Chapter 4: Veiled Vows: Chapter 4

A marriage proposal.

Something like that was due to pop up in my future, but I’ve been clinging to a small hope that my father’s greed would prevent him from looking at a union with another family. Why I have to be the cost of that union is an archaic belief I’m too tired to work out. When I was younger, my mother spoke about arranged marriages with glee. It was, after all, how she met my father. I shared the same delight until I grew up and developed crushes on the boys at school.

Then there was my masked rescuer. Ever since I met him, no other man has ever come close. No matter how often I tell myself that loving someone I know nothing about is pointless, my heart doesn’t listen.

She wants what she wants, and I’m the same.

Still, having only two days to process the news that I’ll soon be wed to a stranger for the sake of family stability and money isn’t long enough. I took the news as gracefully as I could at breakfast, but it sits heavy in my chest like a knot of tension I can’t shake.

“You’re going to want to look your best,” Bianca says cheerily as she tosses another silk gown through the curtain at me. “Not just because of the party but because you’ll be meeting your fiancé!”

“I haven’t said yes yet,” I remind her as I strip out of the current coral pink dress and slide into the yellow gown she’s offered me.

“It’s not your decision, dear,” Bianca reminds me. “It’s your father’s.”

“You’re really okay with this?” Sticking my head through the curtain, I hold it closed with both hands and stare at her. “I feel like I’m a goat being traded for crops.”

“Don’t be so dramatic.” Bianca touches my cheek and smiles. “You’re not a goat, and this is as much a business decision as it is personal. I remember when I met your father, I thought he was the most brutish, arrogant man I ever met. But then I had you.” Her smile warms. “And you are my greatest achievement.”

It’s difficult to stay mad when she says things like that, even though I know it’s just her tactic. I can never tell if it’s accidental or intentional, but she excels at guilt-tripping me. I disappear back behind the curtain and finish zipping up the dress.

“Do you know anything about him?”

“I think his name is Frank,” Bianca replies. “He’s in the powder business.”

Drugs. Great.

“Anything else?”

“Hmm. He had a sister who passed away last year due to some dreadful illness and since then, his family has been lacking a certain feminine touch.”

My heart sinks, but I force a smile as I open the curtains and display the dress for my mother. She immediately winces, shoves me back inside the dressing room with one hand, and thrusts a black gown at me. “Try this one.”

“What if I like the yellow?”

Her eyes narrow. “Don’t be silly, dear, trust me.”

Rolling my eyes, I close the curtain and once again switch dresses. “What do you mean his family has lost their feminine touch?”

“You know how it is with men. They need us women to keep certain things in line, like the house and the staff, that sort of thing.”

“But what about business?” I stick my head through the curtain once more. “Didn’t you ever want to be involved in the real business?”

“Oh no.” Bianca shakes her head quickly. “I don’t need that kind of stress in my life. And neither do you, dear. Remember. Wrinkles.”

I roll my eyes once more and listen to my mother hum, signaling the end of the discussion. With everything going on with my family, my reasons to decline this proposal are minimal. My father doesn’t admit it, but I’ve seen our books. We’re fighting on the front against the Gattis for control over weapons trading and trying to reclaim the shipping routes that kept us ahead for years. And at the back, we’re trying to rip a good portion of the drug trade away from the Yakuza as revenge for my kidnapping—that turned out to be just them being middlemen. If we could ignore the Yakuza, the Gattis would be wiped out in days.

But we’re stretched thin, and my father refuses to give in. Which means this new family I’ll be marrying into may be the one thing my father needs to finally make a dent in this war. Zipping up this dress, I step out from the curtain.

“Mom?”

“Oh, darling! You look absolutely beautiful.” She steps up to me with her eyes sparkling. “If we paired this with a baby pink sash and some pink jewels, you will look stunning!”

“Mom, why are we still pressuring the Yakuza?”

Her expression falls. “Really? We have to do work talk here?”

“Please?”

“I don’t know. Old wounds run deep, dear. You know that. Your father is a very … proud man and after what happened to you, he wants to make them suffer.”

“But it was eleven years ago, surely they’ve paid enough.”

“You know I didn’t sleep for months after you were taken?” She clutches at her chest briefly. “Even to this day, I need my pills to keep everything calm.”

My mother’s drifting thoughts and terrible anxiety are difficult to deal with, I know. And knowing I’m part of the cause makes it even worse, but I wish there was a part of her that could give me a real conversation. A part of her that wasn’t drowned in decades of pill use and alcohol to calm her nerves.

“But the real culprit was Santino, correct?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Then why⁠—”

“I don’t know!” she snaps shrilly, clutching at her chest once more. “Your father just does things without a care for anyone else, so why would I know? All I care about is keeping you safe, understand? Anything else doesn’t matter. I don’t care about anything else.” She reaches for me and cups my cheek, smiling a watery smile. “Nothing else matters.”

“Okay,” I murmur softly, taking her hand. “I’m sorry.”

“You know better than to upset me,” she titters, shaking her head. She moves away to her bag discarded on the couch, and my stomach sinks at the rattle of pills. “We’re taking the black dress. Please go tell the seamstress.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Jasmine!” My best friend Catherine surges up from her seat and throws both arms around me while kissing my cheek. “I was beginning to think you couldn’t make it.”

“Sorry, sorry. I got caught up in dress shopping with my mom. You know what she’s like.”

Catherine, ever the diligent friend who’s waited hours for me thanks to sudden interrupting plans from my mother, gives a knowing nod and retakes her seat. “How is she?”

“Oh, the usual. Ignoring everything important, more concerned about the Mancini family party than anything else. Sometimes I wish I was more like her. She always seems so disconnected from everything important.” Sitting across from Catherine on the balcony, I briefly close my eyes to the cool rush of air from a nearby fan. “I wonder if that’s my future.”

“Don’t be silly,” Catherine scoffs, sliding a glass of white wine toward me. “You’re too headstrong to be floaty like your mother. You’d sink like a rock.”

We laugh and exchange pleasantries in front of the waiter who takes our lunch order, and as soon as he leaves, I lock eyes with her. “Were you invited?”

She lifts one brow. “You’re asking if I, the daughter of a grunt, was invited to the Mancini party? Girl, if only.”

My heart sinks faintly. “You never know, the Mancinis always surprise everyone by changing the guest list every year. I live in hope that one day they will recognize you.”

“I don’t.” She drinks deeply and relaxes back. “Anyone under the eye of a Mancini is under twenty-four-hour scrutiny, to which I say no thank you. There’s a certain freedom that comes with being a nobody.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Oh! But show me your dress! Did you get one?” She leans forward eagerly, and her eyes light up when I pass her my phone filled with countless pictures of my chosen dress. “Oh wow, you look so beautiful! The black is so stunning with the pink. Excellent choice.” She winks at me.

“Thank you,” I chuckle. “I have to look my best because my parents have decided twenty-six years old is long enough.”

“How do you mean?”

“I’m getting married.”

Catherine chokes on her sip of wine and spends a few minutes coughing frantically while hitting her chest. It gets to the point that I almost get up to help her until she waves me away. “Oh my God,” she croaks. “Sorry, that took me by surprise. You’re getting married?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“To who?”

“No idea. I’ll meet him at the party next week.”

“Wow.” She pours herself another glass and tops off my own. “You know, in any other circle that would get you some really strange looks.”

“Well I’m lucky I have you.”

“Too true.”

“I just …” Nibbling softly on my lower lip, my attention drifts away from the table and out toward the bustling city that has no idea we exist. Planes streak across the deep blue sky, distant car horns and screeching brakes rise above the soft music playing across the balcony speakers, and very distantly the sharp bark of a dog reaches up to us. Normal, busy life where the people of New York have no idea or care about my turmoil.

Catherine waits patiently for me to gather my thoughts while our food is served, and her attention remains on me even as she carves into her steak.

“I still think about him,” I say after a moment, spearing a meatball onto my fork but not eating it.

Catherine’s smile turns sly. “Your mystery man?”

“Yep.”

“The man you haven’t seen since you were fifteen.”

“That’s the one.”

“You know, normally I’d play along with you and your mystery man fantasy but …” Catherine sighs softly as her smile warms. “He is just a fantasy. And I know whoever your parents have picked out might be awful, but at least he’s real, y’know? You deserve someone, Jasmine. You deserve a real person to make you feel good and take care of you, to be there for you and love you. Your mystery man can’t do that because, well …” Around a mouthful of steak, she rolls her eyes. “He’s basically a ghost if someone like that is even alive. I mean who charges into a Yakuza den wearing only a T-shirt with no care for his own life? It’s kind of crazy. Plus, if what you said is true and that some of his tattoos were definitely Yakuza, then he’s probably dead for being a traitor.”

“Wow, shitting over my dreams after I buy you lunch?” I tease with a laugh. “Remind me not to invite you next time.”

Catherine laughs and shakes her head. “Listen, I’m just saying. Your mystery man is all good and well for a fantasy, but you can’t chase that forever. You deserve someone real. Look at me and Seth. He loves me, he cares for me. I have a sexy man to cuddle at the end of a long day, someone to cook me breakfast in bed and more. You deserve all of that, is what I’m saying.”

She’s right. And I know she means well because as sweet as Catherine is, she rarely says anything she doesn’t mean. I’ve been chasing this fantasy since I was fifteen years old and it’s gotten me nowhere.

Not a single hint of his existence beyond my dreams.

But that doesn’t dampen my determination to find him. Even if he is dead, that kind of closure would surely help me in the long run just as much as finding him would. Can I really do that while married to another man?

“Just think of the bigger picture,” Catherine continues.

The bigger picture.

Marrying a stranger doesn’t mean I have to love him or even care for him. But it could strengthen the family enough to finally end these ridiculous wars with the Yakuza.

Then, and only then, will I have the freedom to search for what I really want.

My mystery man. Alive or dead, I will find him.

“You’re right.” I raise my glass and offer it to Catherine, who raises her own with wide, surprised eyes.

“What are we cheering to?”

“Marriage,” I grin, clinking our glasses together. “And the opportunities it brings us!”