Rafael moves. Not away. Forward, just slightly, just enough, and he looks at my father with an expression that is completely neutral and functions as a wall anyway.
"She's busy," Rafael says.
My father's jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. "I need a word with my daughter."
"She's my wife." The same way he says everything, like the world simply arranged itself around the fact. Then he turns to me and the turn itself is deliberate, making it clear to everyone watching. "Do you want to speak with him?"
What in the world…
I look at my father's face. The controlled impatience there. The thing underneath that says this conversation is happening regardless.
"It's fine," I tell Rafael. "I won't be long."
Something passes through his eyes. Not satisfied. But he steps back, and I follow my father toward the dark edge of the tent where the music becomes muffled and no one can read lips.
My heart is already going faster because nothing that begins with my father pulling me into shadows has ever once ended well.
He doesn't ease into it.
"The alliance you just entered is strategic. You understand this."
"Of course." What else has any of it ever been.
"What you don't understand yet are the specifics." He glances once toward the crowd. "I'm working with Killian O'Rourke."
The name hits me like cold water to the face.
Killian O'Rourke??
"We're seeking revenge for your brother's death," he continues. "The Romanos will pay for what they did to Vittorio."
The Romanos. Rafael's people.
He built this entire thing. He planned every piece of it. The marriage, the timing, all of it, and at the center of it is me.
"Your role," Salvatore says, voice dropping to that register that means he has already decided and is simply informing me, "is to act as my eyes and ears inside the Brotherhood. Everythingyou learn as Rafael's wife. Meeting schedules. Security details. Weaknesses. All of it."
Is he kidding me right now?!
"No." Flat. Absolute. "No."
His hand closes around my arm, fast and hard, hard enough that I know exactly what my skin is going to look like tomorrow. "This is not a negotiation, Gia."
"I won't spy on my husband." The word is still new and wrong in my mouth but I mean every part of what I'm saying. "I won't do it; I don't care what you?—"
He pulls out his phone and puts the screen in front of my face.
Laura.
A room I don't recognize. Plain walls. One small window. Two men at the door not hiding what's under their jackets.
I have been scanning this entire reception for her. Every corner, every table, every shadow at the edge of every tent, and I could not find her because she was never here. She was never brought to the reception at all. While I was standing at that altar, while I was letting Rafael put a ring on my finger, my father already had her somewhere else entirely.
He took her before any of it started.
You absolute?—
"She's safe," Father says, in the voice he uses when safety is a condition not a promise. "For now. As long as you cooperate, Gia. Any disobedience?—"
