His Vicious Ruin (Preview) - Faye Pierce

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Chapter One

Gia

Why the hell did I come back here?

The leather seat is cold under my legs, even through the fabric of my dress. I keep my hands folded in my lap, watching the countryside roll past the tinted window like the answer to where we’re going is written somewhere in the trees. Fields give way to tall oaks and then forest thick enough to block the late afternoon sun, throwing shadows across Laura’s face.

My baby sister sits beside me doing the thing where she grips the seat edge so hard her knuckles go white, like if she holds on tight enough she can control where we’re going. She’s nine years old and she already knows how to make herself small in our father’s presence, how to keep quiet until spoken to, how to fold into herself when the air gets heavy.

I hate that she knows this.

I hate it so fucking much.

And even worse, I hate it so much because she learned it from watching me.

I reach over and cover her hand with mine, working my fingers between hers and the leather until she lets go. Her palm is sweaty. She looks up at me with those wide brown eyes that haven’t learned hardness yet, and I squeeze once, trying to talk to her without words.

Hey Sweetie Pie, I’m here, I’ve got you, whatever this is I’ll stand between you and it. I’ll always protect you.

God, I hope she understands me.

“Where are we going, Gia?” Her whisper is barely heard over the hum of the car’s engine.

I smile sweetly, “A wedding, Sweetie.”

“Whose?”

Good question.

“Father?” I glance toward the front seat where our father sits beside his driver, his profile sharp against the window.

At fifty-eight, Salvatore De Luca looks like something carved from marble, all the softness eroded away. Silver threads through his black hair now, combed back with the same precision he applies to everything else in his life.

Hardness and violence.

He doesn’t turn around. “An important political union. The whole family’s presence is required.”

Which in itself is weird, but I don’t comment.

But there’s something underneath his words, something that makes the base of my spine go cold. And I’m definitely not trying to figure it out. Years of knowing my father taught me it’s better not to know anything at all.

I’ve only been back a week after years away and I still haven’t readjusted to the weight of his voice, the way every syllable feels like it’s been calculated three moves ahead.

I’ll never get used to it.

“Especially after your brother’s passing,” he continues. “We must prove we’re strong.”

Laura’s hand tenses under mine. She barely remembers Vittorio. She was five when I left, too young to have known him at all. She spent most of the last four years with me in Paris, tucked away in our apartment in the Marais. My safe haven after… Stop, Gia. Don’t think about it.

Marais feels so far away already.

Then, six months ago, father decided it was time for her to come home. I couldn’t stop him. I tried. God, did I. But Salvatore De Luca doesn’t negotiate with his daughters. Or anyone for that matter.

I didn’t even come back for my brother’s funeral three months ago. The truth is we were never close. I barely knew him, and standing over his grave pretending to grieve a brother who was practically a stranger felt dishonest in a way I couldn’t stomach.

But when father called last week telling me to come home, I came. Because Laura is here and I will crawl through broken glass before I leave her alone in that damned house.

Being back feels like wearing a coat that doesn’t fit anymore even though it was tailored to my exact measurements. It feels wrong. Constricting. Like I’ve stepped back into a version of myself I spent four years trying to bury.

It doesn’t feel okay at all.

“Will there be cake?” Laura asks, and there’s so much hope in her voice it makes my chest hurt.

“Probably,” I tell her, making myself smile. “Those fancy ones with too much frosting.”

“The kind that makes your teeth hurt?” She giggles.

“Exactly that kind.”

She settles back against the seat, satisfied for now. I wish I could find comfort in something as simple. I wish I was still young enough to believe weddings meant celebration instead of transaction, that marriage was about love instead of leverage.

But I learned better at nineteen. I learnt so much that I know that I want nothing to do with it anymore.

Father shifts in his seat. “You will comport yourself appropriately.”

He’s talking to me, not Laura. “Of course.”

“No scenes.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Father.” I drawl but we both know that’s a lie.

I’m dreaming of several, actually.

His eyes find mine in the rearview mirror and the warning there is clear.

Pfft.

The memory tries to claw its way up but I shove it down hard. Not here. Not now. Not with Laura sitting beside me vibrating with nervous energy because this is her first real public appearance and she doesn’t understand yet what it costs to be Salvatore De Luca’s daughter. Most people don’t even know she exists.

I think happy thoughts, like the YouTube therapists teach.

Bunnies, pink fluffy bunnies, chocolates and pizza….

The car turns onto a smaller road. Gravel crunches under the tires. Trees press close on either side, their branches forming a canopy overhead that turns the sunlight into scattered coins of gold. This isn’t the suburbs. This is countryside, remote and quiet, the kind of place you go when you don’t want witnesses.

Okay, where the hell are we going? Seriously, where? Because this looks less like a wedding venue and more like somewhere they bury the bodies.

My stomach drops. What the heck is happening?

“Where is this church?” I keep my voice level. Curious, not confrontational.

“Does it matter?” Father still doesn’t look back.

“Just making conversation.”

“Curiosity is a dangerous habit, Gia.”

So is raising daughters like chess pieces, but here we are.

I almost say it. The words line up right at the back of my teeth and I can taste how good it would feel to let them out. I glance at Laura instead. She’s watching me with those careful eyes, reading my face the way she always does when she’s trying to decide if she should be scared, and that’s what stops me. Not obedience. Not fear. Her.

I swallow it down and go quiet, chewing the insides of my mouth.

Laura’s hand finds mine again and I hold it, her pulse jumping against my palm. She’s scared. I don’t blame her.

The trees thin and suddenly we’re pulling up to a small stone church, weathered and ancient, surrounded by cars that most people will never see in their entire lives because… why the hell not? Black sedans. Dark SUVs. Lambos. All of them screaming money and violence even in their stillness.

My pulse kicks up hard. I know this feeling. The way my chest goes tight, the way my breathing wants to speed up and I have to force it to stay even. It’s fear wrapped in expensive fabric, terror wearing pearls.

The car stops. The driver gets out, opens father’s door, then comes around to ours. I take what I hope is a deep, steadying breath and step out into the cool air, and immediately I feel it.

Eyes.

So many eyes.

Goodness.

They’re watching from the church steps, from beside the cars, men in dark suits and women in designer dresses, all of them turning to look at us. At me. Four years is a long time to disappear. Long enough to become a ghost story. Long enough that my return feels like an event people will gossip about for months.

The Ghost Heiress is finally back.

I keep my gaze forward, my shoulders back.

Laura stays glued to my side as we walk toward the church entrance. I can feel her trembling and I want to scoop her up and run, want to tell her it’s okay, that nothing bad will happen. But I stopped making promises I can’t keep the day I learned what men like our father are capable of.

As if I summoned him, his hand settles on my shoulder, heavy as a threat. “Head high.”

I don’t respond. I just walk.

The church doors stand open. Inside I can see pews already filled, ceremony preparations centered at the far end. Flowers everywhere, white and pale pink, the kind of arrangements that cost a fortune and say nothing about the people getting married.

We step inside and the temperature drops ten degrees. Stone walls. High ceilings. The smell of incense and wood polish and something older underneath, like centuries of prayers that went unanswered.

Guests go quiet as we enter. I keep walking, Laura beside me, father’s hand on my shoulder steering me like I’m a car he’s driving.

And then I see him.

At the altar.

Waiting.

Rafael Caruso.

I know him. Not well. I’ve seen him maybe half a dozen times over the years, always from a distance, always beside Matteo Romano or one of the other Brotherhood men. Older than me by more than a decade.

But I’ve never seen him this close. And up close, Rafael Caruso is a problem.

He’s over six feet of pure, rogue sex on legs, in an Italian suit, the kind of body that doesn’t come from a gym but from a life where violence is just a normal Tuesday. The suit is black, tailored so precisely it looks grown rather than made, white shirt open at the collar because he clearly doesn’t care enough about this event to bother with a tie. Dark blond hair worn a little too long, like he cut it himself with a knife six months ago and hasn’t thought about it since. There’s a scar that cuts through the left side of his jaw, thin and pale and old, the kind of mark you only get when someone means it.

He’s sexy the way a loaded gun is beautiful. You don’t want to touch it, but you can’t stop looking.

And then there are his eyes.

Green. Not soft green. Not kind green. The flat, calculating green of someone who has looked at a man and decided what to do with him before that man even opened his mouth.

They’re brutal and sexy and—

They’re fixed on me from across the length of that church. The weight of them hits me somewhere low in my core, something I haven’t felt in four years, something I do not want to feel right now, something I am furious at my own body for producing.

Absolutely not. No. We are not doing this.

This man looks like violence, roughness, and uncivilized sexuality wrapped in one. The way he stands is the thing that gets me most, perfectly still, no shifting weight, no checking his watch, no performing patience the way nervous men do. He just stands there like he has already decided how every single thing in this room is going to go. Like he decided before he walked in.

My mouth goes dry at the sight of him.

Then I push myself back to reality.

Because there’s a man at the altar and he’s looking at me like I’m expected and my father’s hand is on my shoulder and the church has gone silent and something is very, very wrong.

I drop my gaze fast and hate myself for the heat that follows me down, crawling up the back of my neck and spreading across my collarbones like I’ve been caught doing something weird. I spent four years in Paris deliberately unlearning this, teaching my body that men are not something to want, that attraction is just your nervous system lying to you. Four years. Now one look at Rafael Caruso and apparently all of that work means nothing.

Useless. Absolutely useless. Well, thank you Mrs Youtube Therapist.

I assume I’m late. That we interrupted something. That the bride is somewhere in the back waiting for guests to sit down so the ceremony can start.

I move toward the pews on the right but father’s hand tightens on my arm. “The seats are in front.”

Front seats are for family. Immediate family. Parents and siblings of the bride and groom.

So why the hell are we supposed to sit there??

I don’t question him as he steers me toward the aisle not wanting to draw attention.

I look back for Laura and that’s when I see it. Two women in dark dresses have appeared from nowhere, taking her by the hands, guiding her gently but firmly toward a pew near the back. Laura lets them, because she’s learned to not make scenes, and my chest cracks open watching it.

“Wait!” The word comes out before I can stop it. I pull against my father’s grip, turning back toward her. “Laura comes with me.”

Father’s fingers close around my arm like a vice. Not painful enough to be obvious. Painful enough to be a message. “She’ll be fine.”

I glare at him. “She doesn’t know anyone here. Why would she stay separately?”

“She’ll be fine, Gia.” His voice drops half a degree.

Laura looks back at me over her shoulder. Her eyes are wide and its obviously she’s trying to read my face to know if she should panic or not. I make myself look calm. I make myself smile at her, small and steady.

It’s fine, Sweetie, nothing is wrong.

Only, everything is wrong, I just don’t know exactly why.

One of the women says something to her and Laura turns back around, and they guide her into a pew, I watch her small shoulders settle.

I will burn this entire world down before anything touches her.

But I let father steer me down the aisle because making a scene right now helps no one, least of all her.

The church is silent except for the click of my heels on stone.

Every step echoes.

Every face turns.

Whispers move through the room, barely audible but unmistakable. I can feel them picking me apart. The ghost daughter who disappeared and came back different. The girl who left at nineteen and returned at twenty-four with harder eyes and better posture.

I get it, hot gossip, but look the fuck away. Save the ogling for the bride.

I feel exposed walking this path, ridiculous in my dress and heels, my father’s hand on my arm like I’m being delivered somewhere. Like I’m being escorted.

Like I’m the one getting married.

The thought slips in and I shove it out immediately because it’s paranoid and absurd and the kind of thinking that happens when you’ve spent too many years looking over your shoulder.

But the dread in my stomach doesn’t care what I call it. It spreads anyway, cold and slow, up through my ribs and into my throat.

We’re halfway down the aisle. Rafael is twenty feet away. Fifteen. Ten.

He hasn’t moved. Hasn’t looked away. Just stands there watching me approach with an expression I can’t read, somewhere between calculation and recognition, like he can see into the darkest depths of my soul.

Stop looking at me like that.

I can see him clearly now. Every line of him. The scar on his jaw. The set of his shoulders. The way his hands hang loose at his sides, relaxed, ready. He looks like exactly what he is. A man who has put people in the ground and slept fine after.

A widower. An executioner. A man who buried his wife and never replaced her.

Until now.

That thought hits like a fist to the sternum.

I stop walking. Father doesn’t. He keeps moving and I have no choice but to stumble forward with him or rip my arm free and cause the kind of scene that will get my sister hurt.

“Father.” My voice comes out steady. I’m proud of that. “Whose wedding is this?”

This can’t be happening. This cannot be happening.

He doesn’t answer right away. We’re five feet from the altar now. Close enough that I can see the exact shade of Rafael’s eyes, that flat, unreadable green, close enough to catch his cologne cutting through the incense.

He smells expensive and dangerous and I need to stop noticing things about this man immediately.

Father leans in. His breath is warm against my ear.

“Yours.”

Chapter Two

Gia

I’m sorry, what?

The word is still bouncing around my skull when my father releases my arm and steps back, smooth and unbothered, like he just handed over a coat at a restaurant instead of his daughter’s entire life.

He leaves me there.

Standing beside Rafael Caruso.

At the altar.

And then the priest starts speaking.

“No.”

The word comes out before I even decide to say it. It hits the stone walls, the high ceiling and ricochets back to me in the sudden, suffocating silence of three hundred witnesses.

I don’t fucking care.

“No.” I repeat, stepping back from the altar, my heels sharp against the stone. “Absolutely not. This is not happening!”

My father immediately returns to my side, grabbing my arm. “Gia, do not—”

“Don’t!” I yank against his grip and something in my chest has snapped clean, something that had been holding for the entire drive and the whole walk down this aisle and it is gone now. “You do not get to do this. You dragged me to a church in the middle of nowhere without telling me a single thing and you expect me to just stand here and —”

“You will lower your voice, Gia.”

“I will not lower my voice.” I turn to face him fully. My hands are shaking. I can feel it. “You are literally selling me to a man I don’t know. Without telling me. So no, I will not lower my voice, I will not comport myself appropriately, and you will have a scene.”

The church is absolutely silent.

Three hundred people look like they’re holding their breath.

My father’s face goes cold, internal calculation behind his eyes, and I hold his gaze because I am so angry right now that I cannot feel scared.

How dare he do this to me, again?!

Then he takes a breath.

“Are you sure? Think about your sister.”

I go still. He wouldn’t…

I look back before I can stop myself. Back down the aisle, to the pew near the rear of the church where Laura was guided minutes ago. She’s standing now. On her feet, small and rigid between the two women in dark dresses, her eyes locked onto me across the length of the church. Even from here I can see the panic in her face, the way her hands are gripped together in front of her.

My chest cracks open.

No. Not her. She has nothing to do with this —

I make myself breathe.

I look at Laura and I hold her gaze and I smile again, reassuring her with my eyes.

It takes a moment. Then her shoulders drop half an inch and she sits.

I turn back to the altar.

The anger is still there. It doesn’t go anywhere. It just folds itself down into something flat, cold and patient that sits in the bottom of my chest and waits. I am aware that this is probably not what my YouTube therapist would call healthy processing, but she is not here and I am.

I walk back to the altar because what else can I do?

Movement beside me. Rafael shifts his weight and turns slightly toward the priest.

The priest opens his mouth.

“A moment, Father.”

The priest slams his mouth shut for the second time.

Rafael turns to my father. “Salvatore. Now.”

The words are delivered with the complete certainty of someone who has never had to wonder whether they’ll be obeyed.

The church goes so still I can hear my own breathing.

And my father walks over.

What. The. Hell?

I watch this happen. I watch Salvatore De Luca, who built an empire on making other men small, cross the floor of this church because Rafael Caruso said so.

Since when does my father do what anyone tells him?!

They step to the side but they’re still close enough that I can actually hear them.

“She didn’t know?” Rafael’s voice is flat. “Your daughter had no idea this was her fucking wedding?”

“That’s not your concern.”

“Like hell it isn’t. I won’t marry someone who didn’t even know she was being married off.”

“She’s not against the wedding.” My father’s voice drops. “This is important for this alliance and you know that as well as her, Mr. Caruso.”

Silence.

Then Rafael leans closer and says something too low for me to catch. Whatever it is, it is brief. And when they turn back around, my father’s expression has done something I have never seen it do in fifty eight years of hard living.

It has gone careful.

Which in my father’s world is very close to fear. He returns to the front pew without another word.

Rafael comes to stand beside me.

His jaw is tight. Shoulders locked. He is angry, genuinely angry, and that alone is disorienting because men in this world do not get angry on behalf of the woman. They get angry about the deal, the optics, the inconvenience. Not this.

I don’t even know what to think.

He turns and looks directly at me, green eyes staring deep into my soul. “Do you want me to stop this?”

Yes. God, yes, obviously yes!

Every functioning part of me is screaming yes.

“You’re supposed to be my bride.” He tilts his head to watch me. “Which means you can tell me what you want right now and no one in this building has a say in that.” A glance toward the pew where my father sits. Then back to me. “So answer me honestly, Little Gia. Do you want me to stop this wedding?”

Little— Little?! I bristle.

I glare up at him.

Say yes. Gia, for the love of everything, say yes.

“If I say yes,” I bite. “What happens to my sister.”

Something flashes across his eyes.

“That’s not a yes,” he grunts.

“No. It’s not.”

He steps close enough that I have to tilt my chin up to hold his gaze, close enough that I catch his cologne again before I can stop myself.

God, he smells so good, I want to push my nose into his neck and inhale deep.

“Then understand what you’re agreeing to,” he says, quiet and even and completely serious. “Not a marriage on paper. Not separate rooms and polite distance. You become mine. Fully.” His eyes don’t move from mine. “Do you understand what that means for a man like me, Little Gia?”

Oh, if he calls me little one more time, I’m going to jail and my YouTube therapist is getting sued.

“Stop calling me little.” I snap and he just blinks, a small twitch at the side of his lips as if waiting for my answer.

“Are you trying to talk me out of this?” I frown at him.

“I’m making sure you know what you’re walking into.” A pause. “So, tell me, Little… Gia.”

Fucking bastard.

I hold his gaze. I think about Laura sitting back down in that pew. I think about my father’s face when he threatened me and the complete absence of any option that doesn’t end with her getting hurt.

“I know what I’m walking into,” I say.

He looks at me for one more beat.

“Tell the priest,” he nods toward the man.

I turn. “We can proceed, Father.”

The elderly man looks between us one more time and clears his throat before picks up where he left off.

The ceremony begins.

I hear my own voice saying the words from somewhere slightly outside my body, which has decided that a full dissociative response is the most reasonable thing it can do right now and honestly, I agree with it completely. My YouTube therapist did an entire video on this. Dissociation as a trauma response. She said to try to stay grounded when it happens, find something physical to focus on, breathe into the present moment.

She did not account for this specific situation. I will be leaving a strongly worded comment on her channel at my earliest convenience.

Vows are spoken. I hear them leaving my mouth. Rafael’s responses are even and unhurried, like he has decided to treat the whole thing as a formality to get through.

The ring comes.

I watch it happen from a slight distance, this gold band sliding onto my finger, cold at first and then warming against my skin. Heavy and uncomfortable.

Then the priest says the words. The ones about kissing the bride.

Rafael turns to look at me again and every dissociated, floating part of me slams back into my body all at once.

Oh! Shit! I forgot this part existed! Shit! Shit! Shit!

His hand doesn’t go to my face. It goes to my jaw first, thumb beneath my chin tilting it up, and then his fingers slide to my throat.

A little gasp leaves my lips at that.

Strong, rough hands wrap around my throat, and squeeze. The pressure is light enough to breathe through but firm enough that I can’t think about a single other thing in the world.

Oh lord.

His eyes drop to my mouth. Then back up. Then his lips meet mine.

I think my spirit leaves my body at some point.

His mouth moves against mine like he has all the time in the world and the rest of the room can wait, the hand at my throat squeezes once, just slightly, and I feel it light up every nerve from my jaw to my collarbone, straight down my spine. It flows down my core, into my panties, hot, wet, throbbing.

Aching. What in the world is going on?

This is a performance, I am enduring it and I will stand here completely locked down until it is over.

The sound that comes out of my mouth is small, completely involuntary and it goes directly into his mouth.

Shit.

He freezes for a second at that, growls and deepens the kiss.

I am dimly aware that I am kissing him back, aware that my hands have found the lapel of his jacket, aware that this is happening in front of three hundred people and I cannot make myself stop, and then finally, slowly, he pulls back.

He looks at me.

I gape at him, breathing hard.

My face is burning. My throat is still wrapped in the warmth of his grip. There is something in my chest that is not fear and not relief and I am absolutely not going to name it or look at it or acknowledge it in any way whatsoever.

I need a real therapist.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the priest announces, voice slightly unsteady, bringing me out of my thoughts. “Mr. and Mrs. Caruso.”

Applause fills the church.

I stand there with gold on my finger and the warmth of his hand still sitting on my throat and the absolute certain knowledge that I have no idea what I just agreed to.

And just like that, I’m married to a stranger.

Again.