Forbidden Temptation My Mafia Fiance's Alpha Father

Chapter 21

Chapter 21 Brooklyn

"I have to marry someone, Brooklyn," he says with a shrug, his voice laced with defeat. "This is not a world where what I want matters. And with you? Well, at least I know we get along, like the same things." I huff out a laugh at this.

"I mean, you were really upset when we broke up!" Hudson continues, trying to be upbeat. "And I really am sorry about what happened in the coffee shop. But isn't it kind of weird that we found each other out there on our own anyway, and we were engaged the whole time? It's kind of like...fate."

"It's not fate, Hudson. It's fake," I say, looking at him with all of my pain on display. I can't help it—he was my first love, and he totally betrayed me, and now here he is asking me to jump right back in?

"I don't want a mate who is unfaithful to me," I say, spreading my hands out in emphasis. I lower my voice

to a hiss. "And I don't want a husband who is into men, considering I'm a girl. Do you really want us to be

in a fake mating for the rest of our lives? Just because it's what your dad wants?"

"Please, Brooklyn," Hudson says, his eyes skittering for the door. "I get that you're upset-"

I nod fervently at this.

"But seriously, that's not something we can talk about there. Please." He turns worried eyes to me, and

I'm surprised to see true fear in his face. "You've got to promise to keep it a secret."

deal? It's the twenty-first century-it's so backwards to think that

he says, shaking his head and looking down at the floor. "It's a different world here. That's why I spend so much time outside of it, at school,

100 years old, maybe more. And tradition is everything; family is everything. If I don't get married, don't have kids to carry on the family line...not only will they consider me a failure, but it will cause massive chaos in the city as the other bosses try to grab what my dad has built. What

face, feeling for him. He's trapped,

am I trapped

know what they do to people like me?"

my head "no," not even wanting to imagine

he says, "make them denounce their sexuality, who they are, and if they do it again, they...they mutilate

"One of the other Alpha's sons. He shamed the family and..." Hudson shakes his head again,

ask, horrified for him. "Why not just

heir to my father's game. If I run, they'll find me. If I defy expectations about the kind of life I'm supposed to life-mate, family, taking a role in the organization, they'll... Weff,

at his little play on words.

this all sucks," I say, and he laughs at my understatement.

to me today-made me give up everything I love,

at me,

they want? Why

get it, Brooklyn," he says. "You

world now,

say quietly, realizing it myself for perhaps the first time. "She ran from my father, stayed away.