Man, sometimes I wish the day started with a visual preview. Because had I known that taking Michelle’s shift would lead to this, I’d never have accepted. As it stands, I’m never doing her another favor for as long as I live—that is,ifI live through today.
I notice an open bottle of champagne sitting in an ice bucket on the table by the three-piece mirror. I wonder, absently, ifthey’ll let me chug that before they kill me. If I’m gonna go, I certainly don’t want to go sober.
Cheers, to an untimely death.
GIULIO
If at first you do not succeed, pull the trigger and kill the obstacle in your way… or marry it.
Right now, I wish someone—anyone—would simply put a gun to my head and do that very thing. Several wedding attendees shift in their seats, a few glancing back over their shoulders as they wait for the wedding procession to start. The pianist, an older, skinny man whose name I’ve already forgotten, leans heavily against the massive pianoforte, his head tilting to one side as his eyes slide shut and then jolt open when he nearly topples onto the keys.
Fan-fucking-tastic. Even the hired help is falling asleep before the wedding has begun. The doors at the end open so abruptly that several attendees look back expectantly. I straighten, ready to get this shit show on the road,finally, only to be greeted with disappointment when instead of Isabela Ariotti, my soon-to-be wife, I spy Otello, one of my captains.
Dressed in a dark gray suit sans tie at his throat, he offers a nod to a few of the wedding guests as he hurries straight up theaisle toward me instead of taking a seat.What the hell is going on?My scowl deepens.
The moment he draws near, I pivot away from the priest and snarl at him. “Whatthe fuckare you doing here?” I demand, lowering my voice in deference to Father Paulo’s sensitivities. “Where is Isa?”
Otello’s throat bobs at the vehemence in my tone, and his face blanches for a singular moment before he sucks in a breath and lowers his face. “There’s been a small problem, Signore,” he whispers.
Problem?That problem better be getting her ass down this fucking aisle in the next ten minutes, or I swear to God… I’m at the point where I have to wonder if marriage is worth the headache this woman is giving me. We aren’t even married yet, and I’ve considered every viable way to murder her. “What kind of fucking problem?”
My eyes dart to Father Paulo, but much like the pianist, the old man—with his snow-white hair carefully coiffed back from his face—appears dazed. I sigh and turn back to Otello with expectation.
“So, uh, the problem is… Isa’s been killed.”
I blink.
Of all the things I expected him to say—that Isa had thrown a fit about her wedding dress not being as elaborate as she’d wanted, or her makeup wasn’t perfect, or the shoes weren’t the right color, or her damned bouquet was dying too fast—it was not that the damned girl was dead.
I reach up and pinch the bridge of my nose.No, no, no.This wasnotsupposed to happen. This marriage couldn’t wait anylonger. Don Luciani had left for the old country two weeks ago to visit his own ailingfratello, the brother of his heart, with one request: that I be married upon his return.
It was just like the traditional Italian man to make such a casual demand with very little actual time to fulfill it. Or perhaps he thought this was his only recourse, considering I’ve been far more involved in running the shipping company than actually finding a wife, despite his repeated comments on the topic. In his eyes, a man who has no family has nothing to lose and nothing to protect. If I want to continue to act as his second—and soon, his son’s—then I need to form a “family” of my own—starting with a wife. And now my only potential bride is dead.
Fuck. Me.
Dante, Luciani’s son and my best friend, steps closer, arching one brow as he lowers his own voice. “What’s going on, Otello?”
Despite being around for as long as I’d been alive plus some, Otello easily turns in deference to Dante. But before he can speak, I reply.
“Isa can’t be dead.” The words come out of my mouth in a clipped tone. “Don Luciani gets backtomorrow.”
Dante’s eyes widen. “Dead? Fuck.” He looks to Otello. “I’ve already told him that Giulio is going to introduce his bride as soon as he gets back.”
Otello looks about as happy with the news as a turkey trussed up for a feast. “She was shot point-blank in the chest and forehead in her dressing room,” he says. “We have no idea who the culprit could be, or how they managed to get past security.”
Though Isa may have been annoying, her connections within our world—her sexual partners, in particular—weren’t high-profile enough to make her a target. So her death can only mean one thing. Someone is attempting to prevent me from continuing on in Luciani’s organization. I knew some of the old codgers find my presence distasteful—what with my subpar background and half-Italian lineage—but to kill Isa? A low growl rumbles out of me.
No doubt, coming after me directly would have been more difficult than getting rid of Isa and ensuring Don Luciani removes me from my position for failing to follow his command. No oneshouldhave been able to get to Isa… I lift my head and scan the waiting wedding guests. Everyone here knows the reason for this wedding. I narrow my eyes at the crowd.
There are several men and women seated in the pews of the small chapel. Many of their heads are bent to one another as they chat amicably and curiously cast their glances our way. There’s no hiding the fact that something is wrong now.
Isa is missing to them and dead to us.
If I could kill the annoying woman myself, I would bring her back to life simply to do just that. I can’t say I enjoyed the idea of tying myself to Isabela Ariotti—vain, money-hungry, airheaded woman that she was—but she’d been perfect for a mafia man’s wife. She knew the score, knew not to expect my attention, knew that her role would be to play the doting wife, to bear a child and begin the family that Luciani wants from me. She was perfectly happy accepting my money and the security I’d give her in exchange, but now none of those things matter, because she’s dead.
Dante nudges me, disrupting my less-than-happy thoughts. “Go with Otello,” he orders. “I’ll deal with the wedding guests.”
“They can’t leave,” I say suddenly. “The wedding must go on. I have to be marriedtoday.” Even if I have to drag some unsuspecting woman off the street and force her to be my wife.
