5. Carmie
Chapter 5
Carmie
I stare at the wedding dress hanging on the back of my closet door.
“What do you think?” Luca asks. He’s lounging on my bed and grinning at me.
Daniel’s in the door, arms crossed. “Dad almost didn’t want you to have it.”
“Dad’s a fucking prick,” Luca says, yawning. “We’ll have to get it altered and shit, but?—”
I step forward and run my hand down the fabric. It’s not my style—too conservative, too old-fashioned—but I love it so much.
I remember seeing this dress as a little girl. It’s one of my earliest memories and one of the very few with Mom before she got sick. I squealed as she unzipped the garment bag and held it up for me in the light. I thought the rhinestones were the most beautiful gems I’d ever seen in my life. Maybe you can have it one day, little girlie, she said, laughing as I tried to crawl under the skirt.
I was seven years old. She was dead by the time I turned nine.
And now here it is. The same dress. It’s smaller than I remembered, dirtier, more wrinkled, cheaper.
“It’s perfect,” I whisper, pulling it close.
The boys go quiet. My brothers remember Mom better than I do, and maybe that’s harder for them, but it always makes me jealous. Luca is four years older and Daniel is six, which means they both got way more time with her than I did.
We’re all scarred by her passing in our own way. The family was never the same after she was gone—especially not our father.
She was the love of his life, and her death broke him.
Now Bruno Marino is a cold, bitter prick.
The kind of asshole that nearly didn’t give his only daughter her mother’s wedding dress and refuses to tell her the name of the man she’s supposed to marry.
“I know this is hard, but you’re doing the right thing,” Daniel says from the doorway. He gives me a single, approving nod, which is the best I’ll get from him.
“Yeah, seriously, this is all sorts of fucked, but it’s how it goes in our world, right?” Luca stretches and grins at me. “Should I throw you a bachelorette party?”
“Pretty sure you don’t do that for your own sister,” I tell him.
“Good point. It’d be too much fun for you anyway.”
Daniel rolls his eyes and walks away.
I lift the dress off the door and hold it against me. “Can you tell me something about my husband? I mean, what do you know?”
“Not much, honestly. I’m not supposed to say anything. Dad doesn’t want to give you any reason to have cold feet.”
“I know, but I’m marrying him in a few days. We’re meeting in a few hours. It’s kind of too late to back out, right?”
Luca sighs loudly and glances at his phone. “Just don’t tell Dad I talked about it, all right? I don’t feel like listening to him bitch and whine about it.”
My heartrate spikes. I try to act like this is no big deal, but I’ve been needling my brothers for any scrap of information about my arranged husband since the day my father told me it was happening. This is the first time either of them even admitted to knowing who he is.
“Just tell me anything.”
“He’s a Russian guy. Apparently, people like him. He’s not a Zeitsev, but he’s one of the important, up-and-coming families.”
“Name, Luca. Tell me his name .”
His grin says he knows and he’s having fun fucking with me now, which is typical of him. My middle brother can be a vicious bastard sometimes. “He’s got a nice house in the city and helps run their jewelry business. Apparently, he’s got a good mind for it too. I hear he’s popular with the ladies, but the fucker better keep his dick in his pants and better not embarrass my little sister.”
“ Luca ,” I say sharply. “What’s his freaking name ?”
“Federov,” he says.
I wait. He doesn’t elaborate. “First name?”
“Lev.”
I roll it around my tongue. Lev Federov . Which means soon I’ll be Carmie Federov . That feels too strange and foreign, and I quickly banish the thought. I hurry to my phone, dress forgotten, as I quickly start trying to find my future husband’s social media profiles.
“There’s nothing,” Luca says, looking pleased with himself. “He’s a pro. I’m sure he’s got profiles, but nothing under his real name. You know, can’t risk drawing too much attention to himself.”
I curse in Italian, some of the only bits of that language I know. He’s right—the name Lev Federov only brings up a few creepy-looking boomers, and unless my father’s marrying me to a sixty-year-old man who lives in Florida, I’m pretty sure that’s not him.
But at least I have a name. I quickly dive into my favorite group chat in the world and reach out to my friends with family in Philly’s underworld. They’re all girls like me who went to the same private schools and were kept cloistered away from the same bad-news guys, and who completely understand what I’m going through even if they haven’t been arranged to marry themselves. Not yet, anyway.
I don’t remember who, but someone a few years back once named the group mob girlies and it’s been that way ever since.
Carmie: Anyone know someone called Lev Federov??
Gia: Don’t tell me it’s him………
Sofie: IT’S HIM?
Gia: You got the name for real??
Carmie: I got the name!!
Gia: This is HUGE. IT’S HUGE.
Sofie: I’m sleuthing right now, pls hold.
Frannie: SIRI TEXT MOB GIRLIES ALL CAPS GIRL I AM IN THE CAR BUT I AM FREAKING OUT BUT I DON’T KNOW WHO THIS MAN IS BUT OH MY GOD I’M LOSING MY MIND WE GOT THE NAME.
Gia: Please don’t text and drive, Frannie-panties. You’re gonna get yourself and Siri killed.
Gia: RIP Siri.
Carmie: Frannie can’t be trusted behind the wheel with a phone nearby.
Frannie: SIRI TEXT MOB GIRLIES THAT’S NOT FUNNY BITCHES.
Sofie: Can we get some quiet plzzzz I’m SLEUTHING.
Gia: Let the girl work!!!!! COOK SOFIE.
I’m grinning to myself and typing rapidly on my phone. Luca slinks away, shaking his head and muttering under his breath, and I collapse onto my bed.
He’s right. Lev really doesn’t have much by way of an online footprint. I’m usually pretty decent at stalking people, but I’m coming up with mostly nothing.
Except a few small clues. First, his family owns a jewelry store in the diamond district, and it’s supposed to be very successful. Huge, even. And second, he grew up in the city and went to a private school near here. His name shows up in an article from years back about their high school wrestling team. Apparently, he was pretty good, but based on the year this thing came out, I’m thinking he’s at least in his late twenties, around fiveish years older than me.
Sofie: Carmie baby, bad news. Your future husband is a ghost.
Gia: GASP!
Carmie: What’s that even mean?
Sofie: I’m digging around and there’s NOTHING. Just the stuff I bet you found already. Fed Jeweler, went to Holy Ghost, whatever. But past that? Total blank.
Gia: DOUBLE GASP!
Gia: Should I ask around? Check with the bros??
Carmie: No, it’s okay, I’m meeting him soon.
Gia: TRIPLE GASP!
Carmie: Gia’s got asthma again.
Sofie: I’ll keep on sleuthing but idk maybe just see the guy in person and check his vibes.
Frannie: SIRI TEXT MOB GIRLIES I BET HE’S GOT HUGE VIBES. HA HA
Gia: Frannie-panties just said “ha ha” out loud to Siri.
Carmie: I’m not in love with a blind first meeting but I guess if there’s no other way…
Sofie: Sorry babes. No pics that I can find. The guy’s either a recluse or his family’s got some seriously talented hackers on the books. Knowing his business…
Knowing his business, he killed the last ten men that took pictures of him, just to keep any evidence of his existence off the web.
Still, it’s weird and a little much, even for a mafia guy. Men in crime families need to have lives, and the world works through the internet more and more these days. I find it amazing that my future husband is probably one of the last humans in existence without some form of social media, especially someone under the age of sixty.
I get up and walk over to my mother’s dress again. The fabric’s soft under my fingertips, and I wonder what she felt like wearing it on her wedding day. Was she excited to marry my father? From everything I’ve heard from my brothers and people in my family, my parents were legitimately in love.
Was she nervous? Did she rehearse what she’d say for hours in front of the mirror? It’s strange, trying to imagine my mother as a young woman. I’m about to get married just like she did, but I couldn’t feel any further away from her than I am right now. She married for love; I’m marrying for business. I wonder if she would’ve been okay with this arrangement.
Not that it matters. I had my moment of indiscretion. I got to live my life for one single night, and it was one hell of a night. I smile to myself, thinking about Step and the way that beast touched me, the way he throbbed between my legs and whispered filthy things in my ear. I’ve been holding on to that memory since it happened, keeping it close to my chest like a precious jewel, afraid that if I tell even the Mob Girlies, that’ll somehow taint what happened.
That night is mine. It was good, and I was free, and it’s mine . No matter what happens after here, my future husband won’t have any of that. I’ll have given a piece of myself away to a total stranger, but I’ll have done it on my terms.
Good little Carmie isn’t so good anymore.
I turn back to my phone, not expecting anything, but another text comes through.
Frannie: Okay I’m home and I gotta say I’m deeply deeply disappointed in you ladies.
Frannie: It took me all of thirty seconds to find a picture of our man.
Carmie: WHAT?
Sofie: HOW?
Gia: She’s lying. Frannie-panties got taken over by Siri. She’s been body snatched!
Frannie: You’re all so terminally lame.
Frannie: Behold, your future hubster.
A blurry photo comes through. It’s a yearbook headshot of a handsome young man. I stare and a cold, impossible horror settles over my skin.
He looks familiar.
Young and a little softer, but I know those eyebrows. I know that jaw. I can feel the stubble against my cheek. I know the weight of his fingers gripping my hips. I smell his musty, spicy scent. That charming smile’s been stuck in my head like a brand on my skin.
Carmie: Where did you get this?
Frannie: My brother went to Holy Ghost and graduated that year. I just flipped through until I found the right name. NOT HARD.
Sofie: My god, she went analog and it actually worked.
Gia: Frannie-panties, I take back every mean thing I’ve ever said about you.
Gia: Mostly, at least.
Frannie: SIRI TEXT MOB GIRLIES BASK IN MY GLORY FOR I AM THE SMARTEST IN THE GROUP.
Sofie: She’s going to be a monster for week after this…
My hands are shaking as I put down the phone. I stare at the ceiling and sweat prickles my skin.
This can’t be happening.
This can’t be real.
There’s no way in hell.
I feel sick. I feel like I might puke all over my flower comforter.
But when I look back at the picture Frannie sent, it’s still him.
It’s the man that took my virginity. The man that told me his name was Step . The beautiful, gorgeous stranger that I stabbed with a vibrator and proceeded to have insane sex with for one perfect night.
My future husband.
That bastard lied, and the next time I stab him, it won’t be with a sex toy.