Brutal Husband (Brutal Hearts #3)

Chapter 18

18

Nero

Before the wedding

“ H e was rude and cold to me, Mom. I can’t marry a man like that.”

I stand in the shadows outside the Bianchi residence, listening to Rieta arguing with her mother. I proposed to her, and she agreed to marry me, but she changed her mind in a matter of days. There’s a bottle of milk in my fridge that lasted longer than the diamond ring on Rieta’s finger. And I was feeling so damned pleased with myself for getting the job done quickly.

There are other women in this city who would be thrilled to bear the Lombardi name. I’m good-looking. I’m charming. My money is even more charming. I could be engaged again by this weekend to a different woman, which is no doubt the sensible course of action. Better to start from scratch than try to persuade a woman who angrily rejected me in front of her entire family.

A shrill voice emanates from within the house. “You ungrateful little bitch. I’ll teach you to talk back to me.” Giulia Bianchi, and from the sounds of things, she’s not taking the broken engagement well.

Rieta’s voice is suddenly tearful and afraid, and she sounds like she’s in pain. “Mom, let go, please. Mom, no!”

Alarm shoots through me, and I raise my head at the sound of Rieta’s terrified pleading. What the hell is going on in there? I move around the house until I get a view of mother and daughter through a window. Giulia has Rieta by the hair, and she’s dragging the stumbling young woman down the hallway. She opens a doorway into darkness, and shoves Rieta inside.

Rieta’s cry of despair is cut short as Giulia slams the door in her face. I can see Giulia’s profile, and there’s a nasty smile on her face that makes my blood run cold.

“You can stay in there and think about what you’ve done, Rieta. An obnoxious, disobedient child must be punished.”

I watch in disbelief as Giulia walks away, glowing with self-satisfaction and pleasure, while Rieta continues to scream and beg and pound on the door. The sound of her terror goes deep inside me and rattles me to my core. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone, human or animal, cry out in so much terror.

I move along the house to another window so I can watch Giulia as she calmly stacks the dishwasher, puts leftovers into the refrigerator, and wipes down the counters. She doesn’t try to drown out Rieta’s sobbing with music or the television. It’s as if she wants to listen to her daughter’s misery. A few minutes later, she snaps off the downstairs lights and heads upstairs to bed.

Rieta starts screaming again, even louder this time. Her throat sounds hoarse, and every scream must feel like torture to her, but she doesn’t stop.

Anger sweeps over me. I can’t leave her like this.

Because Giulia was distracted by punishing her daughter, she’s left one of the windows unlocked. I climb through and stride down the hallway to the basement door. The key is in the lock, and I turn it and yank the door open.

Rieta is standing on the top step, her face bloody and tear-streaked, her eyes filled with terror. She must have been hitting her head against the door, she was so afraid.

Her eyelashes flutter and her knees buckle, and I catch her in my arms. We sink down onto the floor together, and I rock her back and forth as she cries. There’s only blackness beyond her, and the freezing, damp, musty scent of the basement. It’s unlikely that anything in the basement was going to threaten her life, but the fear was real to Rieta.

As I stroke her hair and comfort her, she burrows into my arms, clinging on for dear life. The sensation is a surprising one. I’ve never had a woman seek my protection before.

“Don’t leave me,” she begs.

My answer is swift and fierce. “I won’t. I’ve got you.”

I pick her up in my arms, carry her into the living room, and lay her on the sofa. There are cuts on her forehead, and blood has trickled down her face to mingle with her tears. Fucking hell, even her fingernails are torn and bleeding. Rieta must have felt as though she was being buried alive. Meanwhile Giulia has taken herself off to bed for a good night’s sleep, the sadistic bitch.

I kiss Rieta’s knuckles, but when I try to leave her side for a moment, she panics and grabs hold of me, leaving smears of blood all over my shirt. It’s only after I assure her that I’ll be right back that she allows me to go fetch something to clean her up with. I find a first aid kit in a downstairs bathroom and run a washcloth under warm water.

As I clean the blood off her and put Band-Aids on Rieta’s fingers and brow, I keep asking myself, how could this have happened? What kind of nightmare family is this, where a daughter is treated with so much cruelty for breaking off a marriage to a stranger? If this is the way Giulia treats Rieta now, I wonder what kind of horrors she subjected her to in her childhood.

A tight feeling spreads through my chest. I want to protect this woman. I need to know that nothing like this is going to happen to her ever again.

Rieta has calmed down a little as I’ve tended to her, and she’s watching me with big, confused eyes.

I give her a glass of water to drink and press a kiss to her lips, and then I shout for her mother to come downstairs, injecting all the rage that I’m feeling into my words.

A moment later, Giulia appears. She looks at her daughter, and then at the blood on my shirt and the furious expression on my face. Her expression is filled with disdain. She’s not afraid of me.

I’ll make her fucking afraid of me.

“Why was Rieta locked in the basement? You knew Rieta would be so terrified that she would hurt herself, and you locked her down there anyway. Apologize to your daughter.”

When Giulia refuses to apologize, I see red. Seizing her by the throat, I seethe in her face, “Apologize to your daughter, or I will strangle the fucking life out of you.”

Rieta doesn’t try to stop me. She doesn’t even make a peep.

Good girl, you just let me deal with this.

Giulia apologizes, but unwillingly, and it’s not enough. I want to see her suffer. I want to take Rieta out of this hateful place, but things are too complicated right now.

I make Rieta the only promise I can and seal it with a kiss. “You will never be lost in the dark ever again, cara mia . I will always find you.”

This woman is going to be my wife. She’s not going to suffer in that house for a moment longer than she needs to. My own mother would hardly win mother of the year, but she wasn’t a spiteful bitch like Giulia Bianchi. In most of my childhood memories, she had a cigarette held between her fingers, gazing out the window as though something was lying heavily on her mind.

All throughout my childhood, I sensed that something was missing. Someone important. I could feel their absence like an ache, and when I said that to people, they told me it was because I never knew my father. That didn’t seem right to me. I didn’t miss my father. I didn’t care about my father. I was told that he had died when I was a baby. It was someone else who was missing, and they haunted my life.

Then eighteen months ago, a ghost walked into my life.

The drive back to my office is a short one. Not the official office that belongs to Nero Lombardi, but the place where we go when we need to speak with each other. It’s a nondescript office building sandwiched between a drycleaner and a Chinese restaurant. I live in the apartment above the office. It’s not luxurious, but I don’t need luxury, and it’s not like I can bring guests here anyway. Everything about our use of this building is a closely guarded secret.

I park at the back, swipe through the security door with a card, and go inside, heading upstairs to the office.

He’s sitting at the desk typing away on his laptop. He glances up briefly as I enter the room, and I see my own face looking back at me.

“I fixed it,” I tell him.

“Fixed what?” he asks absent-mindedly.

“Things with Rieta. The broken engagement.”

He frowns, still typing. “I didn’t ask you to do that.”

The back of my neck prickles with annoyance. “Does everything I do have to be cleared with my brother?”

“I thought that would make sense considering she’s my ex-fiancée, and you’re pretending to be me.”

“No, you’re pretending to be me,” I remind him. I was born with the name Nero Lombardi, but we’re both making use of it now. “Anyway, the wedding is back on. Try not to piss that girl off so much that she rips the ring off again.”

I wasn’t at the engagement party to witness Rieta taking off the ring. Luca was, and when he called me and told me it was all off, I went around there to see if I could find a way to fix things for us. That’s when I witnessed Giulia torturing her daughter.

“But I’ve got the…”

Luca trails off as I hold my hand out for the ring. “Give it to me. I’ll put it back on her finger.”

With an irritated curl of his lip, he reaches inside his pocket and slaps the box containing the engagement ring into my hand. It will be back on Rieta’s finger in no time.

I didn’t choose Rieta. Luca found out through an associate that a woman who moved in our circles called Giulia Bianchi had three unmarried daughters. Luca met with her and described the kind of woman he wanted to marry, and Giulia offered up Rieta. I don’t know how Luca described his ideal bride. The most beautiful woman with the sweetest nature and cleverest, prettiest eyes imaginable, presumably.

Luca packs away his laptop and then gets up, buttoning his suit jacket and walking past me. “It’s not as though Rieta Bianchi is the only unmarried woman in the city, but good job, I suppose. Excuse me, we have a meeting now.” He flashes me a hard, humorless smile. “Or rather, I have a meeting now. You’re welcome, by the way. I know how much you detest the business side of things.”

I don’t detest business necessarily, though I never had a taste for suits and contracts, even illegal ones for illegal goods like the kind we deal in. I just don’t have a taste for the kinds of people Luca enjoys doing business with. Violence has never bothered me, and neither has breaking the law, but my twin brother’s associates give me the creeps. Still, we make a lot of money, and it’s not as though the people I choose to surround myself with are saints.

“I thought you’d be happier that I’d fixed things with Rieta.”

He shrugs and says vaguely, “Sure.”

“What do you mean, sure? She’s going to be my wife.”

Luca’s eyes narrow. “ My wife.”

Luca and I have split the tasks involved in being Nero Lombardi fifty-fifty, and he takes most of the public-facing roles. As much as I’m regretting it now, we agreed that he would be Rieta’s husband and father her children. The prospect of courting her was irritating to him, so we agreed that I would do it. I tried to emulate my brother’s chilly, serious nature on our first date, but before I knew what I was doing, I broke character and started acting like myself.

I will never fall at your feet, but you’ll fall at mine, and you’ll love it down there, cara mia .

My pretty piece of cunt.

I couldn’t help myself around Rieta.

A wife is what Luca believes “Nero Lombardi” needs to complete his respectable persona and hide our underworld dealings. Nero Lombardi is the name I was born with, but I’m not Nero Lombardi anymore. He’s a completely new man that Luca and I have constructed between us, from my name, clean criminal record, and street smarts to Luca’s money and mafia connections.

Before Luca can leave the room, I step in front of him and block the door. “Well? Are you happy that the wedding is back on?”

He sighs impatiently. “I’m neither happy nor unhappy. I’m neutral about my future bride, as I’ve been from the start. Would you move? I’m going to be late.”

We’ve both been pretending to be Nero Lombardi for nearly a year and a half now, but I’m only just realizing now that my brother can be so fucking cold. I picture a sweet, hopeful Rieta walking up the aisle toward him, and her tender heart crumpling as he gazes at her like she’s a worm he’s found in his salad.

I don’t know how any man can feel neutral about Rieta Bianchi. Luca has spent some time with her, and he should have connected with her as quickly as I did. She’s beautiful, which doesn’t hurt, but more than that, she’s so fucking sexy. The way she moves, how she talks, the way she looks up at me from beneath those dark lashes, so vulnerable and cute, and so fucking kissable. Maybe she just hasn’t looked up at Luca that way yet.

An ugly, angry sensation that I can’t identify spreads through my chest as I imagine her doing that. I don’t want her to look at any man like that except me.

“I want the wedding day,” I say suddenly.

“Not necessary. Once that ring is back on her finger, you will have done enough.”

Luca’s weakness is crowds. People. He hates social events. “You fucked up the engagement party and there were, what? A dozen or so people there? You’ll fuck up the wedding as well. There’s no way in hell you can cope with the attention of three hundred people and give Rieta the day she deserves. I’ll do it.”

Luca might be the public face of Nero Lombardi, but unless it’s business, he fucking sucks at being Nero.

My brother narrows his eyes. “When we discussed my getting married, we agreed that you would be the one to convince a woman to marry me, and then I’d do the marrying. You can go back to doing what you’re good at now. The warehouses. Organizing the men. Protecting our interests. You should be happy about that seeing as you never wanted Nero to be married in the first place.”

He’s right that I thought it was a stupid idea for Nero Lombardi to get married. If Luca wanted to sleep with a woman, he should go right ahead, but apparently this isn’t about sex. He wants the man we’ve constructed to be respected in this city, and part of that is having a beautiful wife who keeps a beautiful home and bears his children.

“I’m part of it now, Luca. I’m going to finish things off with Rieta.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Why not? It’s your name.” My chin lifts, challenging him. Am I trying to piss him off, or am I reminding him that I’m his equal, not his errand boy? Maybe both. I’m not his fucking errand boy.

“I have a meeting. I know there are things that you should be doing. Are you really going to let a woman tear down everything we’ve worked so hard for?”

I’m not trying to tear anything down, but I’m on edge about something, and I don’t know what or why. In the past fifteen months, my life has changed for the better and it’s all because of the brother I didn’t know I had. I grew up poorer than dirt, but throughout my twenties, I learned how to survive in the shadowy underworld, making money dealing in whatever people wanted and needed but weren’t supposed to have. It was going well until I was double-crossed by men who were supposed to be my allies, and everything was taken from me. Problem was that the people who were waiting to be paid for their guns and drugs wouldn’t take excuses and explanations. They just wanted their money.

When Luca found me, I was up to my ears in debt to some very dangerous people. He paid off what I owed and killed anyone who still wanted to cut off my fingers and toes and gouge out my eyeballs.

Luca saved my life, but more importantly, he was the answer to the question I had been asking all my life. I had a twin. A twin . I grew up with our mother, and he grew up with our father. They hated each other, and so they agreed to raise us separately on the opposite sides of the country. Luca only found out about me because our father confessed on his deathbed.

I thought I was losing my mind when I first saw Luca, but then everything about my life made sense. Ever since that day, he and I swore to put each other first. My brother has had my back since the day we were reunited, and I have his. It’s not just that we’re blood. Loyalty is more important than blood, and we’ll never forget that we were separated against our will. I’ll rip my own eyes out before I go against my brother.

“Of course I’m not going to let anything tear us down,” I assure Luca. “You and me. That’s what’s important.”

Maybe I get carried away as I convince Rieta to marry Nero Lombardi a second time. She just gets so wet in the back of my car that I can’t resist finger-fucking her in the pussy and ass at the same time while she pants my name and gazes at me with so much sweetness and need. I tell myself I’m just doing what’s needed to get this woman walking down the aisle, but I know that’s a lie.

I’m falling for this woman hard, and I don’t know what I’m going to do.

Luca is feeling ambitious about his ability to act like a decent fiancé around Rieta, and so he suggests a second engagement party. Nothing I say can dissuade him from the idea.

“Do you think I’m a monster?” he asks me, lounging on the sofa in his home. “I can handle one small family dinner party. I presume Rieta’s learned not to act like a little whore around me.”

“Watch your fucking mouth,” I growl. He should feel honored that Rieta said even one syllable to him. “No one wants a repeat of the last engagement party. Invite her to dinner with her family, but I want to be there.”

“Don’t be idiotic. No one can know there are two men with the name Nero Lombardi.”

“I’ll keep out of sight. I’ll listen in. If you get into trouble with Rieta or her family, come find me, and I’ll tell you what to do and say.”

“I don’t need to be babysat, but fine. Make sure you stay out of sight.”

On the night of the engagement party, I wait in the downstairs study and listen to Rieta and her mother and sisters arrive. I’m peering through a keyhole, hungry for a glimpse of my fiancée. There’s a flash of her skirt and bare calves—and then Luca blocks my view of her, and they head into the dining room, followed by Giulia and her other two daughters.

I carefully open the study door and creep silently along the corridor until I’m standing outside the dining room. Luca left the door ajar. I’m out here in the cold, listening to him speak to my woman in a voice that’s void of emotion.

I hate this so fucking much.

I didn’t think this through, and I’m not talking about tonight’s dinner. The entire agreement is a mistake. Every time Luca says something stilted or cold to Rieta, I clench my fists and shake my head. How can he be this way with her? Does he not want to make her smile and blush so he can witness how radiant she looks with sparkling eyes and pink cheeks? He has no interest in Rieta beyond her being his arranged bride. He’s going to make her miserable.

I have to take the lead on this marriage. Luca won’t like it, but there’s no way this will work otherwise.

Dinner is wrapping up, and so I head upstairs to wait in the shadows, hoping to see Rieta. Her family leaves, and Rieta and Luca stand at the bottom of the stairs by the front door.

Rieta’s expression is cool, and her voice is colorless. “You don’t have to come to family dinners after we’re married. I don’t much like you around other people. As long as you’re not like this with me when we’re alone. Can you promise me that?”

My hand clenches on the banister. I’d never be cold with her.

“Promise me that you’ll be a warm and loving husband the next time we’re alone together, and…”

I lean closer, desperate to catch every word she’s saying. I have to know what she wants. My hand slips, and I only just manage to pull myself back into the shadows in time.

Rieta looks up, directly at me, and my heart lodges in my throat. But then her roaming eyes move on, and I realize she didn’t see anything in the shadows.

Luca draws her attention back to him, and she searches his eyes for something. Then I realize what it is.

Rieta is looking for me.

In my brother’s cold eyes.

She wants me . The knowledge is a punch to the gut. She’s not interested in a comfortable home or a prestigious husband. Rieta Bianchi wants a man who can love her.

A short while later, Rieta leaves, and Luca closes the front door behind. He calls up the stairs to me, “She nearly saw you. Be more careful.”

I step out of the shadows and descend into the hall, watching my brother carefully. Wondering what to say. How much work I have to do to convince him that this is not going to work.

Luca straightens the cuffs of his shirt with an air of quiet confidence. “That went well. I think Rieta and I finally understand each other.”

How can two men come to such vastly different conclusions about the same interaction? “Didn’t you hear her? Rieta wants you to be a warm and loving husband, something that you’re not able to do.”

Luca isn’t insulted by my words. He merely shrugs. “Women are simple. They wish to be provided for. She’s immature and needy now, but Rieta will grow up quickly once we’re married.”

As if my iron-hearted brother knows anything about women. “You’re overconfident. She’s going to reject the engagement again unless I do something.”

Luca shakes his head. “There’s no need for you to see her again. I’m going to move forward with the wedding plans, and my fiancée and I can communicate via emails and text messages. Once she moves in here, Rieta will have the house and my needs to occupy her—and planning for our first child.”

What he’s describing is a housekeeper he impregnates, and my stomach turns in disgust. “Emails and text messages. Would you listen to yourself? She’s going to get cold feet.”

Luca rubs an irritated hand across his brow and heads for the door. “I just want this courtship nonsense over with. Do what you want. I’m going out.”

The front door slams behind him. I want Rieta for myself, but the harder I pursue her and the more convincing I am, I’m driving her into my brother’s arms.

I don’t know how to fix any of this. I need to think. Not knowing what else to do, over the next few days, I follow Rieta wherever she goes, hungry for the smallest glimpse of her. She has no idea I’m watching her through her bedroom window or as she sits in a café. I learn to love every single one of her mannerisms. The way she talks. The way she smiles. The way she plays with a strand of her hair as she’s lost in thought.

In these moments, she’s mine, and no one else’s.

One afternoon, Rieta enters a bridal boutique, and my body becomes electrified. Am I about to witness my woman wearing a wedding dress? I inch my car closer and park on the other side of the street, staring through dark sunglasses and tinted car windows. She can’t see me, but I can see her standing on the white carpet, running her fingers over satin and beaded wedding dresses.

There’s a dull ache in my thigh and a cramp in my hand, and when I look down, I realize that it’s because I’m gripping my leg from anger, frustration, and longing.

I want this woman. More than anything.

Luca’s dismissive words the other night echo in my head. Do what you want.

What I want is to make Rieta mine. Luca seems vaguely disgusted by the idea of sleeping with Rieta. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with him because it’s all I’ve been able to think about.

Please, Nero. I want your baby. Make me pregnant.

Rieta’s words as I fucked her full of my cum echo in my head for days. My woman could be pregnant at this very moment with my baby. At this very moment. I’ve claimed her as mine, driven my seed into her, and the thought makes me breathless.

She still hasn’t figured out how we’re fooling her, but it could happen any way now. Luca is making wedding arrangements with her, and she could realize that my cold, uninterested brother is not the man who took her virginity with so much heat and passion. I’m running out of time. Luca’s set a wedding date that’s barreling down on us.

When Rieta finds out that there are two of us and she’s been deceived, she’s going to be mad, but we’ll get through this. She can take it out on me with claw marks down my back. She can give me the silent treatment while I grovel on my knees and carpet her driveway with white roses. I’ll do whatever it takes because, in the end, I’ll have Rieta Bianchi as my wife, and everything and anything is worth that.

I catch Luca in what I hope is a good mood one evening at his home. We’re drinking whisky together, and I’ve just passed on some good news. The cops fumbled a case against one of our arms suppliers, and they’re able to get back to business as usual, though the meeting points and contacts are changing.

“Good. I’m glad to hear it,” Luca says with a nod.

“I’ve been thinking,” I begin. Like always, Rieta is on my mind.

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

I give my brother a sarcastic smile. “You’re funny. But be nice to me, I’m here to lighten your workload.”

“Oh? How?”

“Let me take over your duties with Rieta.”

Instantly, Luca’s expression closes. “I don’t need you to do that.”

I sit forward, my whisky tumbler grasped in both my hands. “No. Listen. This marriage is about both of us, not you. Every time you’ve seen Rieta, you’ve upset her, and I’ve had to deal with the fallout. When I’ve been the one to charm her, she’s happy. The first date? That was me. Putting the ring on her finger? That was me. Putting the ring back on her finger after the disaster of an engagement party that you attended? Me.”

Finger-fucking her ass and pussy in the back of my car and then taking her to one of our clubs and fucking her raw? Me.

“Everything was fine after the second engagement party that I hosted,” he points out.

“Did she smile?” I know Rieta didn’t smile. I would have heard it in her beautiful voice.

“It doesn’t matter if she smiles.”

I pinch my brow. Jesus fucking Christ.

Luca gets to his feet. “I don’t know why you can’t let this go. Rieta will live in the comfort that she has always enjoyed. Most women would kill for an existence such as the one I can provide her.”

That may be true, but being comfortable and being happy are different things.

I stand up as well. “What about the wedding day?”

“What about the wedding day?”

“Hundreds of people gawping at you. You’ll be exchanging vows out loud. Rieta will expect you to smile, kiss her, make her feel beautiful. Hours and hours of the reception with people and loud music. You’ll hate that.”

“You want the wedding day?” he asks with a sigh.

“I don’t care about the wedding day. I care if Rieta enjoys her wedding day. I want her to have a happy memory to look back on, and you’re just going to fuck it up.”

Luca grits his jaw. “Fine. You do the wedding day. I’ll take over that night at the reception. Ten o’clock. It should be winding down by then. The honeymoon will be fine as she’ll be distracted by Paris, and then things will get back to normal around here, thank fucking Christ.”

A bitter taste fills my mouth. I want the wedding night. I want all the nights. I don’t want Luca touching my woman.

“Why don’t we renegotiate this marriage plan?”

Luca’s eyes narrow. “After all this time we’ve invested in Rieta, and you want to call it off?”

“I meant renegotiate it between you and me. I’ll be Rieta’s husband.”

“We’re not changing things now.”

“Do you love Rieta?”

My twin brother gazes back at me, a cold expression in his eyes. I’ve tried to mimic that expression while staring into the mirror, and I haven’t even come close. I don’t even know what muscles he’s using, or if there’s something messed up going on inside his head that I can’t fathom. Luca and I might look identical, but inside, I think we’re completely different. Apart from one important thing.

Apparently, we both want the same woman.

“We already agreed. She’s going to be my wife,” he says.

“But do you love her?” I ask, louder and angrier than before. As I keep talking, I start to shout. “It’s a simple question. Do you love her? Will you grow to love her after you’re married? Is this woman going to be everything to you? You should have felt something for her by now. You should know one way or another whether you want to spend the rest of your life with her.” I’m breathing hard after my rant, and I can feel sweat breaking out on my brow.

I’m falling in love with her , I want to yell at the top of my lungs. Don’t fucking touch her.

The silence goes on, and a strange expression comes into Luca’s eyes.

Pity.

He shakes his head. “Get a grip. Rieta is just a woman, and women are not that important. She’s my fiancée, and how I feel about her is my business. You’re going to be comfortable for the rest of your life, and so is she. That’s all that matters.”

“Rieta and I are going to be comfortable? Like Rieta and I are your pets? Is that how you see us?”

Luca sighs and turns away. “I can’t talk to you when you’re being ridiculous like this.”

I catch his arm and pull him around to face me. “After you’re married, you’re going to make her so angry with your coldness that she will want to leave you. What then? Am I going to be taking Rieta out on apology dates for you? Buying her birthday presents because I know what she likes and you don’t? Am I going to fuck her for you and father your children?”

Luca points a finger at me, malice flickering in his eyes. “You will not lay a finger on my property. I’m the one who has to sleep with Rieta, and I will do that knowing that another man hasn’t defiled her first.”

My expression doesn’t flicker as I remember how Rieta looked spread out on my desk, taking my cock.

I knock Luca’s hand out of my face. Has to sleep with her, like it’s a chore or something he’s dreading? He should be dreaming about that moment.

“I’m the public face of Nero Lombardi,” he says with finality. “You stand at the altar on the wedding day if you’re so concerned about her making precious memories, but I’m the one who needs a wife. End of discussion.”

I’ve never seen a more beautiful sight than Rieta walking down the aisle toward me. The church is filled with delicate white daisies with yellow hearts, and Rieta carries a bouquet of the same flowers. There’s a daisy in my buttonhole. This is the day she wanted.

And she’s what I want.

My bride is wearing a lace veil that’s so thick I can’t see her face. I’m holding my breath as she reaches me, and I grasp the lace and pull it back. Rieta’s smile hits me like sunshine, warming me through.

I told myself I wanted the perfect wedding day for her, but I was lying to myself. I’m doing this for us. As Rieta speaks her vows, gazing up at me with sparkling eyes, I know I’m never going to be able to let her go. My life and identity are tangled with Luca’s, but we’ll figure something out. Rieta will accept the fact that her husband is actually two men, and one of them is in love with her. I’ll move into Luca’s home, and Rieta and I will share a bedroom and live as husband and wife.

It makes perfect sense to me. I just have to convince Luca.

I don’t know most of the guests at my wedding, but it’s not much of a problem. I happily accept anyone and everyone’s congratulations when they approach me and my bride. If a suited man I don’t know asks me a question I don’t understand, I flash him a smile and say, Hey, it’s my wedding day, and move on.

Rieta and I dance together. We kiss. We feed each other wedding cake. Before I’m ready for our shared happiness to be over, it’s nearing ten p.m., and my bride is upset.

She points out a man among the guests who she tells me was charged with child sex abuse. Twice. My bride is rightfully panicking that he’s at our wedding around so many children. I promise to get him out of there, but at the same time, this is goodbye. Only for now, but it still hurts.

Out of nowhere, a sense of foreboding sweeps over me. What if it’s forever? Was today too happy? Have I been entertaining fantasies that will inevitably be crushed? Luca has always been strict to the point of paranoia about no one finding out about our shared identity, and I’ve been happy to go along with that, until now.

I pull Rieta into my arms and kiss her. I’m not saying goodbye. I’m going to leave her for a short while so I can speak to my brother, and then I’ll return to her side.

“I will always be yours,” I whisper, meaning those words with every drop of blood in my body and every beat of my heart.

Rieta is bewildered by my strange behavior, but I haven’t got time to explain. I need to get Shields out of here, and then I have to talk to my brother.

I approach the man that Rieta pointed out. “Shields.” I jerk my head to the side, indicating that I want to have a word in private. He leaves the men he was speaking with and approaches me with a smile. “Time to go.”

The smile dies on his face, and he gives me an indignant look. “What? Why?”

“You know why. My wife recognized you. I don’t want a scene, so let’s just walk out together.”

Shields fumes silently, but his respect for Nero Lombardi convinces him to do as he’s told, and we leave the reception together. I’ll have a word with Luca about dropping this creep from his associates, but first I’m curious to know how much he’s willing to share about his court cases with “Nero.”

“Do me a favor, can you drop me somewhere?” I ask as we’re leaving the hotel and heading toward the car lot.

“You kick me out of your wedding and then you ask for a lift?”

“You owe me,” I say meaningfully, staring him down. I’m bluffing. I have no idea what the relationship is between Luca and this man.

“Sure. Whatever.” He unlocks a Mercedes and gestures for me to get in.

“Where can I take you?” he asks.

“My office.”

“On your wedding day? No rest for the wicked, I suppose.” Expelling Shields from my wedding seems to be playing on his mind still, and he huffs, “I don’t see why I had to leave. Those cases were thrown out of court.”

“You were making people uncomfortable. My bride wanted you away from the children.”

There’s a short silence, and then Shields laughs. Something about that laugh makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. I wish I knew what was in the news reports Rieta was talking about. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. Never mind.” A moment later Shields shoots a sly grin at me. “Those kids weren’t even my type. I like ’em prettier.”

I don’t know what Luca and Shields’s relationship is like. Maybe they make these kinds of disgusting jokes with each other all the time, but something tells me that even if Shields means for me to take it as a joke, he’s not joking.

I see red. I grab the back of his neck and slam his face into the steering wheel. The man shouts in pain, and the car skids off the road.

“You’re talking like that about my wife’s family? About little kids? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

The car slams into something, my head hits the side window, and the airbags deploy. The motor cuts out, and my head throbs with pain.

The airbag squashes Shields into his seat, but as I lift my fist to hit him again, he holds up a placating hand. “Okay, okay! I was out of line. I disrespected your family. I would never put what I want over our relationship, Nero. You’re too important to me.”

I wipe away the blood that’s trickling down my temple, struggling to get a hold of my temper. I don’t want to talk to Luca about this. I want to know the kind of man Shields is for myself. “The kids you were in the news about. Were they pretty?” It makes bile creep up my throat just to say the words.

Shields hesitates.

“Go on. Tell me.”

His eyes gleam. I can tell that he never gets to talk about this, and he dearly wants to. “They were so damn pretty. You should have seen—”

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence because my fist slams into his face. I go on punching him, hearing the cartilage in his nose crunch and break, feeling the slice of his broken teeth on my knuckles.

When I finally stop punching, his face is a pulpy mess, and he’s not moving. I don’t know if he’s dead yet or not. I hope not. He deserves to suffer. I fish around and find a handgun under the driver’s seat. Getting out and moving a distance away from the car, I fire three shots into the gas tank. A moment later, the car is engulfed in flames with Shields still in it.

I wipe my prints from the gun and throw it into the fire, and then I walk away.

Tomorrow, Shields will make the headlines again, and I hope the parents of the children this creep molested relish every word about his demise. I hope Rieta will take some comfort from knowing that the man who was around her family’s children all day won’t be coming after them.

I have to walk, and it takes me another forty minutes to arrive at our office. When I enter the room, it’s apparent that Luca has been pacing up and down waiting for me, and he’s in a foul temper.

Luca takes in my disheveled appearance and the blood on my face. “What the fuck happened to you? Did you pick a fight at my wedding?”

My twin is dressed in an identical suit to mine. The only thing missing from his outfit is the daisy. He strides forward, pulls it off my suit, and tucks it into his own buttonhole.

“I want to talk to you about something,” I begin.

“We can talk when I get back from my honeymoon. Give it to me.” He holds out his hand.

He wants me to give him my wedding ring. I stare at it on my hand. Instead of doing as he asks, I say, “Why was there a sex predator at my wedding?”

“My wedding, and who are you talking about?”

“Paul Shields.”

He waves a dismissive hand. “Innocent until proven guilty. Give me my wedding ring.”

Rieta slipped this ring onto my finger as we promised ourselves to each other. “She’s my wife. It’s my ring.”

Luca presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I can’t believe we’re still having this argument. I never should have let you take her on those dates.”

I’m sick of the way he talks about me. That he lets me do things. That I must ask his permission for what I say and who I talk to. Most of all, I hate that he speaks about Rieta like she’s his when she can’t fucking stand him. “Are you looking forward to your wedding night? Anticipating your virgin wife all laid out for you?”

“Give. Me. My. Ring,” Luca repeats through clenched teeth.

“No. My ring. My wedding day. My wife. This is nonnegotiable, Luca. You have the big house and the creepy fucking business associates. You have my clean name to do business under. You’re not having Rieta as well. Guess what? I already fucked her, so that’s that. I’m the one who loves her. I’m the one who married —”

Luca grabs me by the lapels and shoves me until my back hits the wall. His face is lit with fury. “You fucked her? You dared to lay a finger on her? You touched what belongs to me?”

“Why was there a fucking sex predator at my wedding?” I shout, shoving him off me. “What kind of business are you in? Because I’m beginning to wonder if you’re involved in some shit that I wouldn’t touch in a million years. In fact, I wish I’d been more thorough when you tracked me down. I should have demanded to know why you were so eager to be me.”

When Luca found me, he told me he had a criminal record and that there was a warrant out for his arrest that was making things a little difficult for him. He downplayed his conviction and was vague about the warrant, and because he got me out of my own troubles and charmed me so thoroughly, I said yes when he asked me so fucking sweetly if we could both be Nero Lombardi. I was so grateful to learn that I had some family in this world, and I think I made a huge mistake.

“Start talking, Luca. Give me a reason to continue with this charade, because after talking with Paul Shields and hearing the disgusting things he had to say, right now, I don’t care about your money or having you as my family.”

Luca glares at me with his nostrils flaring and fury cording his neck muscles. He smooths down his hair with both hands and flexes his head from side to side. “Fine. You asked for this.”