I DO?

“Ready?” Dona Pante guffawed at the sight of the pretty young girl trying to act brave. “You look like a lamb ready for slaughter.”

A very beautiful, delicious lamb, if he could add.

Damn. He had only seen the picture of Bethany's daughter before the whole fiasco. He had no idea she was so… Beautiful.

A hungry leer slid into Dona Pante’s gaze as he approached the trembling bride. Such beautiful pale skin. Those eyes. And good heavens those hips!

“You know, Dominic,” He chuckled, glancing at his son. “If you do not want her, I would not mind a fourth marriage.”

Denise blanched in shock. She had figured that the older man was Dominic’s father when he approached. He looked way older, old enough to be her grandfather. What on earth did he mean by a fourth marriage?

She glanced at Dominic to see him shrug nonchalantly and felt the anxiety she had been fighting, claw at her chest making it hard to breathe.

She could not marry a man three times her age! Now marrying Dominic did not seem so bad.

“I did not agree to that,” Her mother walked out behind her, eyes red from sobbing but a steely gaze in her eyes.

Dona Pante grinned at Bethany. While the daughter reminded him of an innocent little lamb ready to be devoured, her mother was a stallion. A beautiful, unbridled stallion that he wanted to break so bad.

“I don't see how that matters right now, Bethany. Last I checked, you have no say in this. You are at our mercy.”

“Are you going to give her a lecture?” Dominic groaned, looking even more impatient. “Or are we going to fucking go already?”

Denise curled her lips at the smoky voice of the man who would be her husband in a matter of hours. How could he speak so brazenly without an ounce of shame?

His touts grabbed her and her mother by the arm and began dragging them separately. Denise realized in alarm that they were being taken into separate cars.

“No!” She screamed, writhing against the tours and refusing to get into the car. “I want to be with my mom! I want my mom!”

Dominic watched the scene in surprise and disgust. She was crying for her mother! Like some pathetic preschool kid. What the fuck was wrong with her?

Her screeches were loud and to their amazement, Denise seemed to put up a fight, kicking and flailing her legs at the men trying to solve her in the backseat of a Bentley.

“Let me go! I want to be with my mom!”

“Bring her mother over here,” Dominic ordered, tired of the whole shenanigans.

Dona Pante tossed his son a scathing look. The latter shrugged.

“I'm not listening to her screams the entire drive home. Give her, her mother and we can all have a nice fucking day.”

“You ought to show her who the boss is,” Dona Pante said, glaring at Dominic. What on earth was happening? His son was brutal. Hell, he was the most brutal of his three sons. And that was saying a lot considering a newspaper had once referred to all three of them as the “Sons from hell.”

“She's currently in a wedding dress, to be my bride, against her wishes,” Dominic replied, a bored look on his face. “She has to be pretty stupid if she doesn't know who the boss is.”

He tapped the Bentley roof hard causing Denise to jump. “Get in. Your mother will join you and you will not cry, or sniff or whimper, or say another fucking word until we get to the church. Understood?!”

Her pretty eyes stared up at him even wider. She nodded vigorously and scrambled into the backseat. The henchmen dragged her mother and shoved her in as well.

And so it was settled.

“I'll see you at the church, Father,” Dominic told his Dad and swung into the driver's seat. He drove off spewing dust in the air.

Dona Pante scoffed at the arrogant lad but a tiny smile curled his lips. The Pante mansion was bound to be even more lively after this. Wonderful.

He slipped into his car and drove off as well. Four henchmen watched their bosses drive off without them. One of them sighed. The bosses always did that. Another went to fetch the minivan they had used in abducting Denise Gravel. They all lumped themselves into it and followed the cars.

All the way to the church, Denise and her mother held each other.

“It's okay. It'll be fine. Trust me. It will be fine.” Bethany whispered soothingly, stroking her daughter's hair.

Denise simply buried her face deeper in her mother's arms, trying to fight the tears. Her husband had demanded that she keep shut and frankly, she didn't want to find out what he would do if she drove him mad.

It won't be fine, she shook her head, lips quivering as she tried to fight back the tears. Nothing would be fine. This wasn't how she had wanted to get married. She remembered discussing it with Osas, her best friend. She wanted to fall in love, to have a marriage filled with light and laughter.

If that was going to happen, then she was off to a really rough start.

After a long hour of driving, Dominic drove through the gates of Dona Pante's mansion. The huge black gates had the name “Pante” written in gold romanized letters. It felt like a warning to anyone lurking that they were heading into dangerous territory.

There was a huge driveway, a large expanse of well-cultivated grass, and waterfalls before the mansion spread out rather vastly across the land. To Denise, it looked like something out of the sound of music.

Except she knew, there would be no music.

She had thought they would be going to a church, and well she wasn't wrong. The Pantes had a church in their mansion. A church that had the rest of the Pantes, Dominic's brothers and their wives, and the priest.

With a lot of yelling from Dominic, Denise and her mother got ushered out of the car by guards. They dragged Bethany off, leaving Denise standing outside the Bentley, looking terrified.

Dominic watched her and groaned. This was fucking happening. And he was going through with it.

Damn it!

He reached for a flask of vodka that he saved in his dashboard, twisted the cap, and took a heavy swig for good measure. The alcohol burned his throat and he threw his shoulders, preparing himself.

“Let's go get married,” He hollered at Denise, stepping out of the car and slamming the door with a force that had her jumping in fright. “Wife,”

He grinned, grabbing her arm roughly.

Alcohol breath slammed against Denise's face and her eyes widened. She took note of the flask in his hands and felt her stomach drop.

“Y-You're drinking?”

He cackled at the look on her face. “Why? Don't like it? Do you think I'd willingly marry someone like you? Trust me, I don't want this as much as you don't. But it has to happen, yes?”

“It doesn’t-” Her words got lost in a choked sob when his grip on her arm tightened. Pain drifted down her arm.

“It does. And welcome to hell, baby. I am going to make every single fucking day of your life, a misery.”

“No,” Denise whispered, tears stinging her eyes. They fell freely when he yanked her forward. “Let me go. I don't want to marry you! Let me go.”

“It's too late for that now, lamb,” Dominic grinned, taking another drink of his vodka while he dragged his bride down to the church.

It was a small room with a red carpet in the middle, a podium for the priest to stand, and decorated with flowers. It was more of a marriage hall than a church. The Pantes did not waste time with prayer and sermons. But they always wanted a priest every time they had a marriage to officiate.

Said the priest standing on the podium, trembling visibly. His face was white with fear and he constantly wiped his face with a napkin. To anyone, he looked uneasy. Why?

Perhaps because two guards were flanking the podium and a few minutes before Denise got dragged into the wedding hall, they had a black pistol pointed at the priest, daring him to move and he would be called to God sooner than he expected.

They had tucked their guns away when Dominic dragged his bride in.

Denise walked down the aisle staring at her mother who stood close to the priest, sobbing. Just the day before, her mother had suggested that she leave Charlytown and go for a better job other than bookkeeping.

She had quit her job at the bookstore just the day before.

And now-

“Do you, D-Denise Gravel, take Dominic Dona Pante, to be your wedded husband, before God and man?”