Page 172 of Claimed At First Sight

The name takes a second to register.

“The Donnellys?”

“Yes.”

My stomach drops. They’re the family my father pledged me to.

The warmth of the dining room does nothing to stop the chill spreading through me.

“And the younger one who looks like he’d break someone’s bones for fun?”

“Shay Donnelly, the heir to the Blackthorn Syndicate.”

Oh God. He’s my supposed fiancé.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Mialina

Ice floods my veins as I take in Shay Donnelly. Back in Sicily, Maximo told me he was thirty-five, but he looks somewhat older.

There’s something about him that makes my skin prickle. That violent edge I’d noticed earlier isn’t my imagination. Now that I know who he is, it seems impossible to separate the man from the future my father once planned for me.

I shudder.

“The other guy is his younger brother, Malachy,” Maximo explains before I can ask.

He seems less aggressive, but men raised in families like theirs rarely are harmless.

“They know who I am?”

Maximo lets out a dry laugh.

“Mialina, every major criminal organization on this continent knows who you are by now.”

I grimace. “That isn’t comforting.”

“It wasn’t intended to be.”

The bite I just swallowed settles like a stone in my stomach. I’ve completely lost my appetite.

Why are they here?

When Maximo first told me my father had signed a marriage contract with the Irish, the whole thing seemed ridiculous.

Then Mateo uncovered evidence. A note in Father’s spreadsheet beside my name stated that the contract had been signed on October eighth.

Still, it had felt surreal, like a story someone had invented. Why would the Chicago Irish Mafia want ties to Sicily?

But with the Donnellys sitting a few tables away, assessing me, it’s becoming real far too quickly.

What if they attempt to kidnap me and force me to fulfill the contract Father signed with them?

I will my pulse to steady. I’m letting my imagination run away with me, aren’t I?

Yet, I can’t seem to stop it.

“Should we leave?”