She Took My Wedding, So I Married the Don Chapter 05

“No,” I said.

Luca didn’t move.

“You want a shield,” I said. “A wife on paper so the Castellanos back off. I’m a mechanic, Luca. I don’t belong in your

world.”

“You fixed in two hours what my men couldn’t fix in two years.” His voice was low. “You walked out of that house with

your head up. You dropped a ring in a champagne glass.” Something almost like a smile. “You belong anywhere you

decide to.”

I hated how much I wanted to believe him.

“Tell me about Sofia.”

The air in the room changed. He stepped back.

“We were engaged. I was supposed to drive the Alfa that morning. She took it instead-wanted to pick up flowers.” His

voice didn’t crack, but his hands curled into fists. “I heard it from the house. I got there first. I still hear her.”

“And since then?”

“Since then, I don’t let anyone close.” He met my eyes. “Everyone I love ends up in the ground, Sloane. So this would

be business. One year. My name protects you. You get your own garage, your own life. When it’s over, you walk away

rich.”

“And I don’t fall in love with you.”

“You don’t fall in love with me,” he agreed.

I thought about my mother’s face. About Bianca in my dress. About a note dated August.

“Two conditions,” I said. “One. No lies. Ever. If you had me followed, you tell me.”

“Done.”

“Two. I restore the Alfa.”

He went completely still. For a second I thought I’d gone too far.

Then he said, rough: “Why?”

“Because nobody should have to keep their worst day under a tarp.”

He looked at me like I’d hit him. Then he nodded once.

“Monday,” he said. “City Hall. Nine a.m.”

I wore a cream sundress Gia bought me and my grandmother’s pearls. Luca wore black. Nonna cried. Rocco was our witness and kept muttering that he’d left his gun in the car “for the lady’s comfort.”

The clerk read the vows in a bored voice. Luca slid a ring onto my finger-an old, heavy, beautiful thing that had clearly

belonged to someone before me.

“Nonna’s,” he murmured. “She insisted.”

“You may kiss the bride.”

I expected a peck. Business.

Luca cupped my face in both hands like I was something breakable and precious, and lowered his mouth to mine.

It was slow. Then it wasn’t.

Heat poured through me. My fingers curled into his shirt. He made a sound deep in his chest-half growl, half something wounded-and kissed me like a man who’d been starving for seven years.

When he pulled back, we were both breathing hard.

Business, I reminded myself.

My lips didn’t believe me.

We walked out onto the courthouse steps, his hand burning on the small of my back-and a phone flashed in my face.

Alice. Bianca’s best friend. She worked in the county records office.

She smirked, lowered her phone, and was gone before Rocco could reach her.

By midnight, my sister knew.

By one a.m., my phone was exploding.

By two a.m., I was standing in the garage lot in my pajamas, staring.

Every tire had been slashed. Every window smashed. The Shelby-Luca’s father’s car, six months of my life-had a

single dead black rose tucked under its wiper.

And across the garage door, in dripping red spray paint:

MORETTI’S WHORE. YOU’RE NEXT.