by Bethany-Kris
Despite the situation, Adriano laughed.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Let me explain this to you again,” Joel growled. “This arrangement is decided. It might not be official, but once things are calmed down enough for me to see it through, I will. There is a solid promise of an engagement in the near future. You’re going to marry Dean Artino when I give the okay regardless of if I have to force you down the aisle on your hands and knees, begging and bleeding, Alessa. Your opinions are not important to me. I don’t give a single fuck what you want.”
Alessa tried to catch her breath, but she couldn’t. It was like someone had wrapped a wire around her throat and was pulling it with all their might.
“Joel, please,” Abriella pleaded softly. “Just give her a second to process all of this.”
“There’s nothing to fucking process, Ella,” Joel replied, his words cold and cruel.
Alessa just wished her lungs would take in air.
“I don’t want to,” Alessa finally said.
“You don’t make the decision,” Joel snapped.
Abriella flinched. “Joel, she’s only twenty. She hasn't even finished school.”
“My God. She isn’t even going to need her education, Ella. Don’t you get that? Dean isn’t looking for an intelligent wife. He doesn’t want someone who will work outside of the home. What he wants and needs is a woman who will know her place¸ birth him a few kids …”
Alessa didn’t hear what her brother said after that. Her mind tuned him out.
Birth him a few kids …
Fucking hell.
No.
“Anyone else,” Alessa said, her voice pitching high.
Joel didn’t flicker with emotion. “I’ve made my choice.”
“Anyone else, Joel. I will marry any other man but that one, please.”
Abriella crossed the apartment’s small living room and caught her sister’s hand in hers. She squeezed tight, giving Alessa silent support.
“I need to get things in order,” Joel said. “This is just one way to do that. I want to align myself with the best families so that we don’t have to be concerned with whatever Riley Conti might have planned for us. This is about keeping control of the Outfit with Terrance dead. Understand that, Alessa. It has nothing to do with what you want or don’t, for that matter. It’s business, nothing more.”
Great. Alessa was business. The only good thing about this was that the engagement wasn’t an official thing. Alessa wasn’t Dean’s fiancée just yet. But Joel was promising she would be—soon.
“Daddy won’t let you do this to me,” Alessa said. “He won’t, Joel.”
Joel barked out a laugh. “You think?”
“Alessa, don’t,” Abriella whispered in warning.
She knew Abriella’s words had nothing to do with Alessa fighting with Joel. No, Alessa knew Abriella was telling her not to beg, not to fight.
Alessa didn’t relent. “Daddy won’t let you do this to me. Granddaddy is dead, Joel. Daddy might have let him make all the calls where the Outfit and we were concerned, but you don’t have the fucking power. You don’t have anything. I won’t do it. I won’t marry him. I won’t ever marry him.”
Joel shrugged like Alessa’s words were nothing but water rolling off his back. “You’re wrong.”
“I am not and you know it.”
Abriella kept holding onto Alessa’s hand, refusing to let go. “Alessa, stop.”
“No,” Alessa barked. “He should realize he’s just a fucking made man without Terrance backing him. And that means nothing. You’re not the boss. There is no boss, Joel! Nothing, Joel, you’re fucking noth—”
“Haven’t you ever thought about why I’m so much older than you?” Joel asked, unaffected.
Alessa blinked, confused. “What does that have to do with any of this?”
“A lot.”
“Joel!” Abriella hissed.
“No, let’s tell her, Ella,” Joel said.
Abriella straightened beside her sister. “It’s not important. Just give her a few days to calm down.”
“Tell me what?” Alessa asked.
Joel grinned a wicked sight. “The bastard I really am. The whore our mother is.”
“What?”
Abriella winced. “Joel, that’s a bit … harsh. Have a little respect. She’s still your fucking mother.”
“Maybe so, but call a whore a whore.” Joel pulled his wallet out from the back of his slacks, opened it up, and pulled out a folded piece of paper. As he smoothed out the creases of the paper, he said, “You see, Terrance would have forced Peter to join the Outfit one way or the other. Peter is just … weak. He’s too fucking weak. He doesn’t have it in him.
“But our mother?” Joel asked, smiling coldly. “She came from good stock—a proper Mafioso famiglia. When her father demanded she marry, that’s exactly what she did. Sara didn’t say a thing, she just picked out a dress and walked down the aisle.”
Alessa knew all of this. She didn’t know why her brother was rehashing events of the past that meant nothing. Their mother Sara had been the youngest daughter of the former Outfit boss before Terrance had taken over. Sara’s father died shortly before his sixty-sixth birthday after a fight with lung cancer.
“There was a little more to it than that, Joel,” Abriella said.
“Well, I’m getting to that,” Joel replied.
Alessa wet her dry lips, still feeling like she couldn’t breathe. “Like what?”
Joel laughed. “Like the fact she chose a yellow dress that would hide the bump underneath it.”
“She was pregnant when she got married?” Alessa asked.
“Yes,” Abriella confirmed quietly. “Not very far along.”
“With Joel.”
“Yes.”
Joel waved the paper high. “Didn’t you ever wonder why there were eight years between Sara’s first child and her second?”
“No,” Alessa admitted.
She just figured her mother and father didn’t want more children until later in life.
“Peter hated her,” Joel said. “Despised her. But she was his … out, so to speak.”
Alessa’s brow furrowed. “His out?”
“To the Outfit. Peter didn’t want an in to the family, Alessa, he wanted out.”
Alessa glowered at her brother. “Stop being an asshole and say whatever it is, Joel.”
“Peter married Sara so Terrance would give him what he wanted,” Joel said.
“Which was to keep him out of the Outfit,” Abriella added softer.
“If he hated her so much, how did she end up pregnant with you before they were even married?” Alessa asked, her brow burrowing.
Joel tossed the paper to the coffee table. “My birth certificate. Notice the empty space where the father’s name should be.”
Alessa didn’t want to look at the paper, but she did. It confirmed what her brother said. “Peter isn’t your father.”
“Nope.” Joel looked far too pleased with that fact. “Terrance knew better, I think. He was fucking sneaky about it, but she ended up pregnant, anyway. He already had a wife, and he’d shamed his boss and Sara by knocking her up. She was young, only seventeen. She might as well have been a baby to him. Her father didn’t have any boys and Terrance was his favorite. They were close with Terrance being his underboss and all.”
Alessa’s stomach might as well have turned in on itself. How did she not know any of this? Why hadn’t her mother or grandfather sat her down and explained it?
“Oh, my God,” Alessa mumbled.
“So, he fixed it the only way he knew how,” Joel continued. “Married Sara off to his only son, promised her father that his grandson would have a place in the Outfit and in the Trentini family.”
“My mother …” Alessa couldn’t speak.
“Was a whore,” Joel finished with a shrug.
“Joel!” Abriella shouted. “Stop that.”
“What? She was.”
“She was not. She was young,” Abriella argued. “She was caught up in a mess. She made a fucking mistake. Stop acting like she’s worth less than any other woman because she is still your goddamn mother!”
“Maybe so, but she was still another man’s whore,” Joel replied quietly. “Don’t you get it, yet, Alessa?”
She did … maybe. That didn’t mean she wanted to admit it.
“Peter doesn’t have any control. He never has. I have all of it. Terrance didn’t have a damned choice, even with my grandfather dead. Terrance didn’t want people knowing what he’d done, he didn’t want people knowing he might as well have been fucking a child and that he knocked her up.”
Joel smirked, saying, “And all the wealth Terrance had? That wasn’t his. That was my grandfather’s—Sara’s father’s. Terrance gained his own wealth over the years, to be sure, but the house, the properties and the trusts? Those came from my grandfather and they were always meant for me. Anything Terrance had was to go to me if he wanted to keep what he was given.”
Alessa was thunderstruck. “All of it?”
“Essentially,” Joel said. “Peter would get very little but that was his agreement. Raise me as his son, marry the whore, keep her quiet, and Terrance would forget about his little affliction to the mafia. So you see, Peter won’t help you, either. He doesn’t give a damn.”
That couldn’t be true.
“You’re such an asshole,” Abriella told their brother.
“I’m aware,” Joel replied, unbothered.
“Terrance treated you well, Joel.”
Joel sneered. “Yes, Ella. As well as a bastard could be treated, you mean.”
“He never treated you like a bastard. He gave you his last name and a father that raised you.” Abriella openly glared at their brother as she added, “And you never let him live down his mistakes, you wouldn’t let him forget, Joel. You wonder why he never trusted you, why he kept you at arm’s length. You wonder, really? Look at yourself and what you’re doing to his family. This is exactly why he did that! Because he couldn’t trust you, Joel!”
“But the fact remains, I’m still here. Terrance tried to keep me out of a lot of things, but he doesn’t get a choice anymore. I’m the only son that man had with a foot in the Outfit. Peter doesn’t get a say. I refuse to let my birthright as the next boss of this family slip through my fingers simply because Alessa isn’t happy.”
Alessa flinched. “No, I wouldn’t expect you to give a damn about me at all.”
“I’m glad you’re finally realizing this,” Joel said, clapping his hands together. “The next few months should go a hell of a lot smoother if you understand what I expect from you.”
Alessa scoffed, loud and rude. “You’re a fool, Joel. If you think just because I understand how much of an asshole you are means I’ll follow along with your demands, you’re stupider than I thought. You can’t force me into a marriage of your choosing. I won’t do it.”
“You will,” her brother replied frankly. “Or you’ll lose everything you have.”
“I will not.” Alessa wouldn’t let Joel break her down. “I’d rather be poor and on the streets than walk down the aisle and marry Dean Artino.”
Joel chuckled. “Would you rather be dead? Or that Abriella was? Maybe you don’t care about your life, but consider hers, too, Alessa.”
Abriella gasped sharply. “Joel!”
Alessa clenched her teeth so hard her jaw ached. “You bastard.”
“Ouch,” Joel murmured. “That’s low. Come on, little sister. You’re better than that.”
“You don’t know a goddamn thing about me,” Alessa retorted.
“I know enough. It’s called sacrifice. Be the martyr, Alessa. Every good family needs one.”
Abriella gave their brother the middle finger. “Go to hell, Joel.”
Joel grinned. “Someday. Today, however, is not that day.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Alessa asked.
Sara shrugged, keeping her gaze down. “I was ashamed, Lissa.”
“I wouldn’t have cared.”
Well, she might have cared a little.
“I know,” Sara said, a small smile forming. The sadness in her gaze didn’t leave. “You were always like that, even as a child. You never saw the bad in people, only the good. You have a sweet heart.”
“How many people know?” Alessa asked.
Sara picked at her fingernails. Alessa didn’t think she had ever seen her mother so embarrassed before. “Very few. People who had been close to Terrance and those that were very close to my father.”
“Did you … love him?”
“God, no,” Sara said quickly.
“No?”
“Not a bit.”
“But you were sleeping with him,” Alessa pointed out.
It felt weird and awkward for her to be having this conversation with her mother like this was just another gossip session. Terrance—dead or not—was still Alessa’s grandfather and her mother was still her mother. She’d grown up around them and never once had she witnessed the two act anything other than platonic and respectful toward one another.
“You don’t have to love someone to have sex,” Sara said frankly. “And I was young and stupid. I was enamored with who he was and the things he did. I got caught up in a mess and before I could get myself out of it, I ended up pregnant with Joel.”
“Oh.”
Sara waved Alessa’s shocked expression off. “Terrance always treated me well. My father was enraged and disgusted. I’d shamed him terribly. The deal they struck for my marriage to Peter was mostly brought on by Terrance for my benefit and to get me away from my father.”
“Joel said something …”
Sara sighed, her gaze narrowing. “Joel says a lot of things. He’s always had his opinions about his biological father. I know how he feels about what I did. I tried with him, but he was close to my father growing up and the man never hid a damn thing from Joel. It’s almost like he poisoned Joel against me as he grew up.”
That sounded right, considering Joel’s words against his mother.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Alessa whispered.
“Don’t be,” Sara replied sadly. “I don’t know where I went wrong or how I could have done better for Joel, but he is who he is. Peter cares a great deal for him but we’ve come to a point where it’s better to just let him do his own thing. We have very little say because of my father.”
Alessa cringed. “He said Peter hated you.”
Sara laughed softly. “At first, maybe he did a little. He hated being pushed into a marriage and fatherhood before he wanted it. He despised marrying a woman who had been involved with his father.”
“But?” Alessa asked, knowing it was coming.
“It took a while, but we eventually moved past all of that. We were friends sharing a home for a long time. We didn’t even sleep in the same bedroom. And one day, things changed.” Sara took a deep breath, shrugging like all the weight on her shoulders had gone with that confession. “And then Abriella came along.”
“And me,” Alessa said.
“And you.”
“What about Dad?”
“What about him?” Sara asked.
“Do you love him?”
Sara’s tender smile felt like a private moment Alessa was intruding on. “He gave me two children, a life of my own, and a friend when I had none. Yes, I love him very much.”
Alessa thought back to her childhood and knew her mother was telling the truth. Her parents had always been close, from what Alessa could remember. She couldn’t even bring back moments when she witnessed them fighting.
Sara reached over and caught Alessa’s hands with her own. “I’m sorry about your brother and what he’s doing.”
Alessa frowned. “I don’t know how to do this—pretend like I’m okay with this.”
“The same way I did, Lissa. You grit your teeth, smile, and do what you’re told.”
Those were ter
ribly cold words coming from a woman who had been forced into her own marriage, but Alessa understood her mother’s position. There was practically nothing Sara Trentini could do to get her daughter out of the arrangement Joel had made for the future engagement between Alessa and Dean. She had no say—she was just a woman.
“Mom—”
Sara squeezed Alessa’s hands, quieting her daughter. “I’m sorry.”
“That doesn’t help.”
“I know. It didn’t help me, either,” Sara said.
“I think this will work out just fine,” Walter Artino said. “I’m pleased you agree, my boy.”
Joel nodded, flicking out his napkin before placing it over his lap. “I think so, too. Terrance had seriously considered the match before his death, but he held back on it just in case something better came along.”
Dean scoffed. “We’re a strong family, Joel. There’s not many better than us.”
Joel barely graced Dean with his attention as he replied, “Well, with Ben gone, the Artinos certainly have the ability to step up to the plate and take the crown for the DeLuca side. I will give you that. It’ll be interesting to see how far your family is able to go with Ben dead and Dino DeLuca out of the picture.”
“Out of curiosity,” Walter said, swirling the wine in his glass, “… who else was your old man looking at for her?”
“Theo, for one,” Joel said.
“Oh?” Dean asked.
“Yes. But he declined.”
Alessa felt like she was in a daze, as if a giant cloud of smoke had come into the room, covered her in it, and was holding her in its smothering grip. She couldn’t believe this conversation was happening with her right there in the room like she didn’t matter to these men at all.
Because in reality, she didn’t.
Alessa Trentini was nothing more than a commodity. Something to be bought and traded for a good price and the right last name. Which was exactly what they were doing. She wanted to scream and shout at Joel. She wanted to deny his demands and threats, but the invisible noose tightening around her throat and Dean’s hand, firmly gripping her knee under the table, kept her quiet.
