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

her to detect the madness within me, I want her to help me escape, even though I know for a fact that I can’t leave this behind. It’ll cause far too much carnage. I just want her to understand how desperate I truly am.
    I think that she senses it, but she already knows that she can’t do anything about it. She doesn’t know everything about my family because I’ve never wanted to endanger her with their issues, but she knows enough to understand how complex all of this is. She understands enough to know that I don’t have any choice in the matter.
    “It’ll be okay,” she tells me, nodding wildly, knocking the flowers off of her head slightly “I’m sure it will. I mean… you said he’s good looking, right?”
    “I did,” I admit, thinking about that guy pressed up against me in that hallway. He’s so hot that it hurts, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. It doesn’t mean that I want to be his wife, or that I’m going to like him as a person. He confuses the hell out of me, and that makes it really challenging to even be around him. “But I just… I don’t know. This is all so intense.”
    She doesn’t know what to say, and neither do I, so she does the next best thing and she pulls me in for a deep and comforting hug and that’s where she holds me until someone calls me to tell us that the cars are waiting.
    “Come on,” she says holding my shoulders and staring into my eyes with a severe intensity. “Let’s go and get through this.”
    I suck in a few deep breaths, trying to calm down my pounding heart, and then I nod. I certainly don’t feel any less nervous at all, but that doesn’t matter. I have to go through this no matter what, so I might as well get it over and done with.
    “Okay,” I grip tightly onto my friend’s hand, never wanting to leave this spot. “I’m ready. Let’s go. Let’s do this.”
    As I step into the car, I find myself faced with my father who is glaring at me in a way that suggests if I mess this up, I’m going to be made to pay. I flick my eyes towards the window, preferring to focus on the outside world instead. I don’t want to be made to cry by the man that until a few weeks ago I thought loved me.
    Now I know different. Now I know how indispensable I am to him. Now I know that everything I thought was real, just wasn’t.
    We quickly arrive at the church where the ceremony is taking place, and I can’t help but feel a little breathless at how beautiful it all is. How have our families managed to get all of this together so quickly? It’s insane. I always assumed that weddings would take months to plan, yet somehow they have gotten this organized!
    I suppose it helps to have endless money at your disposal.
    “Okay,” my dad takes my arm in his, and Arial stands behind us. “I’m going to give you away, so let’s get this done.”
    It hits me then that I haven’t even had a rehearsal or anything. People are normally much more prepared before they walk down the aisle.
    I can’t do this, I really can’t do this.
    What the hell am I going to do?
    The music blares, and despite every inch of my body screaming out against this, I find myself walking along, doing what needs to be done. My heart in thumping painfully against my rib cage, my breaths are coming out labored and panicked, and I’m shaking all over. As we burst through the doors, I fix my eyes upon the man that I’m about to agree to spend the rest of my life with, but surprisingly he isn’t even looking my way. His eyes are on his shoes, and his body language is distant, as if he wants to be anywhere else in the world than here, which has me feeling sad.
    Of course I feel exactly the same way, but at least I’m trying to hide it. At least I’m being polite, trying to spare his feelings somewhat.
    How the hell are we going to navigate this mess if he won’t even look at me? How are we going to do this forever, if we can’t even make eye contact?
    He eventually meets my eyes