22. Elio
22
ELIO
Now
S taff came early to get Georgia ready for the wedding. I hadn’t gone back to sleep. I couldn’t lie near her for hours, waiting for the moment. The temptation was too strong.
My identity had been built on a battlefield, forged from the pain and loss of the end of my youth, and the reason for it all was lying sleeping, her beautiful face tearstained and red, her hands bound to the bed. My bed. If I wasn’t careful, I’d want to keep her right there, fuck the wedding. If I wasn’t careful…
I went for a run as soon as dawn broke and then waded into the small lake to the west of the property. The cold water shocked my breath away but soothed the hot, burning sensation in my belly. My gut was churning. My heart was pounding. Last month, I’d have been able to swear that I hadn’t felt the presence of that particularly weak organ in my chest for years, fourteen, to be exact.
Now, a mere week after being around Georgia again, and I was crumbling. All my steely composure and hard-won mental fortitude, swept away like so many grains of worthless sand.
I returned to the house and headed for the kitchen. I wasn’t going to hang around and watch Georgia get dressed to marry another man.
I drank coffee and watched Carmella get lunch ready, directing her staff like a drill sergeant. Carmella was a fixture of Casa Nera.
“ Ebbene, ” she said, sitting heavily across from me. “You seem glum this morning.”
“This is just my face,” I reminded her.
She scoffed and frowned at me. “Are you wet? You better not be getting that seat wet.”
“I can’t go back to my rooms. Someone is in there,” I said.
“Ah, yes. Our blushing bride. I swear, you, Giada, and Renato — at one point I’d thought the three of you would all die alone, and yet… you’re the last man standing. Don’t you want to settle down, too?”
I sighed. “I’m not the marrying type. I don’t hate anyone enough to marry them.” I gave her a rare, crooked smirk.
She laughed and shook her head.
“I have to go and get the lamb dressed. I’ll see you at the ceremony. I’ve got a new hat to wear,” she said with a small smile, standing and rushing off.
I watched the bustle in the kitchen, a million miles away.
I hadn’t been lying. I didn’t hate anyone enough to stick them with me. I wasn’t a whole person. There was no hope for me. I was beyond saving.
I didn’t hate anyone enough to marry them…
Did I?
Inside the chapel on Casa Nera grounds, the incense was so thick, it was hard to breathe. I felt like I was suffocating as I watched Jimmy joke with his best man, making lewd gestures, right in front of the altar.
My suit was stifling, and my shirt and tie were trying to strangle me. I pulled at my collar and checked the time.
She was late.
Good. Maybe she got away .
Fuck. I was really losing it. If she had somehow gotten away, I’d just need to hunt her down again. I shouldn’t feel excited at the prospect. I was unraveling, and I didn’t have a fucking clue what to do about it. The memory of her lips on mine last night slammed into my head, taking over my vision, surrounding all my senses and filling them up. I’d lived in the dark for so long that one glimpse of her, my light, was going to drive me insane. I’d sat alone in the library for hours last night, glaring at the fire, drinking myself to a state, before going looking for her. Getting just drunk enough to stop make excuses for what I really wanted. I’d caught her just as she was climbing down the tree. Fucking fate stepping in. And I’d continued to take what I’d really wanted. I could still taste her this morning.
I’d thought I’d protected myself from ever feeling like this again, and yet here I was now, fucking sweating in my best suit and trying to work out how to stop a wedding.
Renato was sitting with Charlie in the front row of the chapel. Charlie leaned in and said something quietly to him, and he stood and crossed over to me. I was standing on the other side of Jimmy, resisting the urge to kill the fucker before Georgia ever made it to church.
“All good?”
I nodded tightly.
“You know, I got some interesting intel from Giada this morning.”
I waited for him to go on. I wasn’t in a chatty mood.
He nodded, turning to the entrance to the chapel. “Hmm, looks like Jimmy’s been a naughtier boy than we’d expected. Very naughty, in fact. We’ll need to do something about him. Ah, here she is.”
My eyes followed Renato’s gaze, just as he gave me a smirk and returned to his wife. Music sprang to life, filling the air. Georgia was walking down the aisle.
All thoughts flew out of my head. It was a vision I’d tortured myself with a hundred times. If everything had gone down differently, would this have been my future instead of Jimmy’s?
I couldn’t tear my eyes from her, and to make it even more painful, she was staring right at me.
She walked toward me, her eyes never straying to Jimmy, the man about to be her husband.
She watched me up until the last moment, when the priest started to talk.
She turned away and focused on the priest as the guests sat. It was a little chapel and could only fit those closest to the family. In this case, it was Renato and Charlie, me, Carmella, and a few guys Jimmy worked with at the casino. He had no blood family.
The priest was saying something, and Georgia was responding, then Jimmy. It was happening. It was really happening.
The witnesses stepped forward to sign the register, and then the priest was telling them to kiss. Mafia weddings, as a rule, were short and sweet. Better to get it over with before someone tried to escape — or got shot.
“Now, you may kiss the bride,” the priest intoned solemnly.
No. This was wrong. It couldn’t happen. I’d been lying to myself that I could let it…
“Fucking A, Father,” Jimmy goaded and grabbed Georgia, pulling her closer.
She put her hands to his chest and pushed hard. The tussle was immediate and ugly.
Charlie covered her mouth with her hand and made to stand as Renato held her back from getting involved. His eyes turned to mine. My oldest friend, he could read my mind better than I’d ever been able to.
I tore my eyes from my capo and watched the couple.
“Come on. I want to kiss my wife,” Jimmy grunted and managed to fit his mouth over Georgia’s, and something inside me snapped.
She’s not yours. How dare you.
My self-control went out the window. The patience that had been growing smaller and smaller every single day dissolved… and my gun was in my hand before I could question it. I’d had a lingering suspicion that Jimmy was dirty, and it turned out I was right. Stealing from a De Sanctis casino proved just how stupid the motherfucker was. But really, it was just an excuse, right when I needed one.
I stalked toward the couple. My approach sent Jimmy’s casino friends fleeing. The priest collapsed back, his face etched in fear.
Georgia managed to tear her face from Jimmy’s kiss. She twisted toward me, and I stepped past her, putting her behind me.
Then I brought my gun to Jimmy De Luca’s temple.
He staggered back against the altar and froze.
“For the crime of stealing from the De Sanctis family and breaking your oath of fidelity, I find you guilty,” I said without emotion, then stepped in and spoke in a low tone, just for him. “For daring to put your worthless hands on what is mine, I find you guilty.” I stepped back and pulled the trigger.
The bang echoed around the room, and silence fell over the remaining people in the chapel. Renato and Charlie. Carmella and the priest. The good father scrambled to the side and attempted to run, but I was there, hauling him back.
“We’re not done here, Father,” I told him, my tone rough.
With a hard kick, I sent Jimmy’s body tumbling from the dais.
“What do you want?” the priest asked, looking at me like I was the Devil himself.
“What else? You have a wedding to perform.” I turned and grabbed Georgia’s hand.
She was standing stock-still, her face a picture of frozen shock. Her side was spattered with blood, making her a gruesome work of modern art in her white gown.
“Marry us,” I commanded the priest.
The father gaped at me. “I couldn’t possibly — this is a great sin in the house of God.”
“I don’t think you heard me,” I ground out, my voice low. I lifted the pistol again and pressed it to his forehead. “Marry. Us. Now.”
The priest wet his lips, wiping the spray of blood from his eyes and straightening his cassock.
“Dearly beloved…” he began, his voice shaking.
I didn’t look at Georgia. I couldn’t. My emotions were too close to the surface. I was a volcano that had only just started to rumble. Nothing would be left in its wake.
“Do we have a witness?” the priest glanced around, fearful.
“I’m here, Father,” Renato said smoothly. “Charlotte and I will be witnesses.”
The priest nodded weakly and picked up the bloodstained register.
“I — the bride’s name is the same, but what name should I write for the… groom?”
Something loosened in my chest at the inevitability of it all. Since the moment I’d heard that Georgia would marry a De Sanctis man, hadn’t I known it would be me? Hadn’t Renato known?
Like I could have ever let another man marry her. It was always going to be me.
“Elio. Elio Santori,” I announced.
“Do you Elio Santori take this woman…” he droned on.
I finally turned and met the eyes of the only woman I’d ever loved. The only woman I could ever love.
Georgia’s gaze was a punch to the gut.
“I do,” I murmured, never taking my eyes from hers.
“And do you, Georgia Conti, take this man, Elio Santori?—”
“She does,” I interrupted and waved the gun. “Hurry this along, Father.”
“Very well, I now pronounce you man and wife,” he hurriedly spit out.
He stepped back, and I reached for Georgia. Her eyes were red from crying. I brought her close and stroked away a line of tears dotting her cheek like jewels.
“Elio?” she whispered as I leaned in.
“You may kiss the bride.”
The priest’s words were the last I heard before I kissed her. Hard and unforgiving; my loss of control couldn’t do gentle right now. I didn’t know if I was capable of gentle at all, and yet, when I kissed her, I remembered for a moment — the boy I’d been. The man I’d dreamed of being one day… the family I’d longed to have.
Beneath the frozen river, currents still run.
Then sharp teeth sank into my lip, biting hard. Pain lanced through my mouth, and I released Georgia.
She stumbled back. Her hand came for my face, a hard arc. I let her hit me. The slap echoed across the church.
“You — you liar! I can’t believe you!” she cried.
I swallowed my response. I’d just kicked a hornet’s nest, and it was time to battle through the inevitable attack. But I didn’t have to do it here, with an audience.
“Come outside, we’ll talk,” I told her.
She shook her head, her incredulous eyes narrowing.
“I’m not going anywhere with you. You’re — you’re an unfeeling, soulless… monster,” she spit at me.
“Maybe so, but now, I’m your God-given owner, and when I say we talk, we talk.” I bent at the waist and threw her over my shoulder. Ignoring her protests, I turned and carried her up the aisle.
“ Auguri! ” Renato called after me. Congratulations .