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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Cora Reilly
Read between
June 28 - June 29, 2024
I should be honored to marry the oldest son of the New York Famiglia.
He bent down to bridge the ten inches he towered over me.
Their message was clear: You are mine.
“Born in blood. Sworn in blood. That’s their motto.”
me. I knew only two things about Luca Vitiello: he would become the head of the New York mob once his father retired or died, and he got his nickname “The Vise” for crushing a man’s throat with his bare hands.
He turned toward me and I stared intently at his black shirt. Black shirt, black tie, black jacket. Black like his soul.
Luca’s intervention was an insult against my father’s honor.
Luca shook his head. “Relax. I was joking,” he said quietly. “I’m not a monster.” “Aren’t you?”
“I enter alive and I will leave dead.”
“Make him be good to you. Make him love you if you can. It’s the only way to get through this.”
“But he told the truth. You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,
“That is the fifth time you shied back from me tonight.”
“Born in blood. Sworn in blood. I enter alive and I leave dead.”
“So to give you peace of mind and shut you up, I’m going to swear an oath.”
He took my hand and pressed my palm against the tattoo over his heart.
“I already bled for you, so that seals it. Born in blood. Sworn in blood.”
His protectiveness thrilled and scared me in equal parts.
“Luca can’t stop watching you. You must have left quite an impression on him,”
“When will you stop being afraid of me?”
“You are more beautiful than all of them,”
A part of me still wanted this marriage to work.
“You are the wife of the future Capo dei Capi. If someone humiliates you, they are practically insulting Luca.”
“I’m sorry for what you saw today.”
He looked exasperated. “I rarely say I’m sorry. When I say it, I mean it.”
Love is something girls hope for when they don’t know better, something women long for when they lie awake at night, and something they’ll only ever get from their children. Men don’t have time for such notions.
He swallowed, but it was obvious he wasn’t too impressed. I took a bite as well and almost spat it back out.
You are my wife and I swore to protect you, if necessary even from myself.”
“You are far too beautiful and innocent to be married to someone like me, but I’m too much of a selfish bastard to ever let you go. You are mine. Forever.”
It thrilled me to know that a man like him could be gentle with me. It thrilled me that he was mine and I was his.
“She’s a fucking rat trying to humiliate a queen. She’s nothing.”
“You are the only one I want. I’ll keep my promise, Aria.”
principessa.
Principessa? Warmth settled in my chest.
“There’s only you, Aria.”
“A Capo with morals?”
“I’m not Capo yet. And I have morals. Not many, but a couple.”
“So perfect, principessa.”
“I can’t believe Luca—The Vise—Vitiello said ‘gentle,’” I said teasingly to lighten the mood.
“It’ll be our secret.”
living in a small cage in a zoo.” He paused. “Your marriage to me shackles you to the mafia. Blood and death will be your life as long as I live.”
“Then so be it. I’ll go where you go no matter how dark the path.”
My heart belonged to him even if he didn’t have a heart that he could give me in turn.
“I lied because I hate that I love you, because I hate that you can hurt me without ever laying a finger on me, because I hate myself for loving you even though you won’t ever love me back.”
“My father is dead.”
HE’S THE CAPO NOW
He was now the new Capo and he couldn’t show a flicker of weakness, not even after the death of his father.
“Don’t do that ever again.” “What?” I breathed. “Taking a bullet for me.”
“I love you, Luca.”
“You love me.”
“You shouldn’t love me, Aria. I’m not someone who should be loved.
“But I don’t care because loving you is the only pure thing in my life.”
