A Sin Called Love: My Father’s Debt, Mafia King’s Bride

Ten minutes ago, I’d been praying for a pure love as I turned eighteen.

Now I stood beside a bloodstained Mafia King, waiting to become his wife.

My guardian angel is a devil. He saved me with the sin called love. —Evangeline Caruso

Eva's POV

Lord, today I turn eighteen. I pray you send me a soulmate. A man of faith. Like me.

I held the cross necklace between my fingers and closed my eyes.

Someone kind.

My birthday had always been spent in church. My father was the most respected pastor in our district, and I'd grown up kneeling on these wooden pews, breathing hymns instead of blowing out birthday candles.

Someone devout.

The choir was singing a hymn. Mrs. Henderson's soprano wobbled on the high notes, same as every week, and I kept my eyes closed and smiled. This was my favorite place in the world. The pews worn smooth by generations of palms. Dust floating through colored light from the stained glass.

Or maybe… someone who saves lives.. I prayed.

Suddenly, the church doors slammed open.

Everyone turned at once. The choir stuttered and stopped, Mrs. Henderson's voice trailing off into nothing. The silence that followed felt wrong. Too sudden.

I opened my eyes. Men in black suits filed through the entrance and spread along the walls. Six, maybe eight. They moved fast. Chaos erupted, screams rising from every corner. The usually soft-spoken ladies began to scream.

“Quiet!” A massive bald man in the lead raised the gun toward the ceiling and fired. Plaster dust rained down and the congregation went dead still.

I flinched so hard my teeth clicked together, and my fingers went numb around the cross.

Then he walked in, unhurried.

He was backlit by the afternoon sun, so I saw the silhouette first. Tall, broad, the shape of a gun in his right hand. As he stepped into the nave, the details filled in. A dark suit wet with blood that wasn't his. Tattoos climbed his neck and disappeared under his collar, then resurfaced across his knuckles and the backs of his hands.

He scanned the room. Swept past rows of frozen, terrified faces without stopping.

Found me.

And smiled. Not a warm smile. Satisfied. My stomach clenched before I could stop it. I crushed the feeling the second I named it. Fear—like that of a herbivore targeted by an apex predator.

"Why did you stop?" the man in the bloody suit asked the choir. He wasn't looking at them. His eyes hadn't left mine, and his voice was calm, almost friendly. "Change it. Play a wedding march. You know one, yes?"

Nobody moved. He tilted his head and waited.

The pianist's hands shook so badly the first chord came out wrong. She tried again. A broken, stuttering version of the Bridal Chorus filled the church, each note landing too loud, the rhythm tripping over itself.

Whispers started around me.

"Oh my lord, is that — !"

"Shhh. Are you trying to get us killed?"

He walked down the aisle toward me.

What were they saying? Their voices sounded far away, too muffled for me to make out the words.

His dress shoes clicked against the stone floor with each step, unhurried and even, and I could hear them over the awful music. Every click brought him closer, and with him the smell: copper, cologne, and underneath that something sharper. Gunpowder, maybe.

I wanted to run, but my legs wouldn't listen.

He stopped less than a foot away.

Younger than I'd expected. Late twenties, maybe, with dark hair swept back from a face that was almost unfairly handsome. Thick brows framed deep-set green eyes, and a faint shadow of stubble sharpened his jaw. A scar cutting through his left eyebrow, healed white and clean.

"Happy eighteenth birthday." A pause that stretched too long. "My little bride."

Wh-what?

With the wedding march stumbling out of tune in the background, my voice came out in pieces. “Who—who are you?”

He didn't answer. His hands caught my waist and yanked me flush against him, so hard I stumbled forward and my cheek hit his collarbone. His jaw pressed against my temple. His breath burned hot against my ear.

"Your future husband." he said.

My whole body locked up. Arms rigid at my sides, hands balled into fists. The air stuck somewhere between my chest and my throat and wouldn't come out, "Sir." I forced the word through my teeth. "You have the wrong person. I don't — I don't even know you."

He pulled back just far enough to look at my face. His thumb came up and traced my lower lip, slow and deliberate, his nail scraping faintly against my skin.

He looked pleased. Entertained, even. The broken wedding march played on. Blood dried brown at his cuffs. Morning sun fell across his face through the stained glass, red and gold and blue.

"Sweet Evangeline," he said softly. "Caruso."

My name. He knew my full name.

The cross dug into my palm hard enough to leave a mark.

"Your father didn't lie." His thumb pressed down on my lower lip and traced over it slowly, "You are beautiful."