Becoming His Wife by Hayley Faiman

Chapter Seventeen

TIZIANO

Aweek.

I’ve been married for an entire week and I have to admit that, so far, it’s better than I ever imagined. I didn’t think that I would fall for my wife. That I would actually like her as much as I do. I thought that it would be a physical pleasure that maybe one day would turn into mutual respect. But with Maci, I enjoy being around her. I like her.

“Are you ready?” I ask.

She lifts her head from her suitcase and smiles. “I am.”

I watch as she slowly zips her bag and pulls it down from the bed, setting it at her feet. “Piero should be here any minute.”

“I’m not ready to go back,” she murmurs softly.

Making my way toward her, I lift my hand and wrap my fingers around the side of her neck. “You don’t want to go and see your new home? Start our lives, hm?”

She watches me for a moment in silence, her green gaze searching my own, then she licks her lips and shrugs a shoulder. “The outside world doesn’t touch us here,” she breathes.

“You think I’ll let the outside world ever touch you again, zuccherino?”

Maci lifts her hand, wrapping her fingers around my wrist and watches me for a long silent moment before she speaks.

“I think that it’s inevitable. It is going to touch us in one way or another. How can it not? With your job, with who you are, there’s no way we’re untouchable, Tiziano.”

Dipping my chin, I touch my lips to hers. “I’ll try my best to make sure nothing, absolutely fucking nothing, touches you, Maci.”

Her mouth opens the moment my lips touch hers and I slide my tongue inside of her, tasting her in one quick swipe before I break the kiss and take a step backward. “We need to leave,” I murmur.

She nods but doesn’t say anything. Taking a step back, I reach for her luggage and pick it up before I turn and head down toward the front door. I can hear her behind me, her feet slowly descending the stairs as well.

Piero opens the door with a smile, asks us how we enjoyed our stay and helps gather the luggage before carrying it to the car.

Once we’re loaded in the car, he heads toward the airport. I’m not really paying attention, my gaze focused on the ocean as we drive along, wondering how life will be different once we return home.

Wondering how the takeover will be and who will retaliate. Wondering if my giving my birthright to Gavino will kill my father. Pinching my eyes closed, I let out a sigh and try to clear my head.

Life is going back to normal in nine hours. Whatever the normal is for a man who holds the title of Boss, but none of the power. A man who has married a woman he doesn’t know, contracted to her, owns her completely. What the fuck is normal even?

The car stops, but I don’t open my eyes, not until I hear a voice shout in Italian. Lifting my head, I look to the side and blink at the sight in front of me.

We’re not at the airport, not anywhere near it. The man standing in front of me looks vaguely familiar, but he’s shouting and he’s talking too fast for me to be able to understand what he’s saying.

When he jerks his chin, I watch the other door open and another man wraps his arms around Maci, dragging her out of the car. That’s when my body becomes unstuck. I reach into my jacket pocket and pull out a gun, holding it at the man in front of me, directly at his forehead.

“Who the fuck are you and where do you think you’re taking my wife?” I growl.

His lips curve up into a grin. “Basile,” he says. “She comes with us. You come with us,” he says in broken English.

“No, we do not,” I snap.

He shakes his head slowly. “You do or we kill you and keep her.”

“The fuck?” I grind out.

I watch as one of the men opens the front door. Piero calmly exits the car and I realize that whatever is happening here, he was in on it. A longtime family friend sold me out. What the actual fuck?

“Scoot over,” Basile announces.

I whip my head around to look up at him, my gun still in my grasp. I’m so fucking confused. I don’t know what the fuck is going on and he’s acting like I’m not pointing a gun at his head. He jerks his chin and for whatever reason, I scoot over in the back seat.

“Put that down,” he demands.

“Where is my wife?” I grind out.

“She’s safe, in the car behind us. They’ll be following us and depending on how this goes, then you’ll be let go together or we keep her.”

“You want to explain to me exactly what is going on, because that wasn’t any kind of explanation,” I snap.

He grins, then lets out a chuckle as one of his men slides in the front seat, slams the door, and shifts the car into drive.

I don’t look away from Basile, I can’t shift my gaze from him, there is something really fucking huge happening here and he is the only way I’m going to get answers at this point.

“It will all come out. First, we need to get to the house.”

Pressing my lips together, I grip the handle of my gun, unable to take my eyes off him. This feels completely out of left field, but I also can’t kill him, not when they have Maci and he knows it, which is why he did what he did. I would have done the same goddamn thing.

“Want to tell me what organization you belong to, at least?” I ask.

His lips curve up into a grin. “Di Stefano,” he simply states.

My eyes widen, then look down at my lap before I lift my gaze to meet his. “The Di Stefano famiglia was disassembled years ago by the US and Italian government. What the fuck are you trying to pull?”

He snorts. “Could the American government completely disassemble the Zanetti empire?” he asks.

I notice that he didn’t say the Bianchi famiglia, he said Zanetti empire. He knows more than he fucking should, especially living all the way over here. What the actual fuck?

A huge estate comes into view and we drive through the double gates, the car pulling in front of a circle drive and stopping right in front of a grand house. The car door opens and I turn to the side. There is a man in a suit standing there. He jerks his chin to the side. A silent instruction for me to get out of the car.

The only reason I don’t just start killing people is for Maci’s safety. Climbing out of the car, I follow the man in the suit up the few steps toward the front door. Basile joins my side and together, the three of us stroll through the opulent house toward an office.

I want to ask a dozen questions, but I don’t. Instead, I keep my mouth shut and try to figure out how in the fuck I’m going to get out of this with my head and my wife, at the same time trying to figure out what these people actually want from me.

MACI

It was toogood to last.

I knew it the moment I felt safe, truly safe. I knew that it was all too good to be true, and I was right. None of it was meant to last, and that is loud and clear as I’m thrown into the back seat of a small SUV after being grabbed and ripped from Tiziano’s side.

Keeping my head down and my lips pressed together, I wait for whatever is heading my way. I don’t know what it is going to be, but I have no doubt that it’s going to suck. Because I have had five minutes of beautiful with a man that I fell for, so my luck would be that I would pay for that five minutes with a lifetime of absolute hell.

We stop in front of a big fancy house. It’s all white stone with what looks like black marble steps leading to the front door. Nobody in the car makes a move to open the doors or attempt to get out. The car in front of us does though. I watch as the doors are opened and then I see him stepping out of the car.

Tiziano walks toward the front door with two men flanking his side. I let out a sigh of relief that he’s okay. Though, I’m not sure that it matters, because I have a feeling that he will no doubt come out of whatever this is completely unscathed, but I won’t—I’m not that lucky.

The car that Tiziano was in moves forward and then the car I’m in does as well. It stops directly in front of the house and that’s when the men make a move to exit from the vehicle. The man next to me slides out, then looks to me expectantly, holding out his palm for me.

None of the men have spoken to me since they quietly, calmly, and quickly dragged me from Tiziano’s side. I don’t put up a fight, there’s no sense in that. These men are easily double not only my weight, but my height too.

Inhaling a deep breath, I slide over to the side of the car, then shift my legs over and drop down to the ground. The man in front of me drops his offered hand and jerks his chin as he begins to walk toward the house.

I follow behind him, feeling someone behind me as well. I don’t bother looking behind me, I can sense him there. The man in front turns to the right once we’re inside of the house and there is a long hallway.

Biting the inside of my cheek, I try not to panic as I walk down the seemingly endless hallway. He stops at the end, then steps to the side.

“Your room,” he announces, his accent thick.

Turning to face the door, I wonder if I should have tried to make a run for it when I was outside, or maybe I should try right now. Then, I decide not to. I’m not brave enough to run. I don’t know what’s headed my way, but I have hope that Tiziano will be able to get me out of it—as naïve as that might seem.

Reaching for the doorknob, I twist the handle and push the door open. Stepping inside, I don’t know what I expected, but this certainly wasn’t it. There is a four-poster bed, with an all-white comforter and pillows.

There is a large window that looks out at the ocean in the distance. Turning my head, I see that there is a full bathroom with a freestanding rectangle-shaped tub. It’s completely tiled in white tile with black grout. It’s all gorgeous.

Walking over to a small door, I open it and gasp at the sight of the walk-in closet. It’s massive and it has some clothes in it. Walking over to them, I frown when I start looking at them. They’re beautiful, and they’re all in my size.

Stumbling backward, panic starts to rise throughout my entire body. What the actual fuck? These clothes, they’re not mine. They’re gorgeous and way too sexy. I want to believe that it’s just a coincidence that they’re in my size, but I’m not stupid. I might be naïve, but I am definitely not an idiot.

I was kidnapped, my husband was taken somewhere, and now I’m locked in a gorgeous room with a closetful of clothes my size.

Fuck.

My hands start to shake and my knees almost give out on me. I walk over to the bed as quickly as I can, unsure that I’m even going to make it. When I’m close, I practically throw myself onto the bed and scramble to sit on the edge.

Staring at the bedroom door, I wonder when my fate is going to slam into me. I don’t know what is going to happen, but I can feel in my gut that there is no happy ending for me, no happily ever after. I had one week of beauty.

One whole week.

I’m going to hold on to that, cherish the moments that I shared with Tiziano. A stranger who basically bought me and somehow became part of me.

Maybe it’s just because he was the first man I’ve ever had sex with?

Maybe it was because he treated me like I was something special?

The way he looked at me, even when he thought I wasn’t paying attention, it was as if he was waiting for me to vanish before his very eyes.

Then I did.

I vanished right in front of him.

Looking up at the ceiling, I inhale a deep breath and I make a promise that no matter what happens, I will never forget Tiziano Bianchi.

Not in a million years.