Torn Asunder

The Beast

Chapter Four

Nameera

 My mind was drawing a blank.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. How did he go in to ask the Don to kill a man, and come out with a marriage proposal. What was this, the dark ages? This just couldn't be happening. I stared stunned as my father sat there with a look of guilt and determination as he explained what went on behind the closed doors of Don Luca's office.

When we had first arrived, my mother hadn't left my side. Looking about the modernly decorated sitting room, as if danger would pop out from behind the potted plants dispersed about the room. She sat like a sentry, ready and vigilant in case I devolved into a fit of emotion. My brother's flanking the sides of the leather love seat, neither moving after our father and Don Luca went to talk in private. Now I wish I had been in there, if only to see how this madness had started.

With a quick explanation of a different version of events, one that I shamefully could neither confirm or deny due to my drugged state that night. I had no idea who had been on top of me. But my father said a few other things, along the lines of some apology, and a drunken mistake.

"And to offer his sincerity and take responsibility, he has asked for your hand in marriage. Which I have granted," my father sighed while standing near the window that overlooked the side of the gorgeous estate, looking neither me nor my mother in the eye. In fact, he avoided all of our gazes except for one. Don Luca, who now stood on the opposing side of the room with his son.

Giacomo made an unflattering sound, his hot headed nature incapable of keeping his silence even in this tense situation. Growing up, I knew Giacomo was much more vocal than his twin, Giancarlo who mirrored his expression, while quietly fuming at the direction this conversation was taking. Their gazes trained on one man in the room.

Cosimo Enzo Moretti, the man who was now my fiance, and my admitted rapist. I couldn't bring myself to look at him. Even though I knew his features well. Eyes mimicking chips of frosted glacier, shaded by sinfully long onyx lashes. Roguishly messy hair, looking as if he'd rolled out of bed and ran his fingers through it; curling slightly at his nape.

A squared jawline stippled with the days growth of facial hair, sharp cheek bones. Kissable lips, the bottom plusher than the top, but tarnished by the hideous scar splitting down the right side of his face. He's what women meant when they said tall, dark and dangerously handsome. And he would be, if it wasn't for the cold untamed look in his eyes. Like a wolf, ready to devour.

He was la bestia dal cuore tenero, the halfhearted beast as they called him. The hand of death for La Cosa Nostra. It was an open secret in our world that he'd had more kills under his belt than his predecessor. And the whispers say, that he's perfected torture as an art form, carving a path of blood and bone through anyone who opposes the Family.

We'd never had much cause to frequent the same circles even though our fathers were friends, and he'd briefly gone to the same college as my brothers. He had an MBA in Business, but I suppose assassins rarely needed degrees.

It had been years since I'd laied eyes on Enzo, the last I'd seen of him was at my brother's graduation right before they'd gone to law school. Our paths had rarely if ever crossed, but he was still the same effortlessly handsome man as he'd been as a boy. Always carefully calculating, and reading the room before interacting. To others he presented a calm and quiet appearance, and I'd once thought so too.

Until I'd seen his carefully constructed mask slip that same graduation night, as he beat a man to near death in the alley of the bar we were celebrating in. I'd gone to find Shanice after she'd walked out of the bar to have a smoke, and ended up hiding behind a dumpster as the scene unfolded. It had become clear that Enzo had run into the man who owed an extensive debt, racked up from the illegal gambling ring the Moretti Family ran. And promising to pay for the fifth time, they were no longer willing to take his word for it.