Chapter 2 RÓISE

Two Months Previous

Patient's hymen intact.

Fury knocks the lid off the simmering cauldron of emotions I've kept in check for the past week.

With a primal yell, I throw my phone against the wall with all my force. It hits with an unsatisfying thud before dropping, unharmed to the floor.

Darn indestructible phone case.

Chucking it at the window wouldn't give me any more satisfaction. All the mansion's windows are made with double glazed bullet resistant glass.

Throwing my head back, I scream again until my voice gives out.

It doesn't help and now my throat is sore.

It's bad enough that my uncle is forcing me to marry into the Italian mafia. The Cosa Nostra is responsible for my mom's death and probably my dad's too.

Uncle Brogan says mom's death is one of the reasons we need to cement an alliance between our family and the Genovese mafia.

To stop the same thing from happening again, despite the truce between the Shaughnessy mob and the Five Families of New York.

But this? This nod to the archaic customs of the Italian mafia? It pours fuel over the fire of rage that's been smoldering inside me, its eruption inevitable.

Patient's hymen intact .

Unless he's different than every other made man I know, my future husband isn't a virgin. The fact that I am has nothing to do with personal conviction and everything to do with circumstances of birth .

No way was I going to pop my cherry with an ever-present bodyguard lurking nearby. I've dated. Kissed some. Touched some. A very little of some, to be honest.

Again, refer to the lurking bodyguard.

I haven't found anyone I liked or trusted enough to go to the trouble of slipping my bodyguard's protection for the necessary privacy. Ergo, an intact hymen discovered by the doctor I believed was checking for pretty much everything else.

A couple of days after I reluctantly agreed to marry into the Genovese mafia (I would rather do almost anything than marry my enemy.), Uncle Brogan informed me that I would have to undergo a medical exam, including genetic testing.

He's the boss of the Shaughnessy mob and the only man who could have convinced me to agree to this travesty of a wedding. Not because he's the boss, but because of who will pay the price if I don't.

My too accommodating and vulnerable younger cousin.

Uncle Brogan says a clean bill of health is necessary for my part as temporary guarantor of the blood alliance he is negotiating with the Genovese mafia.

Considering the fact that I had to negotiate to be on birth control for the first two years of marriage, the request didn't surprise me. I'm only twenty years old and I'm not ready to be a mother.

Besides, I've got another year and a half of my Bachelor in Fine Arts program before I graduate. I had to make finishing my education a nonnegotiable item too. With my uncle!

I haven't spoken to a single Cosa Nostra soldier.

These mafia men see marriage as a business transaction.

You don't sign a business contract without knowing the other company is able to fulfill its commitments. In my case, that means carrying a De Luca heir, the permanent guarantor of the alliance between the Genovese mafia and the Shaughnessy mob.

For the right to wait two years to get pregnant and finish my education, I agreed to the exam and signed my consent to the genetic tests. I didn't agree to having my virginity confirmed.

They don't have any right to that information, much less to expect me to be untouched sexually. This blood alliance might be right out of a chapter in history when women were treated like possessions, but I'm not.

Love for my cousin might force me to marry a man chosen for me by my uncle, but I don't have to go into the marriage with a submissive attitude. I'm not sure I've even got one of those in my acting repertoire.

No matter what the men in my family and the Genovese mafia might think, I am my own person .

All of my choices are being taken away though. There's one left I just realized I won't let them take: who I give my virginity to.

I'm not engaged yet.

For cripe's sake, I don't even know the name of my intended groom. I doubt my uncle does either. All I'm sure of is that he'll be a high ranking De Luca in the Genovese mafia. That's what Uncle Brogan says, anyway.

Which means I'm not betraying anybody by having sex for the first time before I enter into the bondage of matrimony.

How do I have sex before my groom is chosen and the engagement becomes official?

I could ask a friend to help me out, but afterward, would I ever be able to look my friend in the face? Not that I have a bunch of male friends. But the few I do have are only friends.

Okay, friends are out.

Uncle Brogan has some hot guys on his payroll, but I'm not looking to get anyone killed. And my uncle will murder any man who works for him that touches a woman in his family.

Right. No bodyguards or other mob soldiers.

Using a dating app leaves a trail I don't have the skill to erase. So, that's out too.

There's only one option I can see: a one-night stand with a stranger at a club, or something. Somewhere and someone not connected to the Irish mob in any way.

A one-night stand isn't exactly fairytale fodder, but neither is an arranged marriage to create an alliance between two criminal syndicates.

And sex with a stranger is better than losing one more decision to the machine of two syndicates aligning.