Damiano - A Dark Mafia Romance

Damiano

Age 17

A fourteen year old girl should never be forced to sign her virginity away to another boy she has never even met all because of the sins of her father. A fourteen year old girl should never have to watch the light leave the eyes of her beloved mother. A fourteen year old girl should never have had to bear witness to the death of her entire family due to a war she had no say in.

I watched her from across the table.

Carina Bianchi.

Little Darling.

A girl with such a sweet name like that should never have found herself in such a fucked up situation as this one. A little darling should never have had to see so much death—so much human suffering. A little darling never should have had to watch her family be lowered into the ground one by one. A little darling shouldn’t have this life. I wordlessly gazed at her petite frame. Her body cast a shadow over the contract she was being forced to sign and her slender hands shook as she held the pen that would sign her life away. She held the shiny obsidian tip between her two fingers. Carina’s knuckles were turning white and for a moment, I thought the fountain pen would snap in half and spray ink all over the contract, ruining it forever. Perhaps that would have been the best outcome. That way it could never be signed.

Of course that was a fantasy. This was real life. This was really happening. I wrung my fingers in my lap below the table in anticipation.

Carina bit down on her lower lip, I assumed to stop it from trembling, and stared down at her lap. I could see that look on her face. I could tell she wanted to run.

“Firma.” Sign it. My father barked without a hint of pity as his blue eyes narrowed at her. He smirked. I hated that those same blue eyes looked back at my own when I looked in the mirror every morning. I hated a lot of things, me being a seventeen year old and the sole heir to the Moretti family business is at the top of the list as I watched the broken down faces of the once powerful Bianchis. Carina’s father, Santoro Bianchi can do nothing but stare down at his wrinkled dress pants as his only daughter has no choice but to sign her life away at the age of fourteen. Utterly defeated.

Fucking coward.

The only reason this is happening is because he foolishly started a war he couldn’t win. My father, Vitale Moretti owned half of Italy and all because of a deal gone wrong Santoro Bianchi retaliated. We’ve been equally as powerful and equal enemies for as long as I can remember but Santoro made one mistake.

He thought he could beat Vitale. No one ever beats Vitale.

My father was ruthless. He dealt in dirty money and he enjoyed it. He enjoyed killing and by the look on his face, he reveled in Carina’s pain.

Carina’s soft green eyes made a quiet plea to her father and he looked away. The bastard fucking looked away. I grit my teeth together. This didn’t have to happen. Santoro could’ve laid his own life down instead of offering up his virgin daughter. And he has the nerve to avoid her tormented gaze as he stares down at his pudgy lap like a pussy. Her wide eyes well up with tears that she wouldn’t allow fall as she once again stared down at the white sundress covering her thighs. One hand was on the pen. The other playing with the ruffled hem of her dress.

“We don’t have all day.” My father was clearly frustrated. I wanted to tell him to give her a break but I stayed silent. Maybe I was the coward here.

I expected her to cry and plead but when she looked back up, her emerald eyes shone with fury and her auburn hair was blazing, the fiery tendrils framing her face like a wildfire.

Men cower and tremble in my father’s presence.

Carina didn’t shy away.

She locked her angry gaze on his face and refused to look away.

“Sign, Carina.” Her father’s broken voice whispered from beside her and for the first time since I entered this small room I took my eyes away from Carina and glanced at her father. Santoro Bianchi looked nothing like the man that once threatened our family. He was a shell of a man and his shoulders barely filled out his suit coat. The same green eyes that burned on Carina’s face showed nothing but loss and regret. His empire was gone. Santoro Bianchi was a man who had lost everything-Three sons and a wife all dead and buried and now he was signing away the life of his only daughter.

I looked away in disgust and turned back to Carina. She pulled her eyes away from my father and looked down at the page. Carina thought for a moment and I watched how her eyes scanned the document. Her lips pressed into a fine line and signed her name in curvy letters on the dotted line, locking her angry eyes onto my father the whole time.

Carina Rose Bianchi

Her fate was sealed, her name permanently etched in dark black ink.

She slid the paper in front of me, the priceless document making an audible scratching sound as it grazed against the smooth glass table. She was only fourteen but even as a young girl she had a natural beauty to her. With eyes blazing at me from across the table I couldn’t help but admire her strength. If it was Carina who ran the family, maybe things would be different. Maybe we wouldn’t be here today. Maybe so many people wouldn’t have had to die.

Carina slammed the pen down on the table, never looking away from me. I briefly looked up at my father. He glared down at me, the threat ever present in his eyes. I may have been his only son but he wouldn’t hesitate to kill me. I had no choice, I couldn’t refuse. So I signed.

I lifted the pen from the table, testing its weight with my fingers, and wrote my name below Carina’s. My name sat below hers, forever linking our fate’s together.

Damiano Alessio Moretti.

My father grinned in triumph but his smile didn’t reach his eyes. It never did. The Bianchis were no longer a threat, they had been wiped out and told to stand down and my father had the perfect way to ensure of the Bianchi’s cooperation. Only a man like my father would have been able to come up with something as dark and twisted as this.

It was official then.

Decided.

Final.

As of today, Carina Rose Bianchi will now belong to me, Damiano Alessio Moretti on the day of her twentieth birthday and up until then she will be sent to a convent of my father’s choosing to maintain her purity. The word left a nasty taste in the back of my mouth.

My family owned her. She was a trophy, a reminder that you don’t fuck with the Moretti famiglia. usually I wouldn’t care—she was nothing but collateral damage, the price to pay for losing the war—but when I looked into her fierce green eyes, I knew this wasn’t right. I was angry at my father for devising such a contract but I was even more angry at Santoro who simply sat by and let it happen. Vitale offered an alternative solution. All Santoro had to do was lay down his life. Sure, Carina would become an orphan but anything was better than this. It was a fate worse than death. Santoro had always been a coward.

Carina’s eyes seared my soul. It was a penetrating icy stare that would scare any man. Carina wasn’t broken down and haunted, no, she was furious and determined. She refused to break eye contact as she stared me down. I couldn’t help but admire her. Even in her agony she was beautiful with a heart shaped face and a button nose. Her emerald eyes were speckled with gold and her lips were plump and pink. I hated myself because in that moment, I was beyond excited to own her.

I mean, how completely fucked up is it to not only own another person, but to be looking forward to it? I pushed the thoughts out of my head as she continued to stare at me. My father turned away to speak to some of his men about Carina’s transport and what she did next shocked me.

Her pretty pink lips mouthed the word “vaffanculo” in Italian.

Go fuck yourself.

I couldn’t help it, my mouth parted in silent surprise. Before I could even think to respond, the two men that my father was talking to grabbed her shoulders and lifted her out of her seat as if she weighed nothing at all. She didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye to her family as she was hauled out the door—Not that I believed she wanted to. Carina looked at her father and cousins sitting behind her with the same look of disdain she shoots my way.

“Get out of my sight.” Vitale practically growled to the rest of the Bianchis who then filed out of the little room like their lives depended on it and it did. Carina’s aunt, father, and a few cousins and uncles were all that remained of the once great family. The rest were deep in the ground.

When they were gone, he turned to me with a cold smirk that I will never forget. I desperately tried to ignore the way my bones threatened to crumble beneath his gaze. How did Carina do it?

“See? That’s how it’s done, Damiano. You fuck with us and you lose. That’s how it is and that’s how it always will be.”

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. What could I possibly say? He was right. Santoro shouldn’t have risked his family and now his daughter had to pay the price for his mistakes.

Something dark flashed in his eyes. “She’s a virgin, son. See? They lost, we won and now… now you get to reap the rewards.” He grinned and all the moisture in my mouth had suddenly left me. “Or should I say, reward?”

“Yeah.” I clenched my fingers together as I tried to still myself. Don’t show too much emotion this way or otherwise. Fall in line. Be the good son he always wants you to be.

He slapped his hand on my shoulder and laughed. The vibrato echoed in the now empty room. “Just don’t get too distracted. You have six years to wait and you need to stay focused.”

He was right. I couldn’t let that little darling drive me into the ground. I had to move on. This was something that I had years to deal with and years to wrap my head around this. It didn’t need to be handled right now. I had all the time in the world to figure this out.

I nodded and followed him out of the small room, the hallway filled with cries of despair and loss. We had all lost far too much in the war, but no one lost more than Santoro Bianchi. I averted my eyes and struggled to ignore his cries as he fell to the floor, his head in his hands, mourning the loss of his last child even though she wasn’t dead.