CHAPTER FIVE: Between Blades and Vows

The room was silent, but the tension screamed.

Gianna sat across from Alessio, arms folded tightly, the air between them heavy with everything unsaid. Her father leaned back in his chair, looking far too calm for someone who had just thrown her entire life into a furnace.

“I’m sorry, what?” she asked, voice cold enough to freeze the air.

“You heard me, Gianna. The war ends with a wedding,” Alessio said, swirling his drink lazily. “Yours.”

“To Kai Castellano?” she spat the name like poison. “You want me to marry the man who’d rather shoot me than shake my hand?”

“No,” he replied smoothly. “I want you to destroy him.”

Her heart stuttered.

Alessio leaned forward now, voice low and deliberate. “You’ll become one of them. The doting mafia bride, the trusted wife. You’ll smile at his men, eat at his table, sleep in his house. And when they stop looking over their shoulders, when they start calling you family…”

“You want me to gut them from the inside,” she finished, numb.

He smiled. “Exactly.”

Gianna stood so fast her chair scraped violently across the floor. “You want me to sell my soul.”

“No,” Alessio said, rising as well, “I want you to remember who you are. A Moretti. You were raised for this. All those years watching me work. Every lesson. Every punishment. This is what it was for.”

Gianna stared at him, something cracking in her chest. She’d been many things for him, his shadow, his secret, his weapon, but never truly his daughter. Not in the way it counted.

She walked out without another word, her father’s voice chasing her like a curse.

At Castellano headquarters, Kai sat at the edge of the long table in the war room, face hard, fingers steepled under his chin. Marsh and Luca flanked him, their silence more telling than any outburst.

“You want to what?” Marsh finally said, blinking.

“Form a truce,” Kai answered. “With a marriage.”

“To Gianna?” Luca echoed.

Kai didn’t look up. “Alessio offered it. Said he’s tired of the bloodshed. Wants peace.”

“And you believe him?” Marsh asked, voice sharper now.

“No,” Kai admitted. “But I believe in strategy. And I believe we can use this to buy time.”

Marsh shook his head, laughing bitterly. “This isn’t chess, Kai. This is your life. You’re marrying someone whose father would slit your throat with a butter knife.”

Kai’s gaze finally lifted, colder than steel. “I don’t trust her. But I respect her. She’s dangerous... just like me.”

“And if she’s part of the plan?” Luca asked quietly.

Kai was silent for a long beat. Then, “Then I’ll handle it.”

He didn’t say it, but the thought echoed loud in his head: She won’t get past me. No one does.

Still, a tiny whisper of doubt twisted in his gut. A part of him that remembered the way she’d looked at him at the auction. Not like a rival. Not like an assassin.

Like a storm waiting to break.

The announcement came at midnight.

Two mafia empires. One union. The war postponed. The city held its breath.

News broke like a gunshot. The Castellanos and La Rosa Nera, joining forces through blood and rings. Kai and Gianna’s wedding was set for a week’s time. Invitations went out to all major players. Allies. Enemies. Observers.

The whispers started immediately.

“Gianna’s being used.”

“She’ll turn on him.”

“Kai will kill her first.”

But behind closed doors, in the privacy of her apartment, Gianna stared at her reflection. The mirror didn’t lie. She looked calm. Collected. Regal.

But inside? Chaos.

Her phone buzzed. A single message from her father.

“Remember who you belong to.”

She stared at the words for a long time, then deleted the message.

She didn’t respond.

Three days before the wedding, Gianna met Kai on neutral ground, a private lounge overlooking the city skyline. They were alone. No guards. No weapons. Just two people who didn’t trust each other... about to become bound for life.

Kai studied her in silence. She was stunning, as always, dressed in black, hair pinned up, emerald earrings catching the moonlight.

“You’re quiet,” he said, breaking the silence.

Gianna didn’t look at him. “I’m thinking about how strange it is. Peace being dressed up like a wedding.”

Kai chuckled without humor. “Peace never lasts. This is just... a pause.”

She turned to face him now. “Are you going to kill me if I slip?”

“I won’t need to,” he said softly. “You’ll already be dead to me.”

The air between them shifted. Not rage. Not heat. Just two people standing on a wire stretched between love and loyalty.

Gianna reached into her coat and pulled out a small velvet box. She tossed it on the table. Inside was the engagement ring Kai had sent.

“I don’t wear symbols,” she said. “If we’re doing this, it’ll be on my terms.”

Kai’s jaw ticked. He liked control. She just ripped it from his hands.

But instead of anger, he found something else in her eyes.

Fear. Confusion. A flicker of something he couldn’t name.

And something in him cracked.

Back at La Rosa Nera’s estate, Gianna stood in her childhood bedroom, staring at a photo of her mother. The woman who had died too soon, too quietly. The woman who had whispered once, “You don’t have to become what he is.”

Gianna’s hand shook slightly.

Outside, the Moretti guards were tightening their patrols. Her father was preparing for war disguised as a wedding.

Inside, her phone buzzed again.

“The plan remains the same. You know what to do. – A”

She turned the phone face-down. Her chest ached.

For the first time in her life, Gianna Moretti didn’t know what to choose.

The father who had made her.

Or the man who might unmake her.

Will she obey?

Or betray it all?

One choice could end two empires.

One lie could start a new war.

The wedding was in three days.

And Gianna Moretti was running out of time.