Total pages in book: 35
Estimated words: 32879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 164(@200wpm)___ 132(@250wpm)___ 110(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 164(@200wpm)___ 132(@250wpm)___ 110(@300wpm)
When Hank Bianchi calls in his favor, Enzo is more than ready to deliver. There is only one problem. Hank wants him to marry his daughter. The other little problem, it was a daughter he had with a mistress. This was unheard of, but Enzo does not like owing favors, and so, marrying Hank’s daughter is exactly what he will do.
Adele Shanks knows what her father is. She knows what he is capable of. After years of disappointment, her mother told her the truth. Hank is part of the mafia, he is a capo. She wants no part of his world. When Enzo enters the bar where she works, she knows it is going to end badly.
Adele rejects him as she doesn’t want to be part of her father’s world. Enzo will not take no for an answer.
Enzo will not fail. Adele will be his wife and he’s not above blackmail. He uses her friends against her, so Adele has no choice but to go with him. She will become his wife.
Adele doesn’t hate Enzo. What she doesn’t know, is that Enzo has fallen in love with his little virgin wife, and he wants to keep her, build a family, and to mend her broken heart. Could it be possible for Adele to find everything she has been looking for?
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Prologue
“You once said if there was anything I needed, I was to come to you, no questions asked.”
Enzo Amato looked at Hank Bianchi, a little surprised. He did owe this man a favor, and it had been plaguing his mind when he’d come to collect. Five years ago, Hank saved his life. They were attending an important wedding, when there had been an attack. If it weren’t for Hank, Enzo would be dead.
He had great respect for Hank, even though there were many rumors and gossip that followed this man. Speculation suggested there was a time when Hank wanted to get out of the mafia. There was no getting out of their world. They were in it for life. The moment they made their first kill, their fate was sealed.
Enzo’s first kill happened at thirteen. There had been an attack on his family home, and he’d not even hesitated. His father had been teaching him to shoot, to kill, to torture. Most thirteen-year-olds had their dads playing football with them in the backyard. Not Enzo’s father. He’d been preparing Enzo to take over the Amato name.
Now, at thirty-five, he’d been head of the family for over ten years. His father had perished in an attack from leaving his mistress.
“What do you need?” he asked, not at all concerned that Hank had come to collect. It was expected.
Hank nodded and then pulled out his wallet.
Enzo did tense. There was always a great deal of animosity between bosses and rival families. He didn’t consider Bianchi a rival, but that didn’t mean the same was true the other way around.
Hank let out a cough and then pulled out a single photograph, which he handed to him. Taking it, Enzo looked down into a brown-eyed woman, who was smiling. She looked young.
“Adele was sixteen in that photograph.”
“She’s pretty.”
“She’s my daughter.”
This was one of the rumors. Many of the mafia bosses were known for having illegitimate children. Most of them tended to stay close to the family. Sons became soldiers, daughters became easy pawns to sell off and use for associates.
Enzo had never seen this Adele. She was pretty. Scrap that, she was gorgeous, and what struck him quite quickly was the fact she was smiling. In the picture she had her arms around a tree, but her head slightly bent back, laughing at whatever the person with the camera had said.
“I have never met her,” Enzo said.
“No one has. In all honesty, I don’t have the best of relationships with her. My and her mother’s … it was complicated, and it didn’t end well. I’ve done everything I could to take care of them. Two years ago, her mother passed away. Cancer. I thought she might allow me into her life, but she wanted nothing to do with me, or with this life.” Hank ran a hand down his face.
This was unheard of. The women of their world did as they were told.
Hank began to laugh. “I know what you’re thinking. Adele was never part of this world. To be honest, it was a miracle she was ever born. My wife…” He stopped. “She found out about … Carla, that’s Adele’s mother, she had no idea who I was when we first met. Carla was a dancer, and her career had ended when one of the male dancers had dropped her. It broke her ankle, and I know it had also broken a little of her soul as well. I always saw the way she lit up when she danced, or talked about dancing. I met her one night while she was working. Even though she couldn’t dance and it upset her, she didn’t let it stop her. She worked hard.”
Hank ran a hand over his face.
“When I went into the bar, I was rude to her and she called me out for my shit. Told me that I may be a good-looking guy, but that was no excuse to be a pig to her, and that I was to ask her properly with ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, and a bar she may work, but I was to also treat her like a lady.” Hank laughed. “I was smitten. Our women are trained not to talk back. They’re not trained to have respect. They’re trained to do as they’re told.”
Enzo knew this.
“I pursued Carla, kept my life away from her. For a year, she was mine, and I made her believe we were going to get married, have a life together. When she got pregnant, I was the happiest son of a bitch alive. Then my wife found out. Carla was beaten because of it, and told the truth. It changed everything. She had no idea I was married, and that was it. All she would allow me to do was take care of my daughter, so I did as much as I could.”