Deathless & Divided (The Chicago War #1) (5 page)

Ben DeLuca emerged from the entryway that led into the common room and dining area. “Is everyone here?”

“Not yet,” Terrance replied.

“Who’s missing?” Ben asked.

“Damian.”

Who?

“He’s on his way,” Dino assured. “He was right beside us in church. Quiet, as usual.”

Oh
.

Steel-blue eyes. Dark hair. Sly smile.

Lily’s pulse picked up.

“They’ll make a good pair,” Terrance said to Dino. “And he needs a wife. She’s a good match.”

Wait, what?

Lily felt like she was part of some cosmic joke that nobody had let her in on until now. And it was a really shitty time for her to be finally figuring it out.

When Terrance turned to speak with his grandson Joel, Lily spun on her heel to face Dino. She was sure her older brother could see the rage swimming in her gaze. Disbelief, heartache, and sickness rolled like one giant ball of hateful poison in her gut, flooding into her veins.

“Dino—”

“Not now.” Dino jerked his head to the side and with a quick apology to the family and friends, he led Lily down the hall and away from the eyes of others. When they were alone, Dino let out a loud sigh, loaded with tension. “Take a second to think about it all before you say anything, Lily.”

Take a second?

Her brother was about to sell her off like fucking cattle at the meat market. He wanted her to take a second and consider it? Like what, it might be a good thing?

Lily barely held back her scream of frustration. “You fu—”

Dino grabbed Lily’s hand she raised to strike him. She wasn’t the hitting kind of girl. She didn’t like violence all that much. Funny, considering her entire life had been drowned in some kind of violence. All the mafia knew was violence.

“Stop,” her brother hissed.

Lily tried to yank her arm back, but Dino held firm. “You bastard.”

“You don’t know a thing, so stop it right now.” Dino squeezed Lily’s hand just enough to make it hurt and to quiet her. “This is not the time or the place for any kind of bullshit, Lily. And you know damn well you’re not the first to have something like this happen to them. Really, you’re lucky you lasted as long as you did. If it were up to Ben, he would have married you off the day after you turned eighteen. Stop acting like a brat.”

Lily’s heart hurt and her lungs ached.

She couldn’t breathe.

“What I need you to do is go back in there, greet Damian when he gets here, smile for those people, and make nice during dinner. It will be two hours—tops. Play your part like the good little DeLuca you are, like I know you can be.”

“Why would you do this to me?” Lily asked.

Betrayal stung the back of her tongue as bile spilled into her throat.

Dino
tricked
her. He said nothing about marriage or anything of the sort when he told her it was time to go home.

Of course, he didn’t
, her mind taunted.
You would have run
.

She still could.

Dino seemed to pick up on her inner dilemma. “Your accounts have been frozen. You will not receive another penny of your shares or inheritance until you are married to Damian Rossi.”

“A Rossi.”

“He’s a good man,” Dino said. “And if I didn’t pick you a husband, Lily, Ben was going to. I’m on a one-way train to prison for the unforeseeable future very soon. Theo will have little to no control at his age, especially where you are concerned. That would mean your welfare and choices are left to Ben. Is that what you want? Because if you think for one minute he would consider anything that you wanted, you are sorely fucking mistaken. Ben wouldn’t care—he’d use you for his gain and nothing more. Even if that meant marrying you off to an abusive prick or a man twice your age.”

“I’m a human being. I am a free woman, Dino,” Lily snapped back. “I can make my own decisions about my life without anyone’s input. I will marry who I want, not who you deem appropriate for me.”

“You know that’s not true. You might have liked pretending for the better part of your life like you’re not involved in
la famiglia
, Lily, but we both know better. Please understand why I did this.”

She couldn’t.

“Lily—”

“Go to hell.”

Dino barked out a bitter laugh. “I’ve already got one foot in the door, Lily. I’m just biding my fucking time while I wait.”

Lily spun fast on her heel and pushed past Dino, needing to get away from him. She only took two steps before coming to an abrupt stop against the form of a familiar but still strange man.

Lily’s hands splayed across the man’s chest as she squeaked in surprise, not even realizing he had intruded on her moment with her brother. She felt her cheeks heat up because not only had he heard a very private conversation, but she was touching him, too.

He didn’t seem to mind.

The same steel-blue gaze that had regarded her earlier at the church looked Lily over once again. She swallowed hard, feeling the bands of his muscles roping across his pectorals under her fingertips jump. His lips pulled into a smirk that looked entirely too wicked for Lily’s liking.

Getting a close up look at this man was bad for Lily’s insides. He was fit with a body built like a boxer’s. The black suit he wore hugged his over six-foot frame perfectly and it only seemed to add to the confident, cool air he sported. A strange disinterest colored his features, but in his eyes, it seemed like he was looking straight through her.

She glanced down between their bodies, noting he stood relaxed and seemingly unbothered by the situation they were in. Even his hands were tossed into his pockets as if he were waiting for something and not like Lily was touching him.

His nonchalant attitude only added to his dark, mysterious demeanor.

Lily still didn’t know how he managed to slip down the hallway without her or Dino noticing or why he was as quiet and still as he was now. What game was he playing?

Who in the hell was this man?

Lily’s heart beat a little harder in her chest, remembering the name Dino uttered earlier.

Damian Rossi.

“Hello.”

Lily blinked.

His voice was a dark tenor dripping with richness. The one word slipped from his mouth without his lips even needing to move. She had the pleasure of hearing many accents in her travels, but his was something else entirely.

“Damian,” Dino said, bringing Lily out of her stupor. “Good to see you finally arrived.”

“Ran over a nail in the church parking lot and came out to a flat tire.”

“Ah, I see.”

Lily stepped back from Damian. His gaze didn’t move from her for a second, not even when he talked to her older brother like they were old friends.

Were they?

“Hello,” Damian said again. “Lily.”

Lily snapped out of whatever daze she was in. “Hello.”

“It’s Damian,” he murmured.

“I know who you are.”

Damian lifted a single, dark brow high. “Oh?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t seem pleased,” he said quietly.

“That I’m forced to marry a man I don’t know and don’t want to know?” Lily asked bitterly. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Damian.”

Damian’s smirk grew into a grin. “You know me.”

“I—”

“You do,” he interrupted before she could argue the point further. “Just not that well.”

Lily blew out her frustration in a breath of air, gritting her teeth. Resolve steeled her spine straighter and she reminded herself of what her brother asked her to do. Turning, Lily faced a stone-faced, unbothered Dino.

“I will make nice and play good at this dinner,” she said.

“Thank you,” Dino replied.

“But I’m not marrying that man.”

Dino’s expression didn’t waver. “It’s not your choice.”

“I am not marrying him, Dino!”

“Yes, you are,” Damian said.

The words rolled over Lily’s skin like liquid gold. She could feel the heat of his breath on the back of her neck.

This would be a great deal easier if she didn’t find him attractive.

And why the hell was he agreeing to this, anyway?

“In two months, whether you agree or not, you will be my wife, Lily DeLuca.”

Lily couldn’t help it; she shivered.

CHAPTER THREE

D
amian sipped on a glass of cognac, letting the flavors of vanilla, spices, and flowers wash over his palate as he stayed immobile in the corner. He liked the shadows. It was the best place to watch people, after all.

While the guests mingled, drunkenly laughed, and went about their merry day, Damian observed. Mostly Lily, though. She was not a happy girl. And not just because of the forced engagement, he suspected.

“Almost didn’t notice you over here,” Tommas said as he slipped in beside a quiet Damian.

That was the point.

Damian gave his cousin a silent nod of acknowledgment but kept his eyes on the blonde ten feet away chatting with Evelina Conti and the Trentini sisters.

“You’re really going to do this, huh?” Tommas asked, following his cousin’s stare.

“Yep,” Damian answered.

“Didn’t think you were the marrying type, D.”

Damian chuckled dryly. “I’m not.”

“Then—”

“Dino,” Damian interjected simply.

Damian knew he didn’t have to say more and Tommas wouldn’t question him further on the statement. Tommas was aware that Damian had been indebted to Dino for a long time though the two men didn’t discuss it.

“Well, she’s pretty,” Tommas said.

Damian sighed. “Yeah.”

If being pretty was the only thing a girl needed to make her something special, then Damian had seen more than enough of those kinds of females in his life. He wasn’t interested in having another one. Lily was beautiful, though. Damian couldn’t deny that.

Her brown eyes sparkled, especially when she was animated about something. He noticed while watching her during the dinner and party that Lily didn’t smile a lot, for whatever reason. But when she did, her plump lips curved in the sexiest way. With high cheekbones, small features, and standing a good six inches shorter than him in her heels, she wasn’t exactly what he would call a common beauty.

No, she had classic beauty. Like an old black and white movie actress.

She was not the kind of girl he’d go for. He didn’t like the combative, stubborn type. He intended for his agreement with Dino about the marriage to be solely business. Damian owed Dino, this was what his friend demanded from him to pay it back, and Damian planned on following it through to the end. Every last bit of it.

Lily wasn’t the least bit afraid to show her emotions. In a world where everybody wore a mask, Damian liked genuine things.

“I think she might be feisty,” Damian said.

Tommas laughed lowly. “Trouble, you mean.”

“No, she’s not trouble.”

Lily, no matter how much time she spent away from the Outfit and its suffocating rules for the women in the family, knew how to behave. Damian kind of liked that, too. He wondered what it would take to get her to let loose.

“What does Theo think of this?” Tommas asked. “I know he’s fond of her. At least he always talks about her like she’s still a kid instead of a twenty-one-year-old woman.”

Damian shrugged. “What does Joel think about you fucking his little sister?”

Tommas choked on air. “What the hell, man?”

“Just saying, Tommy. I imagine Theo feels the same way about Lily being made to marry a man six years older than her, one she barely knows for the sake of business, as Joel feels regarding you and Abriella.”

“Joel doesn’t know about me and … yeah, he uh … nobody does, shit, I thought you didn’t.”

Damian scoffed under his breath. “Yeah, I know.”

“How?”

“You smell like that fucking shit she wears—perfume or whatever—when you come into the club first thing in the morning looking like you didn’t sleep all night. And I saw your car parked down the street from her parents’ one night when Terrance called about something and I had to head over there.”

Tommas cursed. “Have you told—”

“No,” Damian said quickly. “I won’t, either.”

“Should I say thanks or what?”

“No, but she’s eight years younger than you, Tommas, with a mob boss for a grandfather and a fucking idiot for an older brother. They’re looking at men for her and you’re not one of them. You should clean house of that nonsense before it becomes a habit you can’t break and she gets you killed.”

Guessing by the look on Tommas’ face, it was already a damned habit.

Perfect.

Damian decided to let it go. He had enough of his own problems as it was.

Like Lily and what Dino wanted him to do for her.

Damian’s gaze found Terrance Trentini in the middle of the room engaged in conversation with his grandson Joel, Ben DeLuca, and a Capo for the Outfit. Business never ended when it came to the family.

Dino wanted Lily to be safe and he earned Damian’s loyalty a long time ago—Damian needed to pay up. Men like them were nothing without their word and too many men in the Outfit seemed to forget about that. Damian followed through on his word every single time. Lily DeLuca would be no exception, even if that meant she hated him for it.