Page 4 of The Mafioso’s Bride

My dress cuts under my arms. The netting moves against my cheeks with every breath.

Tardigrades can enter a dry state called a tun.

My name comes from the priest. He asks if I come here freely.

Papa sits ten feet away, his stare pinning me.

I want children. A kitchen where nobody yells. A little girl who can tell me her dress hurts, and I will believe her. A little boy who can eat the same meal every morning, and no one will smear other food across his mouth while people laugh.

Giuseppe’s fingers close around mine again.

This is the price.

“Giada?” the priest says.

I force air into my lungs and open my mouth to answer⁠—

The church doors slam against the walls.

Men shout behind us.

The priest ducks. Guests scream and spill from the pews as armed men flood the center aisle. Men in black coats with raised guns fill the aisle.

Giuseppe drops my hand.

Gunfire tears through the church.

He runs.

Luca

Giuseppe Lombardi vanishes behind the altar while his guests dive under the pews. I fire once at the man covering his escape. The bullet catches his shoulder and spins him into a row of white flowers. Giuseppe reaches the side door and disappears into the sacristy.

“Dario,” I call.

Dario vaults the altar rail and goes after him with two soldiers. Mattia plants a boot on the fallen man’s gun and kicks it away. “Down. Everyone stays down.”

The last loyalist with a weapon takes one look at the rifles aimed at him and sets his pistol on the stone floor. Gun smoke burns the back of my throat. Women cry beneath the organ loft. Men who entered this church certain of their strength now kneel between the pews with their hands on their heads.

At the altar, the bride hasn’t moved. She stands where Lombardi left her. Her veil has slipped sideways. She pinches the skirt of her dress while her other fingertips tap against her thumb in the same order, over and over.

Her father isn’t in the front pew anymore. “Rafinelli?” I ask Mattia.

He scans the sanctuary. “Gone.”

Antonio chose his exit well. Giuseppe did too. The route was prepared before today. They expected trouble, and we underestimated them.

Dario returns through the sacristy door. “Tunnel to the rectory garage. A car was waiting.”

Dante points toward the sacristy. “Lock down the rectory garage. Get me the car’s make, plate, and route.” He turns to Mattia. “Find Rafinelli. He doesn’t leave the city.”

Dante faces the kneeling loyalists and takes stock of what remains.

We came to seize Giuseppe Lombardi and deepen the insult by taking him on his wedding day, at the altar. We accomplished half of it.

Fuck. Lombardi will call this an attack on a holy ceremony. He’ll turn escape into survival and survival into victory.

Dante won’t give him the chance. His attention moves from me to the bride, then returns to me.