Chapter 18
DANTE
“ H e must be pissed you still have two functioning hands. Being groomsman is going to be a blast,” Leon says, his lips curved in a humorless smile as he waits beside me in the vestibule of the church.
I can’t bring myself to stand next to Ettore until I absolutely have to. I spoke to him briefly on arrival and shook his hand. He didn’t ask about the bruises on my face. I didn’t volunteer the information.
His three brothers are clustered around him.
Cosmo is a fuckwit with a different mother and the youngest by ten years.
Bosco is between Ettore and Cosmo in age and a capo, while Edoardo is five years older than Ettore.
I have heard he will be formally announced as underboss today, and his son, who is a few years older than me, will take over from him as capo.
The last man in the cluster is Rocco. Informally adopted by the late Gallo Sr., he’s the least abrasive member of the family and has always handled Ettore’s finances. I heard he will become a consigliere today.
I have no issue with him, but he’s not consigliere material.
“This is a farce. I’m just expected to act as his best friend while he marries my woman. He hasn’t even trusted me with the rings.”
“My woman?” Leon muses. “Something more than a chat went on between you for you to adopt such a strong choice of wording.”
He’s not wrong.
“And to be fair, I wouldn’t trust you with the rings if I were him,” he continues when I don’t give him anything.
“Right. I’d have dropped them down the nearest drain.”
Her firsts belong to me.
I don’t want to be here. The memory of what happened between us, and her response to it, is both a balm and a wound. I’ve been able to convince myself he might not have touched her yet, but after tonight, I won’t have even that much.
Christian enters the door beside us. “Leon, you’re up.”
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Leon says, clapping me on the shoulder. “He’s got more security than the president. You’ll be dead and the wedding will still go ahead. Only then she will have blood over her dress.”
He heads outside. With Cedro’s health still so fragile, he asked Leon to walk Carmela down the aisle.
The two families were close at one point, as were ours.
But it’s not like he’s going to ask me to perform that honor.
I’m surprised Cedro asked Leon, but maybe he sees him as neutral given he’s been out of the picture for so long.
I do the only thing I can, make my way to the front, standing to the right of Edoardo, who stands to Ettore’s right.
CARMELA
“My beautiful daughter.”
The tears shining in my father’s eyes are not only about me as he shakes Leon’s hand and tells him to take care of me during the short walk down the aisle. He’s thinking about my mother, his wife, and the woman he lost. One who will not get to see her daughter’s wedding day.
He goes ahead, with Rocco, soon to be consigliere, pushing his wheelchair to the front, leaving me alone in the entryway with Jessica, Helena, and her mini-monster, who is ripping petals from her bouquet and tossing them to the floor.
Leon’s eyes narrow on Peony. “Control your child, Helena.”
The look Helena sends his way is pure venom, but at least she calls the child to her side.
Jessica clutches my hand like a lifeline, or maybe I’m the one holding hers.
The ushers call us to take our places. Jessica, Helena, and Peony are at the front. Leon and I are behind. It has been three years since I last saw him, the occasion being his father’s funeral.
“You look stunning, sister of my heart,” he says.
He always called me that when I was little. Never having a big brother, I looked up to him in that way. He seems different—nothing I can put my finger on, perhaps a little harder… which makes no sense when considering his lifestyle has been one of indulgence over the last three years.
“Thank you… How is your mother?” I ask for want of distraction. “Sorry she couldn’t join us.”
“She sends her love,” he says smoothly. “And her apologies. She loves you dearly, but I’m sure you understand how difficult it was for her to consider coming back.”
“Of course.” After his father was killed, Leon left with his mother, younger brother, and sister immediately after the funeral. I thought I would never see any of them again. “And thank you for doing this.” My smile feels forced. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too, little sister,” he looks away, his expression distant.
“With hindsight, I wish I’d come back sooner.
” His eyes return to me. On the surface, he’s the epitome of a handsome playboy, yet with his eyes on me, I see in them the source of his hardness.
“Your father’s intentions are good, but he really screwed you over. ”
His bluntness shocks me.
The music begins. It might as well be chalk scraping over a chalkboard.
Jessica sends me a final look before she walks forward with Helena and her child.
Leon reaches to lower my veil, leaning in as he settles it into place... “Stay strong. This is fucking him up as much as you, but for now, there is nothing that can be done.”
Him? For now?
There is no time to ask. We’re walking forward, his words rattling around my mind, shaking up a cocktail of emotions and setting hope and hopelessness to war.
DANTE
The first notes of the bridal song are like a punch to the gut and a rush of adrenaline all in one handy shot.
I tell myself the best thing I can do is give Ettore nothing more to gloat about.
I keep my eyes straight ahead, aware of her approach on my periphery, of Leon formerly offering her hand and stepping back.
And so begins the service. It’s long and every minute feels like an hour. My pain medication wears off after a while and that offers a distraction. I don’t look at her once. Leon’s don’t do anything stupid advice plays like a mantra in my mind.
Is this some sort of divine test of character?
Am I passing?
Am I missing something I could have or should have done?
I have no answers, only a rage boiling in my gut and Leon’s words of guidance in which to trust.
CARMELA
Why is Dante standing with Ettore?
His presence is like a magnet to my eyes. Not looking at him represents a challenge of the highest order, but I can’t, not today, not now. If I do, I will give myself away.
I told myself I could get through this if I didn’t have to see him.
If I didn’t have to be reminded of what should have been mine.
Instead, my mind is full of static, and my thoughts bounce between the memory of Dante pressed against me, making me come for him, and the later memory of Ettore pushing me to my knees.
Why didn’t I tell my father no? Why was I complicit in a marriage that felt so wrong?
“This is fucking him up as much as you, but for now, there is nothing that can be done.”
Oh, Leon, why didn’t you come home sooner? Papa trusts you like the son he never had. Maybe we would never have found ourselves in this mess if you had.
Time rushes by, taking me ever onward and forward, and I want to stop it, to get off the ride, one that delivers me to Ettore’s bed.
Only there is no stopping this nor avoiding the consequences of the words I stumble over.
I’m enshrouded in my own world while the veil is down, connected yet disconnected from the ceremony taking place.
But then it’s lifted, and there is no hiding anymore as Ettore leans in to kiss me.
I’m married.
I’m still praying to wake up.
I don’t.
As Ettore steps back and the congregation cheers, my eyes slam straight into Dante’s.
My breath catches in my throat. God, what has happened to him?
DANTE
It’s over.
Done.
Her veil is lifted.
My fingers curl into fists as he leans in to kiss her. And despite all the prior coaching, when he steps back, I look.
Beautiful. Sad. Anxious, too. Looking at her is like taking a blunt knife to a barely healed wound. A glint of light catches my eyes. There, against her skin, nestled in the hollow of her throat, is a pink heart-shaped diamond pendant.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t see.
It’s like every sense in my body shuts down and then wakes to a thunderclap.
Mine.
And just like that, I know I’m going to do something really stupid.
CARMELA
The music begins, and I’m swept away into an annex where we will sign the register.
Dante comes with us. But of course, he does, along with Helena, Ettore’s older brother, and my father.
My vision is coming through a tunnel. The dress didn’t feel tight when I first put it on, but now I can barely breathe.
Helena’s laughter is high and bright, and she is leaning all over Dante.
My hand shakes as I sign. I pass the fountain pen to Ettore. One by one, the witnesses add their names to the paper until, finally, it’s Dante’s turn. My eyes are fixed on the blank space left for him. His hand is steady as he writes his signature, the ink sealing my fate.
The white shirt he wears underneath his suit peeps out at the cuff, revealing a distinct splatter of blood.
My eyes snap to his, my heart galloping again.
If he feels my eyes on him, he doesn’t acknowledge them, already stepping back, straightening out the cuff, taking the blood out of sight.
Helena’s laughter grates on my fragile nerves, pulling me back to the now.
Ettore takes my hand.
“Congratulations, Carmela,” my father says beaming.
Something terrible has happened. I plaster on a smile for my father. “Thank you, Papa.”