Born in Blood Collection Volume 1: Collection of books 1-4

decorated the walls of the fitting room; they felt like a taunt considering the harsh reality that was my life. What was love but a silly dream?
I could feel the eyes of the shop owner and her assistants on me, and squared my shoulders before I joined my mother. Nobody could know that I wasn’t the happy bride-to-be, but a pawn in a game of power. Eventually, the shop owner approached us and showed us her most expensive gowns.
“What kind of gown would your future husband prefer?” she asked pleasantly.
“The naked kind,” Gianna said, and my mother shot her a glare. I flushed, but the shop owner laughed as if it was all too delightful.
“There’s time for that on the wedding night, don’t you think?” She winked.
I reached for the most expensive dress in the collection, a dream of brocade; the bustier was embroidered with pearls and silvery threads forming a delicate flower pattern. “Those are platinum threads,” the shop owner said. That explained the price. “I think your groom will be pleased with your choice.”
Then she knew him better than I did. Luca was as much a stranger to me today as he had been almost three years ago.
* * *
The wedding would be held in the vast gardens of the Vitiello mansion in the Hamptons. Everyone was already abuzz with the preparations. I hadn’t set foot into the house or even the premises yet, but my mother kept me up-to-date, not that I’d asked her to.
The moment my family had arrived in New York a few hours ago, my sisters and I had huddled together in our suite in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Manhattan. Salvatore Vitiello had suggested we live in one of the many rooms in the mansion until the wedding in five days, but my father had declined. Three years of tentative cooperation and they still didn’t trust each other. I was glad. I didn’t want to set foot into the mansion until I had to.
Father had agreed to let me share a suite with Lily and Gianna, so he and Mother had a suite for themselves. Of course, a bodyguard was stationed in front all three doors to our suite.
“Do we really have to attend the bridal shower tomorrow?” Lily asked, her bare legs swung over the backrest of the sofa. Mother always said Nabokov must have had Liliana in mind when he wrote Lolita. While Gianna provoked with her words, Lily used her body for that. She’d turned fourteen in April, a child who flaunted her tentative curves to get a rise out of everyone around us. She looked like the teen model Thylane Blondeau, only her hair was a bit lighter and she didn’t have a gap between her front teeth.
It worried me. I knew it was her way of rebelling against the gilded cage that was our life, but while Father’s soldiers regarded her flirting with amusement, there were others out there who would love to misunderstand it.
“Of course, we have to,” Gianna muttered. “Aria is the happy bride, remember?”
Lily snorted. “Sure.” She sat up abruptly. “I’m bored. Let’s go shopping.”
Umberto wasn’t enthused about the suggestion; even with another of my father’s bodyguards at his side, he claimed it was almost impossible to keep us under control. Eventually he relented, as he always did.
* * *
We were shopping in a store that sold sexy rocker-chick-like outfits that Lily desperately wanted to try on when I got a message from Luca. It was the first time he’d contacted me directly, and for a long time I could only stare at my screen. Gianna peered over my shoulder in the dressing room. “‘Meet me at your hotel at six. Luca.’ How nice of him to ask.”
“What does he want?” I whispered. I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to see him until August 10th, the day of our wedding.
“Only one way to find out,” Gianna said, checking her reflection.
* * *
I was nervous. I hadn’t seen Luca in a long time. I smoothed my hair down, then straightened my shirt. Gianna had convinced me to wear the tight black skinny jeans I’d bought today. Now I wondered if something that drew less attention to my body might have been better. I still had fifteen minutes before Luca wanted to meet me. I didn’t even know where yet. I assumed he’d call me once he arrived and ask me to come down into the lobby.
“Stop fiddling,” Gianna said from her spot on the sofa, reading a magazine.
“I really don’t think this outfit is a good idea.”
“It is. It’s easy to manipulate men. Lily is fourteen and has already figured it out. Father always says we’re the weak sex because we don’t carry around guns. We have our own weapons, Aria, and you’ll have to start using them. If you want to survive a marriage with that man, you’ll have to use your body to manipulate him. Men, even cold-hearted bastards like them, have a weakness, and it hangs between their legs.”
I didn’t think Luca could be manipulated that easily. He didn’t seem like someone who ever lost control, unless he wanted to, and I wasn’t sure I wanted him to notice my body like that.
A knock made me jump and my eyes flew to the clock. It was still too early for Luca, and he wouldn’t really come up to our suite, would he?
Lily dashed out of her bedroom before Gianna or I could even move. She was wearing her rocker-chic outfit: tight leather pants and a tight black tee. She thought she looked so adult with it. Gianna and I thought she looked like a fourteen-year-old trying too hard.
She opened the door, jutting her hip out, trying to look sexy. Gianna groaned but I wasn’t paying attention to her.
“Hi, Luca,” Lily piped. I walked closer so I could see Luca. He was staring down at Lily, obviously trying to figure out who she was. Matteo, Romero and Cesare stood behind him. Wow,