“But you didn’t want to cage your fucking bull in,” Remo said with a nod toward my groin. His twisted smile stirred the rage in my insides once more, but a fight with my brother was the last thing I needed.
“I thought I had time.”
“She’s sixteen, Savio. Don’t play dumb. You know that girls are often promised way before then, especially in traditional families like Gemma’s. That they waited this long is already unusual.”
I made a non-committal noise. I knew why they’d waited this long because they’d thought I might throw my hat in the ring. “I need to have her.”
“You need to have her so you can fuck her, boost your ego and then discard her. Or you need to have her—”
I interrupted him. “I want her as my wife. It’s the only way I can have her at all.”
Remo looked close to laughter, a far more unsettling sight than him covered in the bowels of his enemies. “You want to marry?”
Could he have sounded any more shocked?
“Is that so hard to believe?”
Remo walked past me and toward the liquor cabinet. “I think that requires alcohol.”
“Come on, stop being dramatic. If you can be a husband, it should be a piece of cake for me. A few years ago, you loathed the idea of marriage, now you’re making a marriage work as if it was nothing. You’re a father for fuck’s sake.”
Remo poured a generous amount of whiskey into two glasses then held one out to me. Rolling my eyes, I went over to him and accepted the drink. I could use some alcohol. Today’s news had been a shock to my system.
Nino appeared in the room, only dressed in underpants, regarding us with a suspicious expression. When it had been only my brothers and me in the mansion, most of us hadn’t even bothered with clothing. “What’s going on? You woke the boys and Kiara with your rude entry.”
Remo grabbed another glass, and filled that too. “You should have a drink.”
Nino accepted the glass. “What are we toasting?”
“That Savio wants to put his bull on a leash.”
I sent Remo a scathing look, which he answered with his twisted grin.
“What exactly does that mean?” Nino asked in mild curiosity.
“He wants to marry.”
“Gemma Bazzoli, I assume.”
I downed the rest of the whiskey, annoyed that my brothers could look through me as if I was a glass figurine. “You are a fucking know-it-all, aren’t you?”
“Did you ask for her hand?”
I grimaced. “No. Until recently, I didn’t really consider marriage a valid option.”
Nino regarded me as if I was a curious specimen worth studying. “And what changed?”
“She was promised to another man, Michelangelo.”
“Carlucci’s second son,” Nino stated. “And one of your best friends.”
That was true. Diego and Mick were pretty much my only friends, except for my brothers. Finding people that you could trust if your name was Falcone was close to impossible. “He won’t marry Gemma. I don’t care what I’ll have to do to make her mine.”
“The Carluccis and the Bazzolis are loyal families,” Nino drawled. “Offending them would come with a price. Our soldiers respect us because we’re just. If we force the Bazzoli girl into a marriage with you despite her engagement to Michelangelo, that could lead to dispute among our men.”
Remo nodded. Usually, he didn’t give a fuck about other people, but as cruel and twisted as he was, he took care of his men. “Nino’s got a point. We have to handle this carefully, or this could snowball into something very ugly, all because you were too horny to make up your mind in time.”
“Gemma wants to marry me, not Mick, that’s something you should keep in mind, and let’s be honest, her family will throw a fucking party if Gemma becomes a Falcone.”
“Are you sure the girl really still wants you? Maybe she’ll hold your man-whoring ways against you, not to mention that you didn’t bother asking for her hand when she wasn’t promised to another.”
I glared at my brothers. They always knew how to make me feel like a stupid boy again. “Gemma still wants me, believe me.”
“Be that as it may, we need to figure out a way to break her engagement to Michelangelo without causing discord.”
“Mick wants her. He won’t go quietly.”
“Challenge him,” Remo said. “During one of the public training sessions. Challenge him in a cage fight for Gemma’s hand. In front of fellow soldiers, he’d lose face if he didn’t agree to the fight. Make the girl be there as well. If he’s got the hots for her, he’ll try to impress her.”
I considered that. There was only one problem. “Mick knows he doesn’t stand a chance against me in a cage. I’ll wipe the floor with his sorry ass. Why would he agree to a fight he can only lose? He already has Gemma in the bag after all.”
“Tell him you’ll fight him a day after your big fight. You’ll be sore and tired fighting this close together. Have Diego and Daniele be there as well. Mick would be considered a coward if he didn’t accept your challenge.”
“All right. This sounds like it could actually work,” I said, smirking.
“Nothing to be smug about,” Remo growled. “Because of your fucking dickheadedness, we’ll have to offend a loyal family. That’s nothing that should happen again, so you better go through with this wedding once you’ve won the girl’s hand, or I’ll personally castrate you.”
“Don’t worry. Gemma will be mine.”
The next day, Dad joined Diego and me on our way to the gym. Apparently, Remo wanted to check the fitness level of his men and had invited several of them over to train with him and his brothers. It had happened before. Dad always said that Remo had made the Camorra strong by making his men strong and keeping them that way. The man despised laziness and weakness and expected his men
