The daysbefore the wedding blur together into a nightmare I can't wake up from.
I try to talk to Luca, try to find moments when we're alone, when I might be able to explain or apologize, and somehow make him understand. But he avoids me with a skill that borders on supernatural. He’s always busy when I'm around, always leaving rooms just as I enter them, and always, always finding reasons to be somewhere else.
When avoidance isn't possible, when we're forced into the same space for wedding planning or family dinners or the endless parade of preparations that come with getting married in the Ciresa family, he's cold and infuriatingly polite. He answers questions with the minimum number of words required, and he doesn't look at me unless absolutely necessary. He treats me like a business associate he's forced to work with, not like the woman who's carrying his child.
Not like someone he used to fuck and make love to and everything in between, someone who touched me with passion and lust and tenderness depending on the night. It’s as if all ofthat has vanished, and all that’s left is a shell of the man who once devoured me. Like I’ve devoured him now, instead.
The wedding planner asks us questions about our preferences—flowers, music, the first dance—and Luca defers to me on everything with a flat "whatever Giulia wants is fine." It’s clear he doesn't care. To him, none of it matters because the wedding itself is just a formality, a legal requirement that has nothing to do with love or any of the things weddings are supposed to represent.
He’s doing it to save his life and the shreds of my family’s reputation. None of this is for me or for us.
Romeo tries to mediate, but Luca shuts him down every time with a polite but firm refusal. "There's nothing to discuss," he says, some version of it each time Romeo tries. "We both know what this is. There's no point pretending otherwise."
The days pass, and the wedding gets closer. The distance between us grows wider until it feels like we're standing on opposite sides of a canyon that no bridge could ever span. I lie awake at night, my hand pressed against my stomach where a life is growing—a child who will be born into this catastrophic mess and grow up with parents who can barely stand to be in the same room together. I wonder what kind of mother I'm going to be, what kind of life I'm going to be able to give this child when I can't even fix my own.
It feels hopeless. I want to mend things, to let Luca know how sorry I am, but he doesn’t want to hear it.
And it seems as though nothing I can say or do will ever change that.
18
LUCA
The only thing that can salvage the wreck of my life is throwing myself into work. So that’s what I do. And thanks to Giulia, there’s no shortage of it.
I sleep as little as I physically can. I keep trying to figure out how I'm supposed to survive the next seventy years married to a woman I can't stand to look at now. When I’m alone in bed, I can’t sleep anyway—all my thoughts are of those nights in the club with Giulia and the night I found out the truth, fluctuating wildly from painful arousal to anger and a confusing mixture of the two. I can’t even fucking jerk off without thinking of her, so instead I exist in a frustrated liminal space between fury and unfulfilled lust. My body hasn’t stopped wanting her, and I’m around her more than ever, but all the emotion I can feel for her is an anger so deep it feels like it’s settled into my bones.
And the shockwaves of what she’s done have caused consequences that go far beyond my own feelings.
When the news goes out, there’s a brief calm before the storm. Gossip circulates, or so I’m told, and the focus is mostly on that at first. But then, the news spreads out to the smallerfamilies and, once they’ve had a little time, the consequences begin to become clear.
About a week after the announcement, some of the men come back with reports that protection money isn’t being paid. Instead of maintaining the flawless schedule that they’ve been on for years, without fail because of the threat that the Ciresa family poses to those who don’t fulfill their obligations, our men are sent away with promises that the money will be paid soon.
Dante is furious when he finds out. “I want an example made,” he tells Romeo and me in his office when the news is brought to him. “I want a dead man. I want it done in a way that the others won’t test me a second time. You two take care of it. I don’t trust anyone else to see that it’s done correctly at this point.”
It’s not just trust, and I’m well aware of that. This is him making me deal face-to-face with the consequences of what’s happening. I’ll have to get blood on my hands, literally, and while I’ve done that plenty in the past for the Ciresa family, this feels more personal. This blood is being shed because of Giulia’s decisions, her lies, and my inability to see through them.
I can’t argue that it should be me. I hate that Romeo is being dragged into it as well, though I know it doesn’t affect him. All I can think about is what Giulia would think if she knew, and how badly I want her to find out, to see the extent of what she’s caused.
Romeo calls me into his office the next morning at six a.m. "We have problems," Romeo says without preamble when I walk in. He's standing at his desk, a map of Brooklyn spread out in front of him, red circles marking various locations. "Multiple problems. And they all started the moment word got out about your engagement to Giulia."
I move closer to the desk, studying the map. The red circles are concentrated in three areas—all Ciresa territory. All places where we collect protection money and run operations.
"What kind of problems?"
"People think Dante's losing his grip." Romeo's voice is flat, but I can hear the underlying tension. "They think a don who can't control his own daughter might not be able to control his territory either."
The words land hard, because I know—we both know—that this is my fault too. I wanted Valentina to be real so badly that I didn’t pay attention to signs that, looking back now, I should have seen. I believed that she was telling me the truth about not being able to get pregnant because I got lost in the pleasure of it all. Giulia might be a liar, but I was a fucking idiot.
"Give me specifics," I say, forcing myself to focus on the work, on the problems I can actually solve.
Romeo taps the first red circle. "The Rossi family has been moving product through our docks without permission. When Vitto and his crew confronted them two days ago, they laughed in his face. Said that maybe the Ciresa family is too busy with wedding planning to notice what's happening in their own backyard."
The disrespect is staggering. The Rossi family is small—maybe thirty made men, another fifty associates. They’re mostly involved in loan sharking and gambling. They've never had the balls to challenge us directly before.
"What did Vitto do?"
"Nothing. He reported back to Dante and waited for instructions." Romeo's jaw tightens. "But the fact that he had to walk away from that confrontation without doing anything is already a problem. Word spreads fast in this business."
