✓ WICKED VOWS| JAKE (Book II )

2-Wicked Prince

JAKE'S POV

Mariano Salvatore had fucked my life with this alliance. Maybe he was my favorite grandfather, but he was also a maniac who was sixty years old and still breathing with the stamina of a forty-year-old man.

My soon-to-be wife was soon to be home.

I've already met her when I was training after the order of my grandfather. She drugged me when I was trying to stop her terapissing Jay's territory. She was dangerous, and that is what made keeping tabs on her even after stopping my training, I did not know at that time that she was the same one- the same heir of the Bratva.

We believed Ace to be a separate entity from the Bratva's princess, but we were grievously mistaken. My betrothed, the woman I thought I knew, was, in fact, the very instrument of death employed by the Bratva. She moved with the grace of a specter, rendering her elusiveness all the more difficult to endure. Tracking her became a torment, her clandestine nature a constant source of anguish. I did not get a glimpse of her whole body because my soon-to-be wife liked that time to wear a mask hiding her identity whenever she went on a mission. It was hard to keep tabs on her and her essence mattered not to me. Our union had been forged in the depths of a pact made years ago, and now it was merely my obligation to manifest it. She was but a pawn in the game of duty, she was my duty. Nothing more.

My dearest mother, Morana Salvatore, eagerly anticipates meeting her. She stands as the second heir to the Salvatore dynasty, following in the footsteps of my uncle Dante, and now, she reigns England. I am but the seed of yet another arranged union between the Salvatores and the Thenglad family. My grandfather's insatiable thirst for power drove him to seek alliances, even if they were forged through the bonds of marriage. He wanted to rule the streets of England, and because there was no main outfit in England- royalty was his fucking best choice. While the Salvatores boasted of their legitimate enterprises, their darker dealings were infamous throughout the world.

My life has been oppressively controlled ever since I emerged from high school. Despite my aspirations to pursue a career in surgery, my royal family dictated that I study business law instead. Yet, I refuse to acknowledge myself as royalty, not when I've stood alongside Jay in missions, engaged in bloody skirmishes, and tended to my uncle's Dante nefarious affairs. I've spilled blood while collecting debts from foolish capos within the Cosa Nostra. The sight of bodies has always held a morbid fascination for me, driving me to pursue a career in surgery. Perhaps I sought to dissect bodies with precision, to wield the scalpel with an intimate knowledge of the human form. Maybe I wanted to cut bodies right. Doing it the right way.

I wasn't a good man, and I worked for even worse. However, I'd learned at too young of an age that the world wasn't made up of black and white.

I was a shadow in England, in the palace- between the dukes and the best men. Amidst the esteemed dukes and noble gentlemen, I existed as a ghostly presence. They knew nothing of me beyond my profession as a surgeon. Fear whispered through their ranks because of me and my mother, of the power wielded by both my mother and myself and my little brother. Morana Salvatore was a force of madness, a maniac figure whose allure baffled even my father, ensnaring him in her chaotic embrace. I don't fucking know how he managed to love her and fall head over heels for her. He was a pure royalty prince and she was a pure mafioso princess that time before they became king and queen. Well at least, they are prince and princesses.

Ace, on the other hand, was a killing spray.

I could feel a cool shadow creeping over me, and as I glanced down at Aconite, my favorite black stallion, I realized he must have noticed my distraction. Riding him demanded my full attention; he was a horse that craved focus and connection. Aconite was not just any horse; he was a magnificent creature, the strongest among my steeds, and an undeniable attention seeker. Whenever I was with him, he demanded my undivided focus, a fact that both challenged and delighted me.