He puts a hand up to his head and almost stumbles, so I have to grab at him and help him to a chair. “What I’ve been reduced to,” he whispers. “What I’ve done to try to protect this family…”
“It’s okay, Pops,” I say brightly. “What’s done is done. And Luca D’Amato is as good a husband as any. He’ll keep me safe.”
I’ve never told anyone about my history with Luca, about the meet-cute brush with death that’s haunted me these last five years. I get the feeling if I look happy about this marriage, it’ll end with a bullet shattering my grin, so I’ve been trying to stay somber the whole week.
Inside, though, I feel like I’m getting everything I ever wanted. Maybe Luca’s right, that man who is going to be mine by the end of the day. Maybe if you pray hard enough, you get what you want in life.
Mom still died, though, didn’t she?
Our guard Marco stays silent on the ride over, and so does Pops. He doesn’t even look at me, and I’m busy chugging the mini-vodkas stashed in the limo fridge. Normally he’d give me alook, but not this time. Not today. When we pull up at the chapel, I see Luca and Tino Morelli have only just arrived as well. When I see my intended, my heart leaps. Luca wanted to go in before me, wait for me at the front, because his Italian machismo wouldn’t have it any other way.
I don’t carewhenI get down that aisle, just as long as I do.
“We should circle—” Pops starts.
“No. Let’s just wait here.”
“You,” Pops snaps at Marco. “Get out. We’re here, aren’t we? And I want a word with my son.”
The guy hesitates, but then gives a coded knock on the privacy window, and the locks snap open to let him get out of the car, then shut again once he’s on the sidewalk, waiting.
I can’t take my eyes off Luca. He’s dressed in a white tux just like mine, only where my vest is the golden-green of olive oil, his is frosty blue. His black hair is slicked back with an Elvis wave at the front that makes me smile. And by the way he’s tugging at his jacket, he’s nervous.
Tino says something to him, and Luca pats himself down frantically until Tino, laughing, holds up a box from his own pocket and puts a fatherly hand on Luca’s shoulder.
The rings. I wonder what they look like. I didn’t get a say in that, only had my finger measurement taken in among all the other activities of the last week.
“That scheming asshole, Morelli,” my Pops growls, and I turn to look at him in astonishment. I’ve never heard words like those pass his lips before. He’s always been the perfect, polite gentleman, even when the Mob collectors came around for discussions. “This is his doing,” Pops continues, glaring out the window at him.
I’m glad those windows are tinted dark when the two of them, Luca and Tino, glance over to where our limo has parked. They look away, confer with heads together, and then go into the chapel.
“He saved my life, Pops,” I remind him. “Morelli, along with D’Amato. I was supposed to die there in that dirty warehouse.”And on account of you, I think, but don’t say.
“Don’t you go into this thinking you owe those bastards anything,” my father insists. “You hear me? You’re a Donovan. You’re above them, and you make sure you act like it. Any inside business they let drop, you bring it back to me, to yourrealfamily. You hear me?”
I swallow. Pops and I have never been close, especially after the hit that took out Mom. He withdrew from us all, even Maggie, who was always his favorite. I’ve never asked the question, and officially my mother’s death is still unsolved, but I can’t see what else would make my father hate a man he’s never metthismuch.
“Was it them? The Morelli family? Who killed Mom, I mean.”
Pops looks away. “You come to me with any information you gather. It’s important, Howie.”
“I will, Pops.”
“And don’t you say a word about our family business. You hear me?”
“I hear you.” I don’tknowanything about the family business, so that’s one command that’ll be easy enough to follow.
We’ve been sitting here at least five minutes since Luca and Tino went in. I don’t want to wait any longer to start my life with the Devil D’Amato. “Come on, Pops. Let’s go.”
Chapter Ten
LUCA
The only thing I remember about the walk down the aisle is the cool, heavy feel of the guns holstered under my tuxedo jacket. Frank is waiting down there for me as my best man, his eyes scanning the crowd, and Marco joins him at the last minute as another of my groomsmen.
During the course of this last week, Tino suggested Sam and Joey to make up a quartet of attendants to mirror Finch’s number, but I told him I’d rather not be knifed in the back at my own wedding. He laughed like I was kidding, but he didn’t push the issue.
But when Tino deposits me now in front of the celebrant, my reality becomes wider than self-preservation. It finally hits me: this is my wedding. A wedding I never thought I’d have, and when it comes down to it, a damn sight better than any wedding I expected.
