Ruthless Vows

RUTHLESS VOWS MAFIA ROMANCE VENGEANCE & VOWS BOOK 4 HOPE STONE ALSO BY HOPE STONE Vengeance & Vows - Mafia Romance Series Book 1 - Ruthless Vengeance Book 2 - Ruthless Guardian Book 3 - Ruthless Betrayal Book 4 - Ruthless Vows Outlaw Souls - MC Romance Series Book 1 - Ryder Book 2 - Pin Book 3 - Trainer Book 4 - Blade Book 5 - Diego Book 6 - Colt Book 7 - Moves Book 8 - Butch Guardians Of Mayhem - MC Series 1 Book 1 - Finn Book 2 - Havoc Book 3 - Axle Book 4 - Rush Book 5 - Red Book 6 - Shadow Book 7 - Shaggy Guardians Of Mayhem - MC Series 2 Book 1 - Hawk Book 2 - Maverick Book 3 - Mustang Guardians Of Mayhem - MC Series 3 Book 1 - Gunner Book 2 - Stunt Book 3 - Mickey Book 4 - Breaker Book 5 - Rip Book 6 - Crow CONTENTS Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Epilogue Leave A Review Also By Hope Stone 1 ISABELLE Isabelle sat with her arms crossed over her chest, not caring that she probably looked like a petulant child in a public place. What she couldn’t understand was how her whole family was sitting at this table, acting like this was a happy occasion. To an outsider, it might seem like it should be. She was meeting her fiancé’s family tonight. It was the kind of thing that usually called for a celebration. The problem was that she was meeting her fiancé for the first time too. The stranger that her father arranged a marriage with was going to walk through the door any moment, and she wasn’t looking forward to it. “Stop sulking, Isabelle,” her brother Nico said, taking a seat across from her at the table. “It might not be that bad. I don’t think that Dad would have made this agreement if he thought that Declan would treat you badly.” Isabelle glanced toward the head of the table, where her father was deep in conversation with her stepmother. Joe Costa was also the new don on the Italian mafia. He’d been a capo in the organization for a long time, but when the old don, a lunatic that had always scared Isabelle, died, her dad wasn’t immediately the next in line. No, he needed help to secure the position. He got that help from the Irish mafia. They’d been enemies for as long as she could remember, but her dad somehow made a deal with the head of their syndicate. With the Irish supporting him, he got power in exchange for making an alliance. But this kind of thing could be shaky, with a lack of trust on both sides. So, her father and the head of the Irish mafia decided that uniting the families was the only way to make sure that everyone fully committed to the alliance. So, here she was, the only daughter of the new don, about to be married off to Declan Walsh, the younger brother of the head of the Irish mafia. A man she’d never met, but had heard rumors about. He was a notorious playboy. Isabelle was furious when she found out about the marriage. It was almost a week ago and she’d barely spoken to her father since. It wasn’t just that he was willing to trade away her future for a position in the mafia as if she was possession of his, something to be bartered. That was upsetting, but the deeper betrayal came when she tried to refuse and he’d threatened to pull funding to her animal shelter. Isabelle had opened a no-kill shelter two years ago, and the place meant everything to her. She’d always been an animal lover, and her father knew that. He’d given her the start-up money, and since there wasn’t much cash to be made in housing unwanted animals, he also gave her the funds every month to keep the place running. It wasn’t some wildly successful business, but she didn’t care. It was important to her. It was also her weakness. So, when she was given a choice between marrying Declan, which would keep her shelter going, or not marrying him, which would result in having to close the place down, she felt that it wasn’t really much of a choice at all. Still, she resented her dad for it. “I can’t believe that they agreed to meet here,” Isabelle’s sister-in-law, Lily, said as she took a seat next to her husband. “I was sure they’d insist on going to their own territory. Or at least someplace neutral.” “I think they’re trying to show just how unafraid of us they are,” Nico said. “They aren’t even hesitating to come to a restaurant owned by the Italian mafia, as if we weren’t at war just a couple of weeks ago.” “Why would they need to prove anything to us?” Isabelle asked. “They are our allies now.” “That doesn’t just immediately erase decades of building tension and hostility. Mancini is dead, but there are others that hate the Irish because they’re bigger and more powerful than us.” So, Isabelle was being offered up at the sacrificial lamb to help ease that tension. She didn’t like that one bit. The conversation continued with her brother and his wife speculating about who would fall in line easily and which members of the mafia would be pissed about this alliance. Isabelle was barely listening. She was too nervous about meeting her fiancé. Her brother was probably right, No matter how upset she was with her father’s decision, she had to believe that he wouldn’t go through with this if he thought that she was going to be in danger with her future husband. But what