Home / He Gave Her My Vows, So I Married the Don He Feared / Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

All Chapters of He Gave Her My Vows, So I Married the Don He Feared: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

12 Chapters

Chapter 1

Six De Luca capos were sitting in the office.Their conversation cut off the moment I pushed the door open. Bianca stood at Enzo's right hand, holding the marriage contract that should have been in the De Luca family's consigliere's custody.Ninety-nine days ago, Don Vittorio De Luca had approved our formal marriage alliance. Since then, Bianca had canceled the signing on Enzo's behalf nine times. What finally reached me was, of all things, an alliance dissolution agreement."He didn't send me to run errands." Bianca bit her lip and looked at me as if I had wounded her. "Enzo has been so busy lately. I only wanted to take some of the work off his hands. The two files have almost identical names. I accidentally chose the wrong one."When she lied, she even forgot to hide the way she addressed him. At an open family meeting, no one but me dared use the underboss's first name. But Enzo did not correct her."Bianca is organizing the anniversary memorial for Capo Rizzo while dealing with th

Chapter 2

When I got back to the estate, seven or eight black wooden crates were stacked in the entrance hall.The butler told me they had come from a wedding photography studio. The recipient was Bianca, but the address was the estate Enzo and I shared.I opened the top crate and found a wedding album bound in black leather.In the photographs, Bianca nestled against Enzo. He posed with her in the chapel, the vineyard, and the old family home. In one shot, he was even kissing her temple.Ten years together, and he and I did not have a single formal photograph.Enzo always said photographs helped enemies identify weaknesses, so even at our engagement he let the photographer shoot nothing but two clasped hands.And now he had posed through an entire wedding shoot with Bianca.I turned to the last page of the album, and my breath caught.The lace veil on Bianca's head belonged to my mother.My mother, Elena Moretti, had left it to me before she died, asking Enzo to place it on me himself on our we

Chapter 3

I picked up the scissors from beside the fireplace and cut the photograph in half. The blades sliced through Bianca's smiling face and Enzo's hand as he adjusted her veil."Sofia, that's enough," Enzo warned, his voice low.I didn't stop. I took the album apart and fed it into the fire page by page.Bianca screamed and threw herself at me."Don't! Tomorrow is my father's memorial. I promised I would put that photo on his grave so he would know I have a family now!"She grabbed the album, then deliberately let herself topple toward the shattered glass in the frame. Enzo shoved me aside without a moment's thought and caught her in his arms.My lower back struck the edge of the table, and my right hand landed among the shards.A sharp pain exploded through my palm, and blood quickly soaked my dress sleeve. Enzo looked back at me, his pupils contracting.But then Bianca let out a sob, and he still bent to check her arm first."I'm fine," Bianca said through her tears. "Look at Sofia. She's

Chapter 4

Enzo came back to the bedroom before dawn.Two hours had passed since I returned from the clinic, and the anesthetic in my palm had worn off. When he pushed the door open, I was using my left hand to sort through the share documents my mother had left me."You actually got stitches?"His eyes went to the bandages wrapping my hand, and his face changed."I thought it was just a scratch.""You saw perfectly well that my hand was covered in blood."He stood where he was and didn't deny it.After a moment he took the first aid kit out of the cabinet and sat down in front of me. He had cleaned up my injuries many times over ten years, and he still remembered which ointment to use.He unwound the bandage, and his breathing grew heavier when he saw the crisscross of stitches in my palm."I thought Bianca was going to fall into the glass.""So you pushed me out of the way for her.""I never meant for you to get hurt.""And after you saw I was hurt, you still carried her out first."His hands s

Chapter 5

At noon the next day, the consiglieri for the Moretti and De Luca families went through the old alliance page by page in front of Don Alessandro and Don Vittorio. Compensation, port access, and the border between the two families all went into the dissolution agreement. Only after all four men had signed did the marriage contract between Enzo and me become formally void. Don Vittorio did not notify Enzo directly. He simply had his consigliere hand me the original.At one o'clock, I carried the formal dissolution papers into a private courthouse. The consiglieri for the Moretti and Russo families first reviewed the mutual-aid and port-defense clauses, then Don Alessandro and Don Matteo signed. The registration that followed settled the marriage under civil law. At the family level, it still had to be acknowledged publicly at that night's annual meeting.Don Matteo was already waiting. Only two witnesses were present. There were no flowers or reporters."Read the contract first." He push

Chapter 6

Enzo's fingers froze.Don Matteo came through the crowd to my side. He did not decide for me as Enzo would have. Instead, he looked first at the wrist Enzo was holding."Do you want me to handle it, or do you want to?""I'll do it."I pulled my hand out of Enzo's and placed the valid marriage certificate in front of him.The conversations in the ballroom died away. Don Matteo was head of the Russo family and the younger brother of Enzo's mother. In any public setting, even Don Vittorio acknowledged him as an equal.It clearly had never occurred to Enzo that I would marry the one man he could never give an order to."That's impossible." He flipped quickly to the last page. When he saw Don Matteo's signature beside mine, the color drained from his face. "Sofia's contract with the De Luca family still stands. Even as a don, you can't marry another man's fiancee.""Do you mean this contract?"My father laid the signed dissolution agreement on the table. Along with the old marriage contract

Chapter 7

Enzo started forward again. Don Matteo moved half a step closer to me, and every Russo guard along the far wall put a hand on his holster at once."She has already answered," Don Matteo said. "You're dismissed, Underboss."That last word landed on Enzo like a slap.He had always assumed he would be a don soon. In front of Don Matteo, he was still only an underboss who took orders from the head of his family.Don Vittorio climbed the steps at the front of the ballroom. He took another copy of the dissolution agreement from his own consigliere. Its cover bore the red seal of the De Luca don's office in the upper right corner, nothing like the copy Bianca had handled."The original reached me yesterday." Don Vittorio looked at Enzo. "I held off signing until noon today to give you one last chance to save the alliance with the Moretti family. You did not even know negotiations had begun. The Moretti family has now formally withdrawn its ports, its money, and its support."The hall went com

Chapter 8

On my first day at the Russo estate, Don Matteo set a black seal on my desk."This gives you access to the inner council," he said. "Any decision involving the Moretti ports is yours. When a Russo capo needs your signature, he will come directly to you."I looked at the seal and didn't pick it up right away.For five years, Enzo had said underworld business was dangerous and that he did not want me too involved. He used the Moretti ports while keeping me out of every route meeting. Over time, even I had nearly forgotten that my authority came from the shares my mother had left me."You're not worried I'll hand Russo secrets to my father?""If I can't tell my wife from my enemies, I don't deserve to be don."At my first inner council meeting, two of the older capos saw me sitting at the right side of the round table and exchanged a look of undisguised displeasure.Nico Ferraro, the capo in charge of shipping, slid the route file past me and pushed it straight to Don Matteo. "The capos h

Chapter 9

"Don Matteo, Enzo is at the south port waiting for your wife. He says he won't leave until he sees her."Half an hour later I met Enzo in the port office.Overnight, he had become a different man. He had not shaved, his suit was badly creased, and the underboss pin he had never removed was gone, reclaimed by Don Vittorio."Bianca has been thrown out of the estate." He got straight to it. "I've revoked all her access, and I'll tell the Bellini family the photos are void."I sat behind the desk and didn't have anyone pour him a drink."That's between you and her.""I never touched her." Enzo took a step forward. "The chapel photos were fake. The marriage protection was fake. Everything I did was to pay back what I owed Capo Rizzo in blood.""So as long as you didn't sleep with her, it doesn't count as betrayal?""Sofia—""You gave her my marriage contract, my veil, your name, and your choice in front of everyone. And now you're telling me that because you didn't take off her clothes, I s

Chapter 10

Don Matteo's orders reached every corner of the Russo family within three minutes.An escort of four armored cars left the estate, and the capos on both sides of the port sealed every exit at once. I did not ride out to the ambush with them. I stayed in the control room. Two armed Moretti guards held the door and admitted no one whose identity had not been confirmed, while I pulled up every piece of port equipment near the river road.One side of that road was abandoned warehouses, the other was containers stacked and waiting to be loaded. The enemy had chosen it because once a convoy went in, it could not turn around.I took over a remote crane and swung the two outermost containers into the middle of the road. When the lead Moretti car was forced to stop, the shooters hidden in the warehouse opened fire early."Close gate seven and open the maintenance tunnel," I told the operator. "Get everyone out of those cars and back into the port through the underground passage."On the monitor

PREV

NEXT

SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP

DMCA.com Protection Status