Dearly Betrayed: A Fake Marriage Mafia Romance, page 1
Dearly Betrayed
A Fake Marriage Mafia Romance
BB Hamel
Contents
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1. Fallon
2. Jayson
3. Fallon
4. Fallon
5. Jayson
6. Fallon
7. Jayson
8. Fallon
9. Fallon
10. Fallon
11. Fallon
12. Jayson
13. Fallon
14. Jayson
15. Fallon
16. Jayson
17. Fallon
18. Fallon
19. Jayson
20. Fallon
21. Jayson
22. Fallon
23. Fallon
24. Fallon
25. Jayson
26. Fallon
27. Fallon
28. Jayson
29. Fallon
30. Jayson
31. Fallon
32. Fallon
33. Jayson
34. Fallon
35. Jayson
36. Fallon
37. Jayson
38. Fallon
39. Jayson
40. Fallon
41. Jayson
42. Fallon
43. Jayson
44. Fallon
45. Jayson
46. Fallon
Preview: Marriage of Sin
Also by BB Hamel
Copyright © 2024 by B. B. Hamel
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Chapter 1
Fallon
“Are you willing to do anything for the family, Fallie?” My brother stands with his back to me staring down at Papa’s grave, the dirt freshly turned. It smells like wet leaves and cut grass in the cemetery. Ancient oaks drip rain. Twenty feet away, several soldiers for the Grady Clan stand guard, their compact submachine guns barely hidden under their large overcoats.
My breath fogs the air faster as my heart races, but the answer’s easy.
“I’ve been doing that my whole life,” I say, stepping up beside him. I tug my rain jacket tighter around my body. The sun’s only just beginning to poke out from behind the clouds, and Papa’s been dead for two weeks now. He would’ve enjoyed a morning like this. “Why stop now?”
“This won’t be easy.”
“Nothing’s been easy since Papa died.” The wound of his funeral still burns barely a week after it ended.
I still wake thinking I can call him, hear Papa’s craggy voice, laugh at his cussing and his stupid jokes, get a smile on my face knowing he’s still there.
Now he’s gone. Body mangled to pieces, torn to shreds, his old, brittle bones ripped through with jagged pieces of hot steel. Dead like so many Irish men before him. Not coming back.
“This will be worse.” Rian turns away from the grave and folds his hands behind his back as he walks along the shaded path. I fall into step even though I want to stay behind with Papa for a while longer. My older brother is the acting clan chief now, and he’s due some respect.
“Worse how? Not sure it can get any harder.”
“We’re ending the war, Fallie. And you’re going to help do it.”
I stare at him in surprise. Rian still won’t look at me. He’s tall, this brother of mine, with dark hair and dark eyes, sharp cheeks, an Irish nose, skinny and pointed. An intense stare, like he’s always seeing his own death marching toward him. Always been like that since we were little. Like he’s got one foot in the grave and he knows it.
“Why?” I ask, genuinely curious. The war against the Costas has been dragging on for months and months now, one of the bloodiest confrontations my family’s gotten involved with in my lifetime. Too many dead friends, cousins, and now a father. Too many of our people to avenge to stop now.
“First, I want you to understand something. I haven’t forgotten Papa. I’ll never forget what they did to our father, God rest his soul in paradise.” Rian crosses himself, stoops his head. We move slowly down another path between looming concrete edifices consecrated to the saints.
“God rest his soul,” I echo. “I never said you would, anyway.”
“We’ve all sacrificed in this fight, and now I’m going to ask something of you an older brother should never ask of his sister. If there were another way, I’d find it.”
“What’re you about to make me do, Chim?” My old nickname for him, short for Chimney, since he’s skinny and tall, and it’s like there’s always smoke coming from his ears on account of him being so damn serious all the time.
He still won’t look at me. “The Costas want a gesture. They need proof that we’re serious about this peace thing, and in many ways, I agree with them. A big gesture’s the only way we’ll end it without more killing, and I’m tired of the killing. I’m tired of losing the people I love, and we’ll keep on losing if we don’t stop this now.”
My feet go numb like I’ve stepped in a puddle. I slow, losing a step, as he pulls ahead. “Rian. Just get it out. Say what you’ve got to say.”
Surrounded by the dead, headstones like pale teeth rising from the earth, my brother stops and looks directly at me for the first time in an hour. “You’re arranged to marry Jayson Costa. That’s the deal I struck with Adler. We agreed it’s the best way to solidify this truce and to make sure the cycle of revenge doesn’t continue on forever. New life in place of old death.”
I don’t know what to say. My jaw works and I stare at that familiar, serious face, pale now. Strained with pain, even. Five years older than me, big Chim. He’s been a mystery since I was a girl, always keeping to himself. But like me, he wanted to please Papa. Everyone wanted to please Colm Grady, most of all his children. Now we’re setting aside our beloved father’s memory for this. For some flimsy peace built on my own damn womb.
“You’re joking,” I finally manage to say.
“I’m not. I’m sorry.”
“Jayson Costa? The actual man that killed our father? You want me to go off and marry the fucker that did our Papa in?”
“Yes. I do.”
“Fuck you.” He doesn’t react. I step closer. “No. Seriously. Fuck you. There’s no way on God’s green earth I’ll ever marry Jayson Costa, not for any fuckin’ reason. You hear me, Rian? Absolutely no fuckin’ way.”
I’m so livid I could scream. My ears turn red, my cheeks flush, and my vision swims. My own flesh and blood, trying to sell me to a murdering bastard, to the piece of trash that caused this nightmare to begin with. It’s a waking nightmare.
“You have a choice,” Rian says as if I hadn’t just cussed him out in a graveyard. God forgive me, but I’m not at my best. “You always have a choice, Fallie. This isn’t what I wanted, God knows it, but we all sacrifice. We do what we have to for the clan.”
“Fuck off,” I say, waving a hand in the air. “Did you marry some foreign girl? Did you marry the woman that murdered your own father? I don’t think so.”
“No, you’re right. I know this is asking a lot. But if you think I haven’t sacrificed, you’re even more blind than I thought.” Rian steps forward, staring at me, his usual mask cracked a touch. The sorrow in his expression feels like a hammer against my spine. “I married the gun as a lad. I grew up killing and waiting to die. That’s still all I know. The pride of the clan. My life for the blood. Then Papa dies and I’m named chief, and now I’ve got to find a way to end this madness before more of our people die and we end up wiped out completely. You think I like talking with those American bastards? God damn them, Fallie, I want to kill them all, but swallowing my pride’s all I can do.”
“More like selling mine.” I know it isn’t fair. I can tell it hurts him the moment the words leave my mouth, but I’m so damn mad. “I know, it’s tough, the boys go out and fight while the women stay behind to suffer through it all. Only you’re not asking me to pick up a gun, Chim. At least that would be doing something. No, you’re asking me to give myself away to some bastard I hate for the rest of my life. You know that? Might as well kill me now.”
He’s silent. Only stares at me. I breathe hard, sucking in air. Why the hell’s this happening? Now of all times? I’m still gutted from Papa’s death, barely holding on to my sanity, clinging to the clan tighter than I ever have before, and now Rian’s asking me to do something so sick and twisted it makes me want to puke my guts up.
It’s an impossible choice.
All I have to do is give myself away to a monster and I can save everyone I know.
Well, fuck.
When I start to think of it like that, I soften a touch. I’m still pissed, but I turn and pace, ignoring the soldiers Darragh and Padraig as they studiously pretend not to notice me. Did they hear about this? Might’ve, since Padraig’s close with Rian, and Darragh’s his cousin. The fuckers came to my execution. For my own protection.
“How do you know it’ll work?” I t
“They could,” he agrees. “But we have other deals in place. Business relationships that’ll tie the families tightly together. The marriage is the last step.”
“You’re serious about this. I expect you’ll be wanting some nieces and nephews?”
“They’ll be Costas. I’d rather you didn’t.”
I stare at him, eyes wide, then burst out laughing. His lips press together in a grim smile. It’s not really funny, but hell, I’m too fucked up to care.
“It’ll save the clan, huh?” I calm myself and lean against a huge pillar attached to the mausoleum. “What a fucking pitch.”
“I know, Fallie.” He leans next to me. “I hate it too.”
“And if I say no?”
“We’ll find another way. Maybe one of the cousins. I was thinking Quinnie.”
I groan, looking up at the sky. This manipulative bastard knows what he’s doing. Cousin Quinnie, four years my junior, barely out of university, shy and quiet and skinny little Quinnie. “You’ve gotta be fucking joking.”
“There aren’t many options right now, you know, and it’s got to be someone close to the heart of the clan. If not you, then Quinnie. If not her, then Orla, and if not her, well, I’ll find someone.”
“Fuck.” I rub my face with both hands. There’s not much anger left. I keep picturing shy little Quinnie in a wedding dress sold off to those American bastards, her big eyes bugged out and terrified, her little head of tight curls bouncing up and down as she’s dragged into some brute’s wedding bed.
Fucking bastard, Rian. He knows what he’s doing, putting that image in my head, but it isn’t a lie. He’ll go to Quinnie next, and she’ll be too spineless to say no.
“It’s all fucked, no matter how it goes.” Rian gazes out over the graves. “I don’t want it to be you, either.”
“There’s got to be another way.”
“We’ve been discussing it since Papa died. This is the best we came up with.”
“I’ll hate him. You know that.”
“I know.”
“I might hate you a little bit too.”
“I know. Another sacrifice for the clan.”
I groan, squeezing my eyes closed, and sink down to the ground. I sit with my knees pulled to my chest. My ass gets damp from the rain-slicked concrete. Rian sits next to me, posture slumped and exhausted.
We sit in silence like that for a while. I think of Quinnie and all the other Grady girls that’ll be dragged into this if I don’t say yes. A dozen good girls, virgin girls just like me, except they don’t have the choice like I do, and I’ll have to live with what happens if it’s one of them instead.
The clan gets what it needs in the end, whether we want it to or not, and if I can save one of my little cousins from this fate then I’ve got to do it.
Better me than one of them. Better suffer in hell than live with the guilt.
I’m strong. I’m Papa’s daughter. I learned to survive a long time ago, and if anyone’s going to make it through this miserable situation, it’ll be me.
“Alright, Chim,” I say, looking at him. “Sell me to the Americans.”
“Alright, Fallie. The wedding’s in three days, and I’ll be there the whole time, I promise.”
Some fucking comfort that is.
Chapter 2
Jayson
“You know it’s got to be this way.” Adler stands behind me as I lean against the balcony railing. Dozens of stories below, the ocean crawls against the sand like a gray tongue. That damn water stretches forever, crawling with strange life. An entirely different planet, upside-down to ours. Right about now, I’d rather be down at the bottom of the sea than having this conversation.
“I was there fighting the damn war,” I tell him, not turning around. I swirl a glass of whiskey as the cold ocean breeze blows through my lightweight cashmere sweater. I’m in all black, head to toe. If anyone asked, I’d say it’s a mourning thing, but truth be told I’m always dressed like this. One less choice to make if there’s only one color in my wardrobe.
“Which is why it’s got to be you. Besides, the rest of us are already married.” Adler comes up beside me and stares straight ahead. My big brother, the head of the Costa Family, the entire operation resting on his shoulders. He’s only two years my senior, but the stress makes him seem older. Gray streaks his beard and his hair. Lines spiderweb around his eyes.
“Must be nice,” I say even though that isn’t fair. My brothers got married long before this choice had to be made. “You can’t blame me for not wanting her.”
“The girl’s pretty, from what I hear.”
“I don’t really care about that.”
“I know. I’m trying to come up with something that’ll take the edge off.”
I grunt at him. I don’t want to be smoothed over. I don’t want the pain to dull, not right now. I’d rather down this whiskey, throw the glass into the sky, and follow it down. “They murdered Jackson. They killed a dozen more of my soldiers.”
“You killed their patriarch and a couple dozen of their cousins and brothers. That’s how these wars go.”
“He was my best friend.” I grip the railing tight enough to turn my knuckles white.
I can still see him bleeding in my arms. Coughing up crimson, his lips splattered with it. Grinning, showing red-stained teeth. I’ll be alright, man. I’ll be alright. Trying to comfort me in the end when we both knew he was fucked. That’s the kind of friend I lost. More like a brother, more like a piece of my soul.
I should’ve been the one gagging up my life on the floor of some shit Italian restaurant, not him.
Adler raps his ring finger against the railing. “I know you’re still hurting over it, but if you don’t do this then the fighting keeps going. If that happens, we lose more friends, more family. You really want that?”
“You know I don’t.”
“Then marry the girl.”
“Fuck her. And fuck the whole Grady Clan.” I take deep breaths. The salty air smells like seaweed mixed with the rotting kelp stench of the bay.
Two years of killing. Two years of fighting, of blood in the streets. For over ten before that, I ran the European division of our family without any problems at all. I kept confrontation to a minimum. Fighting is bad for business. We were profitable, raking in money from rich Russians, wealthy French diplomats, loaded English bankers, all while successfully building a shadow empire.
I was confident. The continent was poised at my feet. Ready to prostrate itself.
At least until we expanded into Ireland and the Grady Clan decided they’d had enough.
War doesn’t make money. Every smart businessman knows it. Only the gun makers and the generals want war—everyone else is better off cutting deals instead of killing each other. I tried to avoid an outright conflict, but the Gradys felt like it was either push me from their turf or lose their way of life.
Two brutal, ugly years. So much was lost, and for what? I’m still where I was at the start of it, still managing my Irish properties, while the Gradys lick their wounds and offer this joke of a peace agreement.
I’m expected to sacrifice myself to make sure it holds.
Even though they started this fucking miserable fight.
