YOU'RE MINE: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (Carbone Crime Family) Read Free Page A

to prevent any more deaths.” He looks me straight in the eye, refusing to back down. “Do you really want to lose any more good men?” he demands.
    I know that he’s referring to my friend Mike who was killed last year by the Irish mafia in a crazy gang shootout, and that just spikes my anger further. How dare he use that tragedy to guilt trip me? Who the hell does he think he is?
    “I won’t do it,” I insist. “I won’t marry her.”
    “Oh you will,” dad tells me, looking at me with that famous glare in his eyes – the one that normally gets people killed. “You absolutely have no choice in this.”
    “If I refuse?” I ask, my heart pounding wildly, as I dread the answer.
    “You’ll be excommunicated.”
    Shit, has he really just threatened that?
    I’m so blown away that my dad would suggest chucking me out of the business and the family too, that I actually find myself giving in and nodding. I should have known before I came in here that it would end this way – my dad always gets what he wants. Why did I think that I would be able to do anything different here?
    “Perfect, son,” he throws his arm around me in a mock caring gesture. “That’s great, because the wedding is next month.”
    “What?” I scream, riled up all over again. “Are you kidding?” Next month? No fucking way!
    “We need this done sooner rather than later – you know that! The quicker we get this treaty settled and in place, the better for all of us.” He stands up, indicating that the conversation is done, and I’m too gobsmacked to argue. He then exits the room, leaving me alone with my thoughts. How is my life going to change being a married man? Is my dad making me give up everything? My whole life? I just don’t even understand. This has all happened far too quickly for my liking.
    All I know for sure is that I don’t know what is going to happen next and that terrifies me…

Chapter 3

Sophia
    I t’s happening .
    I actually can’t believe it.
    The closer the wedding got, the more I protested against it, but it got me absolutely nowhere. No one listened to me, everyone treated me like I was nothing more than a very irritating child who didn’t know any better, and now I find myself staring into a mirror, looking at my reflection in a wedding dress. A long flowing, ivory-colored gown that hugs my curves and hides my cleavage in a very demure, glamorous looking way. It took less than a month to throw this lavish affair together, and to get the perfect dress for me, and I have no idea what to even think about any of it.
    I look weird, not like me at all. I look like I’m playing some bizarre game where I’m pretending to be a grownup, but I’m not really. Of course, technically I am but since my eighteenth birthday went past in a blur without any acknowledgement, to me it doesn’t really feel like it happened. My mind was understandably somewhere else entirely on that day, and I haven’t really thought about it since.
    It’s kind of like this is some really strange dream that I cannot wake up from, no matter how hard I try. And I’m really, really trying.
    “Are you okay?” My friend Arial rushes around me, placing my veil correctly and pulling out the train of this long, flowing dress. She’s my bridesmaid, dressed in a sleek pink number, and I wish more than anything in the world that I could swap places with her. I want to be the one with my whole life ahead of me, my freedom intact, and the world at my feet. I really don’t want to be here, about to sacrifice my entire life for the peace between the two gangs. “You look beautiful.”
    I suppose in a way she’s right, I do look like the traditional pretty bride, with my long dark hair tied up and some very natural looking makeup on my face – I look kind of ethereal – but that is totally overshadowed the utter terror coursing through my veins.
    “I don’t know,” I tell her with a trembling voice. “This is all a bit much for me.” I want