Chapter 3 Arthur's Fiancée
The next day, Arthur sat in a café.
"Sir, here's your latte. And this piece of cake is on me." A shy waitress set down the cake and stepped back.
Arthur gave a slight nod — polite but distant — and turned his eyes back to the TV.
A few waitresses huddled together nearby. "Oh my god, he's so handsome."
"Sally, go for it! Just say something!"
Arthur's attention stayed on the news.
Last night, Erin had raided the address where the Iron Curtain's leader had been hiding and made the arrest without a hitch.
That was just an opening gift.
Erin's case was moving along smoothly. Arthur's side, however, had hit a small snag.
His gaze shifted to the new intel his right-hand man Victor had just sent over.
He had put together a perfect cover identity for this job working alongside his sister at the Anti-Gang Bureau.
Maybe a little too perfect.
He'd just found out that this fake identity came with a fiancée.
Apparently, this "Arthur" had gone to prison at a young age. The girl's family had cut ties out of embarrassment over the scandal. Then the real Arthur's entire family died in a plane crash, and the investigators his team had assigned to vet the identity had no way of knowing any of this.
Recently, though, the girl's family had apparently remembered the engagement and started asking around at the prison.
Victor only found out through an informant.
"Arthur's" fiancée was Lillian Genovese — eldest granddaughter of the Genovese family. Twenty-six years old. Harvard Business School graduate. Currently running the family's port trading business. Sharp, capable, and strong-willed — one of the family's chosen heirs.
According to the background check, Lillian was also a pretty cold-blooded executive who had never been in a relationship.
Not because she didn't want one. Her family had arranged this marriage for her when she was very young.
The match had been with the Pruitts, a prominent family. But years later, the entire family was killed in a plane crash while traveling together. The only boy, "Arthur", survived — because he was in prison at the time.
Reading that line, Arthur felt a strange, disorienting jolt.
By all rights, the Genoveses could have walked away from the engagement without any consequences. But the old patriarch couldn't bring himself to abandon the only surviving son of a dear old friend. So he held to the agreement. And all these years, Lillian had never dated anyone — just waited for a fiancé she had never met to get out of prison.
She's a good woman. She deserves someone good.
Arthur made up his mind. He would call off the engagement.
The Genoveses were holding a family meeting, as they often did.
They had just received word that Arthur — the man Lillian was engaged to — had requested to come by.
"Hmph. He's probably here to leech off us."
"We'll throw some money at him and send him on his way."
The Genoveses weren't the biggest family around, but they had standing in Long Island. Being engaged to a convict was a humiliation. They had figured the whole thing was dead once Arthur went to prison — but apparently he still had the nerve to show up.
"Shameless. There's no way Lillian is marrying someone like that. When he gets here, we need to make that very clear." Lillian's father was furious.
Her mother's face had gone red too. "Father never should have agreed to this in the first place. The Pruitts were ungrateful. No wonder they all died in that crash — they had it coming."
The rest of the family piled on, taking turns tearing Arthur apart.
The old patriarch, Santos Genovese, was too frail to say a word. He just looked quietly at his granddaughter.
Lillian, dressed in a sharp business suit, was busy worrying about a cash flow problem at the company. The engagement was the last thing on her mind.
"Uncles," she said, "you moved funds without authorization. The company's cash flow is already broken. You need to fix that. Now."
They gave her awkward smiles. "Lillian, that can wait — your engagement is what matters right now!"
"Actually," said her uncle Cody, "I have an idea that could solve the company's money problem. Since Arthur is coming anyway — what if you break off the engagement with him, and instead get engaged to the heir of the Oren Group? They're willing to invest and help Genovese through this rough patch."
"Genovese does not work with smugglers," Lillian said flatly.
"Lillian, don't be ridiculous — Oren is a legitimate overseas trading company."
Lillian laughed coldly. Everyone in Long Island knew that Oren was controlled by the Gambinos.
"Santos, talk some sense into her," Cody snapped. "If we don't take Oren's money, the next time our shipments get tampered with, it won't just be drugs they plant — it'll be bodies." He raised his voice. "I tracked down that fiancé of yours. Took some doing. The plan is simple — we get him to take the fall for us."
"Take the fall?" Lillian's brow furrowed. So that was why all the uncles had shown up. They had an agenda.
"What's the matter, Lillian? Feeling sorry for him?" Cody sneered. He turned to her father. "You raised quite a daughter — she's got a soft spot for a killer."
Her mother chimed in. "Lillian, Arthur is already a criminal. Going back to prison is no great loss for someone like him. A man like that should have died in a gutter somewhere. He ought to be grateful we'd even use him for something."
"Don't waste your sympathy on a murderer," Cody said. "Trash like that belongs back where he came from. I looked into him — he spent years in solitary. God knows what he was up to in there."
One by one, the family kept tearing Arthur down. Lillian's frown deepened with every word.
Then a servant appeared at the door. "Arthur is here."
"Good. Send him in." The Genoveses had plenty of anger to spare.
"I heard you've been looking for me."
When Arthur walked in, the light in the room seemed to dim.
He didn't do anything deliberate. He just stood there, his gaze moving calmly from face to face.
The Genoveses, who had been ready to pounce, found themselves suddenly, inexplicably still.
As the godfather of Europe, Arthur didn't have to try. Everything about him — the way he stood, the way he looked at you — carried the quiet pressure of someone who was used to being in charge. The Genoveses had spent years living under the shadow of organized crime. That particular kind of fear was in their bones.
"You're Arthur Pruitt?" Even Lillian — sharp, unflappable Lillian — looked like she couldn't quite believe it.
