“There he is," Dante says, his feet up on the ottoman. "The blushing fucking groom."
"One more word," I say, "and I’ll put you through that window."
Enzo hands me a glass without being asked. Scotch, neat, already poured. Which means he knew I'd need it. Which also means this conversation is going to be exactly as enjoyable as I thought.
"To be fair," Enzo says, "you did look almost human up there at the altar. It was unsettling for all of us."
"I will put you both through the window."
"One at a time or together?" Dante says. "Because I feel like together is more efficient."
"Enough," Matteo says, and the room adjusts. Not dramatically. Just the way rooms adjust when Matteo Romano decides something is over. He turns from the window and looks at me. "Sit down."
I sit.
“Someone start talking," I say.
Matteo turns from the window. He looks like he always looks, like a man carrying something heavy that he's long since gottenused to the weight of. He and I have known each other since we were young and stupid enough to think this life was something you chose rather than something that chooses you.
"You're angry," he says.
"I'm thrilled. This is my thrilled face."
"Rafael."
"She didn't know, Matteo." I set the glass down. "She walked down that aisle not knowing it was her wedding. Her father didn't tell her. He just delivered her." I pause. "You knew the terms of this alliance before I did. Did anyone think to mention to me that the woman had no idea?"
"The De Luca alliance was agreed above the details," Dante says. "Salvatore presented it as settled."
"It wasn't settled for her."
"No," Matteo says. "It wasn't." He crosses to the chair across from mine and sits. "And I'm sorry for that. Genuinely. But Rafael, you need to understand what refusing publicly would have cost."
"Tell me."
"War." He doesn't dress it up. "Not a territorial pissing match. Actual war. The De Luca refusal in front of every family watching would have been read as Brotherhood weakness and you know which names are already circling us looking for exactly that. The Petrovs. The Vitali situation in the south still isn't resolved. We are holding three things together with two hands right now." He pauses. "I couldn't let you refuse."
"I know," I say.
"Then what are you angry about," Enzo says, not unkindly.
I pick up the scotch. "I'm angry that she looked at her father in front of three hundred people and said no and meant it and it didn't matter. I'm angry that she walked back to that altar anyway because he had her sister." I pause. "I'm angry that she's upstairs right now in a house she's never been in, married to a man she doesn't know, and the best I could offer her was a room in my home."
The study is quiet except for the fire.
“She sounds like trouble," Dante says.
"She's De Luca's daughter," Enzo says. "Of course she's trouble."
“Fucking hell.” I run my hands through my hair.
Matteo looks at me for a long moment.
"You're still grieving her," he says. Quietly. Not a question. "Elena. And now you've got a wife you didn't choose standing in her house, and I know, Rafael, I know what that costs." He pauses. "Of all the people in this room I understand the most why this is a specific kind of hell."
Nobody speaks.
Elena. My wife. My dead wife. Who smiled at household staff and learned every man's name and got into a car one Tuesday afternoon and didn't get to where she was going.
