Chapter 16
Damiano
The wedding is still on.
I pick up my wineglass and down the contents in three swallows.
Every drop tastes bitter and burns down my throat like acid.
I was anticipating Andreas and Cristiano to jump me, attempt to beat my ass, and demand to know what the hell I was doing with my “sister.” There was no way the marriage would continue after the groom had seen his bride with another man.
I would have welcomed the chance to fight Andreas, maybe even “accidentally” kill him.
It’s been nearly three weeks since Andreas caught Lucy and I together, and everyone’s pretending like nothing happened.
When I came home that night after searching fruitlessly for Andreas, Lucy was different.
Distant. Compliant. She wouldn’t tell me what happened while I was gone, just that the wedding was still on.
I know something happened. I can see it in her eyes. But she won’t talk about it.
In front of Mom and Dad, she’s been talking about the guest list, the honeymoon, and her future with Andreas. They managed to secure the ballroom at one of Malus’s big hotels for the reception, and the church has been booked for the ceremony.
I overheard Lucy and Mom shortlisting baby names, and I wanted to put my fist through the wall.
Andreas sits across from me at the table, flushed red from too much alcohol and talking and laughing loudly with the men around him.
Next to him, Lucy is smiling, sipping her wine, speaking every now and then when Mom or an aunt or another woman talks to her.
She’s a perfect, demure mafia bride-to-be, wearing a butter yellow cocktail dress with her long, loose curls neatly pinned back with sparkling clips.
Laid out on the table are the remains of the wedding rehearsal dinner.
They’re getting married tomorrow.
Lucy looks radiantly happy about it.
I’m going out of my fucking mind.
But there’s something off about Lucy’s performance. She’s too perfect, too composed. She smiles at all the right moments, says all the right things. But her eyes… There’s something hard and calculating in them. Like she’s watching everything from a distance. Planning something.
But what? What could she possibly be planning?
The music changes to something vibrant and classic, and the Montonis and their wives and friends call out that Andreas and his bride should dance.
Andreas waves them off, protesting good-naturedly, as their calls grow louder and more insistent.
Lucy laughs as Mom’s sisters push her toward her groom, and finally the pair get to their feet, hand in hand, as applause breaks out around the room.
Andreas pulls his bride close with an arm wrapped around her waist and his hand holding hers, and they start to dance.
Everyone in the room fawns over them, and a few minutes later, several more couples join them on the improvised dance floor.
Lucy smiles up at her husband-to-be as he says something to her.
They look like the picture of soon-to-be wedded bliss.
I can’t tear my gaze from them as thick, angry jealousy pounds through my blood. There must be a murderous expression on my face, because I hear someone ask, “Damiano, are you all right?”
The world has gone insane. My woman is marrying someone else, and she’s happy about it. I’m so goddamn far from all right.
Lucy must feel my eyes upon her because, a moment later, she turns and watches me over Andreas’s shoulder. Only her eyes are visible, and the hand that’s caressing the nape of his neck. There’s an unreadable expression in her eyes, hard and glittering.
I wonder if she hates me because I couldn’t save her from this.
I wouldn’t blame her. I hate myself.
The party starts to break up. People say their goodbyes and leave the restaurant. Andreas kisses his bride good night on the cheek. The next time they see each other will be at the altar.
I can’t stand it any longer. I go out and stand in the moonlight, my hands shoved angrily into my pockets.
Lucy joins me a few minutes later. Standing before me, she reaches up and strokes her fingertips through the short hair by my temple. She says nothing, but her eyes are filled with that same hard glitter.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I ask.
“Like what? I’m admiring my handsome brother.”
My insides twist and burn up, and I look sharply away. “I’m not as handsome as your groom, apparently. Are you angry with me, Lucy? Do I deserve you tormenting me like this?”
“How am I tormenting you?”
“By being happy while I am sunk in the blackest misery, with nothing but torture to look forward to in my future.”
“You think I’m happy?” Lucy puts her hand on my wrist and steps closer, the hard glitter vanishing from her eyes as she whispers, “I’m in hell, but I would suffer any torment to remain close to you, Damiano.”
“You do not love him?” I ask urgently.
“I could never love him.”
“He doesn’t make you feel the way I make you feel?”
“He does not,” she insists.
“Good.” I close my eyes, pull her into my arms, and press my brow against hers. Breathing deeply, I inhale her sweet scent. Out here in the moonlight, I can pretend she’s all mine. “Or I’d have to kill him right now.”
Lucy’s fingers graze over the gun holstered under my arm. “I love that you’re always armed, Damiano.”
“All the better to protect you with, my love.” My lips find her ear, and I whisper, “Ask me to kill him for you. I’ll do it now, as he heads for his car in the dark. You want him dead, don’t you?”
Lucy shakes her head. “Murder him unprovoked and in cold blood in the parking lot? Don Cristiano would kill you in an instant.”
And Dad would kill Lucy, but right now, I’m desperate enough for us to take our chances and go on the run.
“Ask me to kill him for you,” I insist. “Prove to me that you want me, not him.”
Lucy pretends not to hear me. “Will you take me home with you, one last time?”
My insides feel like they’re being submerged in acid. One last time. The only person in the world I love is being taken away from me, and I don’t know how to stop it other than by murder, and, apparently, that’s not what Lucy wants.
She pulls herself out of my arms, slides into my car, and holds my hand tightly in both of hers all the way home.
Lucy goes to her bed, and I go to mine, but it takes a long time for me to fall asleep.
As soon as I do, I dive headlong into nightmares.
Lucy, laughing and carefree, running unknowingly into a burning church.
Lucy in her wedding dress, dousing herself in gasoline, and striking a match.
Lucy and Andreas in bed together, writhing in pleasure among burning flames. I call out to her again and again, but she doesn’t hear me.
I feel hands on me, dragging me out of the hell I’ve fallen into.
“Damiano, wake up.”
My eyes snap open, and I gasp for frantic breaths. Smoke is burning my throat and lungs, and flames are dancing in my vision, but when my eyes clear, I see her.
“Lucy.” I clasp her in my arms, rocking her back and forth in my lap as though she’s the one who needs comforting and not me.
“You’re all right. It’s just a dream,” she assures me.
“It’s not just a dream,” I remind her fiercely. “This is a living nightmare because you’re being taken away from me. I can’t lose you, Lucy. I’ll go mad if I lose you. Don’t marry him. Please don’t marry him.”
I’ll crawl over hot coals if she’ll let me kill her fucking fiancé.
Lucy takes my face in her hands, and there’s so much pain and longing in her expression that I can’t take it anymore.
I kiss her.
Lucy inhales sharply, and then she’s kissing me back. Our mouths and tongues move with feverish desire, and we clasp each other urgently, afraid to let go even for a second. Lucy hurts as much as I’m hurting, and she wants me as much as I want her, but she’s still going to marry Andreas.
“Lucy, I am begging you—”
She puts a finger over my lips. “Shh, Damiano. We have such a terrible record of being caught when we do these kinds of things, and this is our last chance.”
“Our last chance for what?”
Instead of answering, Lucy pulls her T-shirt that she’s been sleeping in—my T-shirt, I notice—up over her head and tosses it aside.
She picks up my hands and cups her breasts with them, and they’re warm and heavy in my palms. “Please, Damiano,” she breathes.
“Make me feel loved for the first and last time in my life.”
She’s nestled naked in my lap, her beautiful body pressed against mine. I squeeze her breasts and rub my thumbs over her nipples. “The first and last time? Lucy, it kills me to hear you talk like that.”
“Are you going to waste this moment, or are you going to give me the wedding night I need?”
I kiss her hard, desire flashing through me. “You have barely spoken to me these past weeks. I thought you’d decided to save your virginity for your husband.”
“I would never give myself to a man so undeserving. I have saved myself for you, and only you, Damiano.”
“But you will give yourself to him tomorrow?” I ask through gritted teeth.
Lucy presses soft kisses to my cheeks, my eyelids, my lips. “Tomorrow is tomorrow. Tomorrow doesn’t matter. I want you now, Damiano. Don’t you want me?”
Tomorrow doesn’t matter. What does that mean? But I’m too caught up in her to think clearly.
Do I want her?
With the power of a thousand suns.
Her mouth is parted and eager, and I capture her lips with mine. We kiss like we need each other more than oxygen. I do need her more than oxygen. I don’t know how I’m going to live without her.
“I’ve prepared my wedding vows,” she says breathlessly between kisses. “Do you want to hear them?”
“Don’t speak to me of your wedding vows,” I growl.
“You don’t wish to know the words I will speak at the altar tomorrow?”
I seize her nipple in my mouth, and I suck. “I won’t be listening. I will block it all out.”
“I took a long time over these vows, Damiano. They’re meant to be listened to.”