All Chapters of Mafia Marriage of Convenience: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

"What did the bastard say?"Eduardo’s voice grated like bone on stone. His cane hammered the gravel of the Cruz Bay Estate, a rhythmic, frantic thud. I stood still, watching the dust settle where Santiago Rivera’s car had vanished. My grandfather reached me, his chest heaving, his face a mask of gray skin and desperation. He grabbed the courtyard wall, knuckles white. He wouldn't touch me. He never touched me. The act was over. The strongman routine he’d performed for Santiago had drained him to the marrow. He needed a hospital bed, but he was too full of pride and poison to admit it.He spat on the ground. "Soft. The man is obsessed with consent.""He wanted to know if I was in on the deal."Eduardo let out a wet, mocking sound. It turned into a hack that rattled his entire skeleton. The black suit he wore looked two sizes too big for his shrunken frame. I reached out. He slapped my hand away. A string of bloody phlegm hit the rocks. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve, turning back t

"New contract is already being drafted."Daniel Brooks was leaned against my mahogany desk when I walked into the Rivera Global Headquarters. His dark skin looked like charcoal against the cream leather of the visitor’s chair. He didn't look up from his phone until the door clicked shut."Make sure the lawyers bury every Cruz claim," I said. I crossed the room. Sat. The leather was cold. This office was the only place in Miami where I didn't feel like someone was trying to put a bullet in my spine."The marriage is trending," Daniel said. He stood, sliding the burner phone into his jacket pocket. He tracked my hands as I opened the laptop. "Three hours as a husband. How's it feel, Santiago?""Like a business deal with a deadline."I didn't look at him. I couldn't. I’d spent forty years avoiding the leash, and now I’d let a dying old man and a pretty face snap one around my neck. Lanka Cruz. I’d read the file Daniel had compiled. It was a blood-soaked resume. Excessive spending. Brawls

"Sign the papers and end this." Gabriel Torres dropped his gold-plated controller onto the velvet cushion as the screen screamed Wasted. I’d put a bullet in his digital avatar for the fourth time in a row. He was sweating. Usually, Rafael was the only one in the family who could actually push me in a fight, but he was busy out on the terrace with the others, probably liquidating someone’s assets over the phone.The brunch had been a blood-soaked disaster of social cues. My brothers had already raided the cellar for the vintage cognac and were out back burning through my cigars. The women—Valentina, Sofia, Natalia, and Daniela—had vanished into my private study an hour ago. Every so often, a burst of sharp, jagged laughter cut through the hallway. Lanka was somewhere in the residence, lurking like a ghost. I didn't care. I needed the violence of the game to purge the taste of that Cruz brat from my mouth."Want to go again?" I asked. "Maybe you'll actually land a hit.""Rivera Global d

"Grab the charcoal." Diego Rivera didn't look at the samples; he looked at the space where the wall met the ceiling. "Santiago hates anything that looks like a museum. He wants a fortress that feels like a tomb."I nearly dropped the heavy book of Italian textures. Since I’d been traded to the Rivera Don, my life as a painter was a memory. I couldn't exactly show up at my old studio in the Wynwood District without bringing a hail of gunfire down on my head, so I spent my mornings pacing the Rivera Manhattan Residence like a ghost in a silk suit. After a month of staring at the same cold marble, I’d asked Santiago for a space to work. He’d given me the spare wing and told me to gut it. Why a Mafia boss wanted a Cruz brat tearing up his floors made no sense, but he hadn't blinked when I took his black card.Shopping was the only thing keeping the screaming in my head at bay. I’d tried reaching Camila a dozen times. She’d seen the encrypted messages—the "read" receipts were there—but she

"I didn't tip off the feds. The whole thing was a joke." Lanka leaned back, the leather of the booth creaking. "Grandfather's sense of humor is a pitch-black pit.""Sure." Santiago didn't look up from his steak."Believe what you want. I want this shadow-marriage to stay in the dark as much as you do. Being a Rivera target isn't on my bucket list."Santiago paused, his fork inches from his mouth. "Then who leaked the courthouse filing? If not the desperate Cruz brat, then who?"Lanka thought of Eduardo’s trembling, liver-spotted hands and the way he smiled when the news broke. He shrugged. "The courthouse is crawling with rats. One of your cleaners. One of your soldiers. Pick a suspect.""I know my men.""Right. You trust the hired guns more than the man wearing your ring. Predictable."They finished the meal in a silence so heavy it felt like a physical weight. When the last plate was cleared, Lanka reached for the stack. "I'll handle the cleanup."Santiago froze. The air in the kitc