3. Cora
Cora
I grit my teeth as I pace the bridal suite. I was never the type of girl to plan my dream wedding. I had other dreams, like getting the hell away from my family and becoming a doctor. I dedicated years of hard work to accomplishing both.
Those were the goals that mattered to me.
I couldn’t give a shit about my wedding venue or my bouquet.
What the hell does the choice of calla lilies matter if I can’t even choose my own groom?
At least my controlling mother-in-law-to-be took over all the planning, though I refuse to feel gratitude toward her.
She arranged every wedding detail in three days, as if to flaunt how little I was needed.
I’m getting married in the chapel of one of the O’Sullivans’ hotels. The reception will follow in a chic ballroom on an upper floor, with an expansive view of the Chicago sunset in all its inspiring glory.
I. Don’t. Care.
All that matters to me is keeping Connor safe.
In this case, that means fixing his idiot mistake by pledging my life to a dangerous stranger.
Brady Nolan O’Sullivan, the second son of Chicago’s foremost Irish mafia family.
COO of the O’Sullivan Holding Company and director of all its restaurants and hotels, including the one I’m standing in.
The man has a polished sheen on his public-facing résumé, but he’s also enmeshed in the nefarious world I left behind.
My future husband.
I dig my toes into the absurdly plush carpet of the suite I’ve been shut in. I’m dozens of floors above the chapel where I’m supposed to be getting married in an hour. Right now it must be draped with decorations I’ve never seen, filling with people I’ve never met, including my husband.
I pored over every article I could find about him. Bile burned in my throat the whole time, but it’s important to know your enemy. Unfortunately, my enemy isn’t just Brady, but the entire O’Sullivan family.
His parents, Declan and Orla, emigrated from Ireland to Chicago as young adults.
Around the time they got married and started having kids, Declan began work in South Side construction.
Initially a tradesman, he climbed the ladder quickly, becoming much richer than the average tradie through sources unknown.
Construction led to real estate, which led to luxury real estate, and the rest is history.
The eldest son, Liam, is the spitting image of a younger Declan. Tall, square-jawed, and sporting thick dark waves, he looks like he should live in the era of black-and-white movie stars.
Brady belongs in color. With his russet-kissed hair and gray-green eyes, he takes after Orla. Both Liam and Brady, mafia sons though they are, have maintained impeccable public images.
Finn has not. The third O’Sullivan brother has been caught once or twice for youthful indiscretions, or so the unquenchable internet rumors claim.
True to organized-crime form, no paper trail remains, discrediting the rumormongers.
But Finn definitely looks more criminal than his older brothers.
His messy curls and broken nose make him appear downright roguish.
There’s a gap of more than ten years between Finn and the only O’Sullivan sister, Sloane.
She’s attending college on the West Coast, and for the daughter of a prominent family she has surprisingly few images online.
The only ones available are glossy and curated, no windblown candids or late-night sneak shots.
There must be publicity money involved. The family’s team likely protects her and Kieran, the youngest son, because there aren’t many records of him either.
Given that he’s only thirteen, the lack of images doesn’t mean as much.
But still, the O’Sullivans’ control extends to at least some of the media.
Briefly I wonder about the press release covering my wedding—because of it, I had to tell Jennifer and Lucy who I really am.
Finally discussing my past with them felt like an unburdening, even if I did it in the broadest strokes.
Admitting that I’d been lying to them for years brought no such relief.
Lucy was ecstatic to learn I’m getting married. Jennifer, less so. Honestly, I couldn’t tell if Jen was more upset about my longstanding lie, my hypocrisy about Marriage isn’t something to force, or me getting married before her and Dave.
The fact that I couldn’t invite them to the wedding didn’t help. But I had no say on the guest list. I only know Connor’s on it because I saw his courier-delivered invitation. According to him, no one else from our family received an invite, but that’s unsurprising.
Lucy said she understood wanting to keep the wedding small, given the haste.
Jennifer offered no such nicety, though she did agree to Lucy’s suggestion of giving me three weeks off for my “honeymoon.” Lucy will be covering all of my patients, while I will be covering my eyes, ears, and awareness to the fact I’m on my honeymoon.
“And with your old flame, how romantic!” Lucy had said, her hands clasped in front of her chest.
It didn’t feel great, immediately lying to them again. But it was necessary.
The whole “By the way my name is really Cora Muloney, and the guy from that article who you said was hot is actually my brother, and anyway he was in trouble and so an old family friend named Brady O’Sullivan—yes, one of those O’Sullivans—stepped in and helped, and he and I kind of used to have a thing, and anyway because of this we rekindled it, and now we’re having an impromptu sort of wedding, but sorry you’re not invited,” was bad enough without telling the full truth.
We managed to skate past the Boston Muloney crime family element that Lucy had read aloud from the article, but I think it was because she was so excited about me getting married to a well-known son of Chicago.
Unlike my family, the O’Sullivans keep their illegal dealings discreet.
My father’s too vain not to flaunt his influence over cops and judges.
The O’Sullivans must also have a significant number of officials in their pocket, in addition to the media they control, but they apply their leverage shrewdly.
To Lucy and the rest of the public, Brady is just the handsome son of a wealthy and prominent family.
“Do you enjoy each other’s company?” she’d asked.
“Yes.” I’d said it convincingly, without hesitation.
“Then that’s all that matters.”
Not quite. In my case, what matters is being a good liar to my friends, as well as people in general. Brady O’Sullivan is a mafia man, which means I highly, highly doubt that he and I will enjoy each other’s company.
I clench my fists at my sides as I glare out at the painfully bright Chicago afternoon. I feel like this city has wronged me. It was supposed to be my escape, the setting for my new life as Samantha Greene.
And now, I have to be Cora Muloney again.
But I will dig in my stubborn heels to fight for the career I’ve worked so hard to achieve. Non-negotiable.
Someone knocks on the door. The dress fitter, the hairstylist, and the makeup artist have all come and gone.
My gut sinks as I realize it’s probably Orla.
I haven’t met my mother-in-law-to-be yet, but she’s the one in charge of this wedding.
She seems the type to show up way too early to order me downstairs.
Thus far, our only interactions have been indirect. In addition to couriers bearing instructions and schedules and legal paperwork, she sent a tailor to my apartment with three wedding dress options in my size. I chose the simplest one, a sleek Oscar de la Renta.
It’s gorgeous. I hold it against Orla for having good taste. She should’ve forced me into something hideous, then I could hate her all the more. Still, I put on my active bitch face as I answer the door.
My scowl disappears. It’s Connor, and he’s holding out his phone. The sight of his horribly bruised face makes me soften with sympathy for my little brother. I’m doing this to protect him, and it’s those fucking O’Sullivans who did that to his face. Poor Connor.
“Charlotte wants to talk to you,” he says.
“Charlotte?” I’m too stunned to move. I haven’t spoken to my sister in ten years. We were close, once upon a time. Before I discovered my inner stubbornness and realized how compliant and submissive she is.
Her engagement was my final straw. Watching her so dutifully agree to marry that awful man—I couldn’t stomach it.
While she spent months selecting color schemes and place settings, I created my new identity.
It was no easy feat for me to get a new social security number.
I also had to falsify enough backdated credentials to get accepted into Loyola.
Though I liked the idea of Chicago in general, I chose Loyola specifically because it’d be the last place my family would look for me.
I’d told Connor, but he would never betray my location at the Jesuit school.
I swore off Catholicism when I was fifteen, my feminist way of protesting the Church’s exclusion of women from the priesthood.
My father beat me when I refused Communion, but he never made me attend Mass again. He must’ve understood enough of my rebelliousness by then. Really he should’ve foreseen that I’d try to run away eventually, and maybe he did. But he couldn’t have predicted I’d be so thorough about it.
My final arrangements weren’t in place until the week of Charlotte’s wedding.
I considered attending, I really did. Then I imagined having to witness her walking down the aisle, the obedient bride, vapid smile on her face as she was transferred from her father to her husband like some docile package with no will of her own.
I left Boston the day before my sister’s wedding.
It was a practical decision in the end.
I left a note saying I’d be safe and not to look for me, knowing our father still would.
He would put every available resource into finding me.
Not for my sake, but because I was a valuable pawn, and his last one left.
Charlotte’s marriage, advantageous for the family as it was, meant that one of my father’s two pawns had already been sacrificed.
With her wedding occupying most of everyone’s attention, I gained a day’s head start.
The P.S. of my note read Sorry, Charlotte.
Connor waves his phone in my face to get my attention. I take it from him, and hang up. Sorry, Charlotte.
“What the hell?” Connor asks. “She wanted to talk to you, she was trying to reach out and be nice.”
“I know.” I hand back his phone and return to pacing the room. “I just… I can’t handle Charlotte right now.”
“She’s our sister.”
I shake my head, my feet drifting to a stop. Charlotte isn’t the same sister that I grew up adoring, and I cringe to think of who she’s become over the past ten years. Obedient bride, obedient wife.
With horror, I realize I’ve stopped in front of the mirror, its gilded filigree framing my reflection. Understated updo, understated makeup, understated dress. But it’s all unmistakably bridal, and compliantly so.
None of this I’ve truly chosen for myself.
My fingers tingle like they’re going numb as I stare at myself in the mirror. The obedient bride.
No.
I straighten my spine.
I’m getting married to protect my brother. I’m doing this of my own volition, which means I’m doing this on my own terms.
Obedient bride, barely.
Obedient wife, absolutely not.
I am my own person, resolute and self-reliant. I will make that abundantly clear to my new husband, whether he likes it or not. I will not be cowed or tamed into being some subservient mafia wife.
And I will not—repeat not—give up who I am for this marriage.
In the mirror, Connor’s reflection appears beside mine.
He stands awkwardly, his hands in the pockets of a tux that’s too large for him.
I bet the O’Sullivans arranged the ill fit on purpose.
They wanted to shame him by making him look like a little boy in his dad’s clothes.
It wasn’t necessary, given the state of his poor face, but it’s working. A clever manipulation.
Everything in the mafia world is a manipulation.
And I’m right back in it now.
“You look beautiful, you know,” Connor says. “That’s what she’d say if she were here.”
“If Charlotte were here, she’d tell me I look exactly like her on her wedding day.”
“Right. Then she’d tell you that you look beautiful.”
We both laugh, and I turn to give my brother a proper hug.
“Thank you,” he whispers. When he lets me go, he smears his hand across his bruised eyes. “I know you didn’t want any of this.” He’s right, I didn’t. But he’s my only real ally in this world, and we have to protect each other.
“You’d do the same for me.”
“Of course I would.” He sniffles, then clears his throat to cover it up. “Except you’d never be as stupid as me to mess everything up in the first place.”
“Yeah, that’s true. That was a pretty fucking stupid thing to do.” I grin at Connor’s dropped jaw. “Come on, I found some champagne earlier.”
I lead him into the living room of the adjacent honeymoon suite, where a wine cooler stocked with Dom Pérignon hides inside a mahogany cabinet. I haven’t indulged in such luxury in ages. After I left my family and all of their dirty money behind, I told myself I didn’t miss the finer things.
I pop the bottle without ceremony and pour us each a glass, but Connor frowns at the two flutes before taking his. With a shiver, I realize the second glass was probably meant for my soon-to-be husband for later tonight.
I take a sip to make myself stop shaking. My brother drains his glass in one go, and I can tell he’s dwelling on his guilt, his concern for me the same as my concern for myself.
I have an almost-certain guess about Brady’s expectations for later. But I need to focus on getting through my wedding before I start worrying about my wedding night.
Connor refills his glass and tops off mine, then clinks our flutes with more force than necessary.
“To you, Cora. The strongest woman I know.”
I give him a grateful look, but say nothing. I needed to hear that today.
As the Dom floats over my tongue, I focus on savoring it. When I convinced myself I didn’t miss the finer things, it was a lie. I keep my attention on my crystal flute, on the ornately carved cabinet, on the mist drifting out of the opened bottle.
I do not look at the enormous bed in the next room, all plush and white and empty.
I’ll be sleeping on the wide daybed back in the bridal suite, thank you very much.
More likely than not, it was intended for hungover bridesmaids waiting for their turn with the stylists, but it will suit me just fine.
I tell myself I’m not anxious about my wedding night and take another sip of champagne.