The Bloodied Bouquet

This is the only thing I’ll say before I tell you everything: if you’re listening to this, it means I’m dead. Or as good as. Either way, I’m not here to explain it. I’m here to explain how it happened. How *he* happened.

My father called me into his study that afternoon, his voice as smooth and cold as the ice in his whiskey glass, and he said, “Alessio, you’re getting married tomorrow.” He didn’t look at me when he said it. He kept his eyes on the city skyline bleeding orange behind the skyscrapers. “To a Moretti.”

I suppose I should have seen it coming. The Rossis and the Morettis had been circling each other like starving dogs for decades. Marriage was the only thing we hadn’t tried yet. Still, the words hit me like a fist to the throat. “A Moretti,” I repeated. The name tasted like ash in my mouth. “Which one?”

My father finally turned to me. His eyes were the same flat gray as the gun he kept in his desk. “Dante,” he said. “Their enforcer.”

I’d heard of Dante Moretti. Everyone had. He was the man the Morettis sent when they wanted to make a mess. Ruthless. Relentless. A walking, talking blunt instrument. And now, apparently, my fiancé.

The wedding was held in the ballroom of the Rossi family compound, all marble floors and crystal chandeliers and the suffocating scent of lilies. I wore a black suit. Dante wore a black suit. The only color in the room was the red of the roses in my bouquet—like drops of blood fallen on snow.

Dante stood across from me at the altar, his shoulders rigid under his jacket. He didn’t look at me. His eyes were fixed on the priest, his jaw clenched so tight I could see the muscle ticking beneath the skin. I studied him in the candlelight. He was handsome, in a brutal sort of way. Dark hair, dark eyes, a nose that had been broken at least once. A scar that cut through his left eyebrow. He looked like exactly what he was: a weapon.

The priest said the words and I repeated them, my voice flat and toneless. Dante’s voice was deeper than I’d expected, a low rumble that vibrated in my chest. When the priest told him to kiss the bride—me—he turned to me, his eyes finally meeting mine. They were darker than I’d thought, almost black. He leaned in and pressed his lips to my cheek, quick and cold. It felt less like a kiss and more like a brand.

The reception was even worse. A sea of faces I barely recognized, all watching us with sharp, calculating eyes. My father’s men, Moretti’s men, all circling each other like sharks. Dante and I sat at the head table, not touching, not speaking. We ate our food and drank our wine and cut the cake with a knife that looked sharp enough to kill. When people toasted us, we raised our glasses and smiled like we meant it.

Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, it was over. The guests filed out, their voices fading away until the only sound was the click of my heels on the marble floor as Dante and I walked to the bedroom we were supposed to share. The bedroom *I* was supposed to share with a stranger. A stranger I was now married to.

The room was all heavy oak furniture and plush white carpets. There was a fireplace, a massive four-poster bed, and a door that led to a balcony overlooking the gardens. Dante shut the door behind us and turned to face me, his expression unreadable. “Get some sleep,” he said shortly. “We’ll talk in the morning.”

I didn’t argue. I just nodded and walked into the bathroom, closing the door behind me. I stripped off my suit and left it in a pile on the floor, then stood under the scalding spray of the shower until my skin turned red. When I came out, wearing nothing but a towel, Dante was sitting on the edge of the bed, his jacket draped over the back of a chair. He’d taken off his tie and unbuttoned the top few buttons of his shirt. The skin of his throat looked warm and smooth in the lamplight.

He watched me as I walked toward the bed, his dark eyes tracking my every movement. “You’re not what I expected,” he said suddenly.

I stopped, one hand on the bedpost. “What did you expect?”

“Someone older,” he said. “Harder.”

I smiled thinly. “Sorry to disappoint.”

He stood up, his movements slow and deliberate. “You didn’t disappoint,” he said. He took a step toward me, then another. “You surprised me.”

I held my ground. “And you’re exactly what I expected.”

He stopped, just an arm’s length away. “And what’s that?”

“A thug,” I said. “A killer.”

His eyes flashed. “I am,” he said. “But you knew that when you married me.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” I said. “Did you?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he reached out and tugged the towel from around my waist, letting it fall to the floor. I didn’t try to cover myself. I just stood there, naked and shivering, as his eyes roamed over my body, hot and hungry. “No,” he said finally. “I didn’t have a choice either.”

He stepped closer, his chest brushing mine. I could feel the heat of him through the thin fabric of his shirt. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy it,” he murmured, his breath ghosting over my ear.

I shivered. “Enjoy what?”

His hand slid down my chest, my stomach, lower. “This,” he said, his fingers wrapping around me, hot and tight. “Us.”

I closed my eyes, my breath catching in my throat. “There is no us,” I said. “There’s just this. Just tonight.”

He laughed, low and dark. “You think this is just for tonight?” he said. “You think I’m going to fuck you once and be done with you?”

“Yes,” I said. “Isn’t that what you want?”

“No,” he said. “What I want is to fuck you until you can’t remember your own name. Until you’re begging me for more.” His thumb swiped over the head of my cock, smearing the wetness there. “And then I’m going to do it again. And again. And again.”

I swallowed hard, my pulse racing. “And what if I say no?”

He smiled, sharp and dangerous. “You won’t,” he said. And then, quietly, “You want this as much as I do.”

He was right. I did. I hated him, but I wanted him. Wanted to feel him, wanted to taste him, wanted to lose myself in him. Wanted him to make me forget, just for a little while, who I was and what I’d done and what I’d become.

So I didn’t say no. I said yes.

Yes.

It was the only word I said that night, the only word I could say. Yes to his hands on my body, yes to his mouth on my skin, yes to the way he pushed me down onto the bed and covered me with his weight. Yes to the pain and the pleasure and the way they twisted together until I couldn’t tell one from the other.

He was rough, demanding, relentless. He fucked me like he was trying to break me, like he was trying to prove something to himself or to me or to both of us. And I let him. I let him use me, let him take what he wanted from me. Because in that moment, it was what I wanted too.

Afterward, when we were both spent and sweating and sticky, he rolled off me and onto his back, one arm thrown over his eyes. I lay there beside him, my body aching, my mind blank. The silence stretched between us, heavy and thick.

“You should get some sleep,” he said finally, his voice rough. “We have an early start tomorrow.”

I didn’t ask what we were starting. I didn’t care. I just rolled over and closed my eyes and willed myself to sleep.

The next few weeks were a blur of tension and taut silences. We lived together in the sprawling Rossi mansion, two strangers bound by a ring and a signature. We ate our meals at the same table, slept in the same bed, moved through the same rooms. But we were never together. Not really.

I watched him, though. In the moments when he thought I wasn’t looking. I saw the way his shoulders tightened when his phone buzzed with a call from his father. The way his jaw clenched when he read the messages that scrolled across the screen. The way his eyes went dark and distant when he thought no one was watching.