a stranger, the eldest son of the most notorious black-market arms dealer in east New York.
“To be honest, mama, I am having a very hard time being more enthusiastic about this arrangement. I don’t even know this guy,” I say, returning my gaze toward the window as two pigeons begin to fight again.
My mother’s frazzled hazel eyes stare right through me. “But you met him, Annika. Don’t you remember three summers ago? He was at the Ivanov wedding, um. . . his younger brother. . . Yuri? Is his name Yuri? Or was it his sister? I don’t know. What’s important is that you are protecting your family, You are keeping us safe by maintaining this alliance. You are like a guardian angel.”
I could vomit.
I wouldn’t even be able to pick my future husband’s face out of a crowd, and now I’m being asked to stand before a crowd of hundreds, to perform the pure and unmistakable expression of love for someone I have never spoken to.
It will be obvious. Obvious to him, to his family, and the crowd.
And it will be my fault.
“You will need to become more used to the idea,” my mother continues. “So many women marry simply because they are aging and terrified of dying alone. Your union with this man will have more meaning than that. And besides, he is attractive and wealthy. At the very least, enjoy him for that, even if he has a room-temperature IQ.”
The thought of marrying a stupid, attractive, wealthy man is dizzying. So many women would kill for such an opportunity. I imagine myself becoming a bored housewife, spending my days online shopping and power walking through the neighborhood to keep from offing myself.
“I will go. Please do consider,” my mother says as she leaves the room. Her heels tap the marble floor obnoxiously as she exits.
Yes, of course, I should be grateful! Right? Is that what we’re going with? I think to myself.
Across the room is an opulent full-length mirror. I walk to it, studying the way I move as I step carefully.
Is this how brides walk?
Do they practice?
How stupid. Practicing walking. The first day of walking lessons is free! I laugh to myself.
The archaic marriage traditions have never suited me – the white dress, the meek little waif with big eyes who cries as she shares vows with her most beloved. The worst part is always standing in line behind a hundred strangers to tell the bride how thrilled you are that she is legally bound to a man who doesn’t know how to boil pasta or spell a word with more than three syllables.
I examine my figure in the mirror. When I remove my heavy green sweater, I see a plain, somewhat frail looking body beneath it. No man has ever seen me in less than a swimsuit.
Just over two handfuls, my breasts are paperwhite in the afternoon sun, practically translucent. I trace the blue veins that cascade down my chest to my nipples, ghostly and pale pink.
Suddenly, I’m nauseated by the realization that I’m visible at all, that I need to somehow carry and dress and pose this vessel in a way that will keep a man from wandering down to the nearest bodega and finding a more suitable woman there. Am I good enough for someone else when I don’t even know if I’m good enough for myself?
Never touched even under my bra; I am reminded of all the drunken conversations I have heard older women have about their husbands’ uninspired jackhammering, about faking orgasms, about scheduled sex, and the eventual repulsion that comes with the touch of a man who does not know you, but controls every aspect of your waking life.
It is horrifying.
With only two weeks left before the wedding takes place, I have been laced into more suffocating dresses than I thought one ribcage could handle. I have been dragged from one venue to the next, uncertain of how to answer any question thrown my way.
How do you think you would like the room arranged?
Have you considered the catering options we offer?
Would you rather be throwing yourself from the balcony than speaking to me? The balcony costs extra.
All of the insipid details that have held me hostage for the last few months are coming to a head. I’m about to do something that can’t be taken back, and I’m so fucking scared.
I wander toward my bed, one of the last remnants of my selfhood that I can retain before that, too, will be shared with a stranger. My life will no longer belong to just me.
