Chapter 5: Veiled Vows: Chapter 5

Breathe. Just breathe.

It’s not my first time attending a Mancini party, but this one feels infinitely more daunting than last year. My future fiancé is inside that building, the man I’ll be expected to spend the rest of my life with—or at least be beside until I track down the man I’m really in love with.

My lunch with Catherine last week helped put a few things into perspective. Lusting after a man I know nothing about and met once eleven years ago isn’t the wisest decision, and I can’t waste my entire life hoping he’ll turn up again. So I need to be more active in tracking him down myself in order to get exactly what I want.

He might be the man of my dreams.

Or he might be awful.

Either way, once I know for sure, I’ll be able to move on with my life.

I know which one I’ll prefer.

“Are you alright, dear?” Bianca’s hand rests on my knee, brushing away invisible lint from the sleek silk skirt of my dress.

I flash her a smile and breathe deeply while pressing one hand against the lace bodice that presses my breasts up to my chin and leaves little room for anything more than shallow breaths. The things we do for beauty.

“I’m fine, Mom,” I assure her, patting the back of her hand. “I’m just a little hot.”

“We’ll be there soon.” She smiles wildly at me, patting my knee then sitting back next to my father.

“I don’t need to say it,” Enzo says, fixing me with a flat stare. “You need to be on your best behavior.”

“When am I anything but?” I ask, frowning slightly.

“You can’t mess this up for me, Jasmine. No matter what silly feelings you might have, this deal is important to me and the future of this family. And we’ll be under Mancini hospitality, so please, make me proud.”

The urge to snap at him rises. I’m not the problem here. If anything, he should be more worried about my floaty mother saying something inappropriate or his own inability to remain calm when faced with the Gattis, who are sure to make an appearance tonight. But no, instead it’s me and my impending engagement that’s the issue.

“Yes, Father,” I reply to save an argument. “I’ll be on my best behavior. Don’t worry.”

“You better be.” The warning is clear in his tone, and he returns to his phone, brows dipped and mouth in a straight, firm line.

“Don’t worry, dear.” Bianca pats my knee again. “You’re going to have a lovely time.”

I doubt that very much. Seeking a distraction, I turn to the one topic I should stay away from, yet it’s the one topic that calms me like no other. “Mom?”

“Yes, sweetie?”

“You remember the day I was rescued?”

Her face falls. “Of course I do.”

“And the man that rescued me⁠—”

“How many more times? I know nothing about him. He was a nobody. A mercenary or a hitman or something. It’s not important.”

“It’s important to me.”

“But why? It was over a decade ago. The entire world has moved on and you should too.”

“Has it?” I snap with more heat in my words than my mother deserves. “Because I’m about to become engaged to a man because of what happened all those years ago. Maybe you should tell Dad to move on instead.”

“Well, that’s different,” she replies in a low voice. “Your father isn’t obsessed⁠—”

“Isn’t he?” I glance at him, but he’s utterly engrossed in a phone call that makes him slide to the other end of the limo. “Because it looks like these decisions are being made for me because he can’t forget what happened. So why should I?”

Bianca’s mouth opens and closes, but she has no reply. Our eyes lock, and for a few minutes, she looks distraught, but it fades quickly as she manages to push everything aside like she always does. “You look so beautiful, dear.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

What I would give for that man to appear right now and whisk me away.

The party is as extravagant as one would expect from the Mancini Family. Gigantic ice sculptures fill the hotel courtyard and line the entryway, each with a guard standing in front of them as if they’re the most precious thing about the event. Crisp, white drapes hang from the ceiling and wrap around doorways, white lace clings to the dark marble pillars, glistening diamonds and crystals decorate every tabletop, while white and peach roses fill exquisite vases along the walls. Even the floor is covered in white and peach rose petals, but a coating of something on top of the floor prevents them from moving as people walk around.

I suddenly feel extremely out of place in a black and pink dress.

“Well, well, well,” comes a slightly scratchy, deep voice that makes the back of my neck prickle, and a shiver of anticipation warms my shoulders. “Of course the Falzones are incapable of adhering to a dress code.”

I know that voice.

My heart drops to my stomach as I turn on my heel to face the one and only Roman Gatti, the second son of Santino Gatti, my father’s enemy. And mine, since he’s the man who had me snatched from my school grounds.

“There was no dress code,” I reply shortly, glancing down his white suit accented by a light blue shirt that’s open at the collar. A sliver of honey-olive skin peeks out as he moves and places one hand in his pocket. His full lips pull into an easy smirk while he glances down the length of my body, then his other hand briefly combs through his sleek, black hair.

“Are you sure?” He glances around as his smirk widens. “You’re the only one in black.”

Despite my annoyance at his presence, his tone—basically everything—he’s right. Every other guest is wearing either color or white. I’m the only one who stands out in my black dress covered in glittering pink sparkles. Suddenly, my mother’s dress choice feels like a setup, and my heart begins to race.

“I wouldn’t expect someone like you to understand anything about class,” I reply stiffly. “So if you don’t mind, kindly keep walking.”

Roman’s dark butterscotch eyes sparkle in the candlelight waving from a nearby candelabra, and he steps closer, but in a second, his entire demeanor changes. The relaxed smirk vanishes, and his infuriatingly handsome face loses all of its charm, becoming stony and calm.

“Is there a problem here?” Enzo appears at my elbow, clutching the invitations in one hand. My mother joins on the other side of me and immediately takes my hand, pulling on me to take a step back, but I refuse. I’m not stepping down from Roman Gatti of all people.

“You tell me,” Roman replies tightly. “Are you capable of following the rules?”

“The rules?” Enzo spits out between clenched teeth. “You want to speak to me about rules? You wouldn’t know etiquette if it jumped down your throat, you little⁠—”

“Now, now.” From behind Roman materializes his slightly shorter but equally dangerous father, Santino Gatti. His voice is smooth like silk, and something about the way he narrows his eyes reminds me of a hawk seconds away from piercing its talons into some unsuspecting prey. “The great Enzo Falzone surely knows better than to say things he can’t act on during a party like this.”

My father straightens up like a board, as if all the segments of his spine suddenly snapped together. “Santino.”

“Enzo. And Bianca, such a vision as always,” Santino says.

My mother laughs softly and a warm blush spreads across her cheeks. It’s a little infuriating. One complement and she’s almost forgetting how dangerous this man is. How our families have been at war for six years with no end in sight.

Not long after I was kidnapped, my father gave up a large portion of his business as thanks to Santino for rescuing me. Five years later, he learned from a dying Yakuza general that Santino was actually the one behind my kidnapping and since then, it’s been hell.

“And this must be your delightful daughter,” Santino continues smoothly. “You look different from the last time I saw you. But I suppose you’re no longer in high school, are you?”

“Don’t look at her,” Enzo growls, stepping between me and Santino. “Don’t even think about her.”

“It’s just an observation. You were always so quick to anger, Enzo.”

The only thing keeping my father in line was the overwhelming understanding that grudges of all kinds are left at the door as soon as you enter a Mancini event. Feuds are to be ignored, arguments are to be prevented, and even bounties on people’s heads are to be avoided at a night like this. Families have been wiped out for much less, so I reach for my father’s arm to try and calm him. As I make contact with his arm, my eyes lock with Roman’s over my father’s shoulder. He’s watching me intently, and as soon as I look at him, his lips twitch.

Disgust rolls through my stomach and I glare, then look away. “Dad, come on,” I say in a low voice. “Let’s get a drink.”

It takes that and a comment from my mother to finally get my father moving. Neither he nor Santino take their eyes off one another until they’re far enough away for the crowd to fill the space between them.

And then there’s Roman. He remains in place even as his father leaves, and just as I step away to follow my father, he catches the crook of my elbow. “You look beautiful. For a Falzone, at least.”

“Fuck off,” I hiss in a low voice, earning his amused laughter that follows me all the way through the crowd.

My mother spends a good twenty minutes trying to calm my father down, so I wander the party and perform my expected duties required of me, such as greeting those familiar to me and my family, accepting a drink when offered and ensuring that our table is exactly to our requirements. My mother never drinks at an event like this, but my father does. Thankfully, the waiter is understanding when I request that no more than two drinks be given to my father. The last thing we need is for alcohol to make him forget the rules.

When I return to my parents, conversation turns to introducing me to my fiancé, and that’s when I make myself scarce. In the limo, the prospect wasn’t that scary, but now that I’m here in the swell of the party with a sea of unrecognizable faces, I don’t want to meet him. I don’t want to meet the man who thinks he can just buy me with a well-written letter.

I make myself vanish so I can enjoy my last few hours of freedom without being tied down to a stranger.

The hotel hired out by the Mancini family is exquisite, and I lose myself in the grand staircases with their smooth, marbled steps and gold railing. Each floor is a different theme and color. The third floor is the quietest, so after reaching it, I settle on wandering down the hallway, admiring the extravagant art hanging from the walls. People I don’t recognize, who could be anyone from family members to royalty, line each painting dressed in stuffy, tight, aristocratic clothing. A few paintings show buildings in different cities, and one shows a deer standing on top of a mountain while a fire blazes in the forest below. It’s beautiful and oddly fitting.

I wander until a flurry of light music reaches my ears. Nearby, someone is playing the piano, or at the very least pressing a few keys. With the party long forgotten, curiosity leads me through a nearby door into a small room shrouded in darkness with one light flickering in the far corner. When my curiosity spikes, my heart falls.

“Oh. It’s you.”

Roman Gatti’s head snaps up and he pulls his hand away from the piano keys, seemingly alarmed at having been caught. Then he smiles, and that smirk irritates me at a single glance.

“Shouldn’t you be at the party?”

“Shouldn’t you?” I roll my eyes. “After all, it’s only the men who can voice their opinion and make decent conversation, so really you should be there more than me.”

“I hate these events,” Roman replies, closing the lid on the piano. “Everyone has only one agenda.”

“Betrayal?”

“Ass-kissing.” He steps away from the piano, and his almond-shaped eyes narrow faintly as he glances down at me. “We’re all here putting on a show for the Mancinis, although given the utter catastrophes your father likes to orchestrate, I’m sure he’s in his element.”

“Excuse me?” Heat rushes up to my cheeks at his cloaked insult, and I stiffen my neck. “Maybe you should take a page out of his book. He knows his strength unlike your own father who can’t see beyond his own arrogant—hey!”

My insult dies on my lips as a sudden rush of voices rises from outside the room. In the same breath, Roman grabs me by the wrist and drags me swiftly toward him with one jerk of his arm. His other hand closes over my mouth, sending my heart skyrocketing so rapidly that my head aches. A second later, he shoves me backward into the nearby closet and shoves me hard against the wall, closing the door just as several people file into the room.

“This has gone on for long enough,” says a gruff voice. “The Falzones or the Gattis, I don’t care which. But one of them has to go.”