“I want to be alone tonight,” I say quietly. My voice sounds small and far away.
“No.”
“I know it’s our wedding night.” My stomach twists into nervous knots. “I know most people want to… you know…”
“I have a feeling most people are too drunk to consummate the night of their wedding.”
“Right. Well. Even still.” I curl into myself. “I want to be alone tonight.”
“I had nothing to do with your father’s death.”
“You didn’t stop it.”
“I was young.” He stands, pushing himself to his feet. He stares, jaw tight, and I wonder if maybe my father’s death still hurts him now. Not that it matters. He’s one of them, whether he likes it or not.
I am too now.
“I’ll sleep on Gem’s floor tonight, okay? Pretend like there’s an invisible wall keeping you downstairs.”
He looks at me for a long, tense moment, before nodding. “But just for tonight. Tomorrow, you’re my wife, and my wife belongs by my side. We have one more ceremony to complete.”
“We do?”
He brushes past me. I’m tempted to reach out and touch him, to draw him back. I don’t have to draw myself away. He’s right, he was young, and he loved my father too. Why do I keep blaming him for what his old man did?
“Tomorrow, I become the Don, and I’ll need my wife by my side.”
I twist to look at him. He stands silhouetted in the back sliding door. “I’ll be there. That’s why you married me, right?”
A long look which suggests no, that’s not right, but he only turns and disappears inside.
Leaving me alone. Married and alone.
STELLAN
The church is dark again. I walk through the graveyard with Kira on my arm. Lights flicker in the windows up ahead, strange and ghostly, not the usual electric glow of bulbs.
Candles in the sanctuary.
Kira looks incredible. She’s in a black dress, one her sister picked out. It drapes from her curves like silk. Her hair’s pulled back and braided. Diamonds glitter in her ears. She looks every inch the Don’s wife and so much more.
It’d be nice if she didn’t hate me.
I can’t focus on that. I force my mind to stay on the task at hand. I’ve never seen an ascension ceremony before, but Matteo explained the process. Words, blood, and oaths.
“Do I have to do anything tonight?” Kira asks nervously.
“Just watch. That’s all.”
“I don’t have any lines?”
“You’re only the audience.”
She makes a relieved sigh. “And after this is done, you’re the man? Everyone reports to you?”
“Something like that.”
“You must be happy.”
