Chapter 37
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
fawn
The reception
Aurora glides into my husband's vacant seat, leaving just the two of us in the centre of the table, with Max drinking whiskey at the far end.
Leaning easily into her side, I let my gaze pan over the glittering scene of the ballroom, finding Luca Butcher standing in front of the band, hands moving, fingers pinched. I smile, waiting for the music. Sure enough, the next song sailing from the front stage is Frank Sinatra’s Somethin’ Stupid.
Someone just won fifty bucks.
In my mind—my mildly influffy mind—I’m transported to another time, maybe in Chicago, surrounded by mobsters, just really absorbing the culture in this room.
Clay is sitting at the Dons’ table, talking intensely. Cigar smoke flows along the white tablecloth from several lit cigars.
I miss him.
Even from this distance.
But I feel content too.
Confident. Secure.
Watching the conversation with fascination, I study the ease with which their mouths move, watch the long pauses, nothing hurried, everything smooth and controlled.
I straighten in my chair and sip my whiskey, determined to imprint every rose, every laugh, every song, every face into my memory. I’ve heard that brides rarely remember their own weddings—how everything blurs into a haze of gratitude and obligation.
I refuse to let that happen.
Aurora places her hand on my forearm and nods with delicate grace towards a cluster of people at the table to my front and right.
“Cassini,” she whispers. “See how they exchange welcome and warning in the same glance? The one dripping in gold and diamonds is Beatrice Cassini, from a shipping family, and she’s on her fifth glass of red.
It won’t be long before she leaves her husband’s table and finds Luca Butcher. Happens every time.”
“Does she fancy him?”
Aurora taps her nose. “They all do.”
I watch Beatrice laugh as she leans back to air-kiss a distant cousin or friend I haven’t met who stops at their table.
Or have I met that one?
Yikes.
I can’t remember.
“Am I meant to remember them all?”
“You will, sweet Fawn,” Aurora says, voice soft and somehow dominant. “It’s your first night as Mrs Butcher. Give yourself time. You can pick the Made Men by their tattoos and rings. Though usually it’s obvious in their patriarchal posturing.”
I giggle. “Their general self-love?”
“Precisely.”
“How is that all going?” I dart my gaze from her to the table of Dons. “In Sicily?”
She smiles, hinting at secrets. “I am in Calabria now. And all is going as I plan.”
I beam at that. She will conquer them all one day. I can’t wait to see what it looks like having her at the head of the Mafia in Italy—a man’s world.
I glance towards the Dons’ table again. Clay sits, commanding the other Made Men who hang on his every word.
His brows furrow above his cigar, cheeks hollowing, as his gaze coasts over the heads of the other Dons, cutting across the room.
The moment his eyes find me, the tension—a tension I didn’t notice before—seems to soften in his eyes.
I don’t even turn to see if Aurora noticed too.
I don’t need to, because she is following my line of sight.
She watches Clay as I do, and in her silence there is a knowledge that stretches beyond this room, across cities and decades, to every woman who has ever watched her man build a legacy with her gently beside him.
“He is the Don,” Aurora says gently.
I nod. “I know.”
“He will always be pulled away from you. You understand that, sweet Fawn?”
“Yes.”
Aurora turns to me; I feel her eyes on my cheek. “He will always return.”
“I know that too,” I admit.
She angles her body, offering me her undivided attention in this moment, so I mirror her.
We look at each other, something meaningful passing between us.
From her to me. “You have given him a place to return to, Fawn.
You have given him a sense of home, a stable place.
After it all, he goes to you. He didn't have that before.
He went from boarding school to my father's side… to you.” She pauses, then goes on, “He is never going to be a normal man, but you—” She smiles smoothly, searching my face for a flicker of understanding.
“You have made him a grounded version of that man. You should be very proud.”
“Thank you.” My eyes fill with tears. “For all your guidance, for always being so kind.”
Her whiskey-coloured eyes fill with warmth. “It’s so easy to be kind to you.” She tucks a loose blonde tendril back into my elaborately pinned hairdo.
My lower lip wobbles hearing those words. I want to tell little Fawn that it’s not her fault when people are cruel to her. That there is nothing wrong with her.
Aurora squeezes my hand, and we return our attention to the Dons’ table.
I watch the entire congregation lean in towards my husband.
Clay’s words pull them closer into their rippling circle of power.
I see their faces shift in the space of a few sentences.
One man’s eyes widen, another’s mouth twitches, a third sits back and exhales as if some monetary or mortal debt has been called in and paid off all at once.
Then there is one younger than the rest with a slight bounce in his gaze—I’m not sure I trust that one.
Whatever Clay just told them, it landed hard.
Aurora chuckles. “You see that? He has just made a deal, perhaps.”
“Is it always that fast?”
“It is always that final,” she offers. “One day, you will walk between these tables like you own them. You will greet guests by name and remember their favourite conversational pieces, and you will keep watch for him.”
“I will,” I agree, but I respect them all too much to force myself into a role I have not earned.
I am twenty, younger than some of the wives’ children, so I will walk among them and grow older before them.
I will earn my place over time—not in any hurry to be more than his wife, his pretty little deer, and the mother of his children, for the time being.
Warmth floods me.
My body reacts to him.
Clay rises to his feet, his eyes focusing on me, his hands smoothing down his lapels—and I wonder if the lack of a tie has thrown him. He says something to the men, causing their collective eyes to move to me like a wave.
Then Sir leaves them. He strides towards me, taking long, powerful steps that are neither hurried nor leisurely.
“He is coming to you.” Aurora stands and slides away, stroking my back as she goes. “Talk soon, sweet Fawn.”
When he steps up to the bridal table, all the hairs along my neck and arms rise for him.
I peer up at Sir, absorbing his presence like a grass flower might the sun, like the tides might the moon. “Hi, Sir.”
He smiles down at me, and I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. Smoothly, he takes his seat. “You summon me with only your gaze, sweet girl. What were you talking to Aurora about? Me?”
“We were people watching, Sir. People so often watch you; do you ever watch them back?”
“Always.” Leaning back, he lifts his ankle to his opposite knee, lighting up another cigar and settling in. He speaks through an exhale of smoke. “Are you happy, little deer? Do you have everything you need?”
“I do now.”
Clay guides me around the ballroom, table to table, thanking our guests for coming. My husband has impeccable manners, a man of smooth movements and breathtaking charisma. We have more than four hundred guests, and over the following hour, we try to reach them all.
In my heels, I long for my perch, so we return to the bridal table. I eat chocolates, and we touch, lace our fingers, share our whiskeys, and people watch.
Another hour rolls by, and the dance floor fills. Single men smile at young women; the older men shuffle and bounce their hands in time with the music like they are conductors; the older children dance without inhibition.
Suddenly, all eyes are drawn to Cassidy, and I see why.
To You Are The Best Thing by Ray LaMontagne, she moves as if commanding the music itself, spinning the sound.
First she dances with Toni, then glides into Konnor’s arms. Her brother catches her, his steps seeming to be old partners to her sweet, gracious lead.
In my peripherals, I catch Max Butcher, still four seats down from me, leaning back, arm draped over the empty chair beside him, whiskey swaying like a brown wave in his glass.
As is his style, he isn’t talking to anyone.
Simply watching his wife, with a gaze that should be registered as a lethal weapon.
It is equal parts possessiveness and something strangely vulnerable to see.
What could he ever have to be vulnerable about?
Not his size. Not his presence. Not the clear love between them.
His eyes hold a war between wanting to lock his wife away like something too precious for the world and wanting to guard her as she conquers everything in her path.
I wonder about Max and Cassidy's love—how it must feel to be the centre of that man's universe. When she's in his arms, does she feel the same blanket of safety I find in Clay’s?
A Made Man—noting his rings and general expression of power—slides up to Cassidy, cutting in without invitation. He leads her through a few steps, his hand lingering low on her back. The air itself chills around me, and I snap my gaze back to watch Max respond, his pupils expanding.
I grip Clay’s arm.
“He won’t.” Clay places his hand over mine, stroking gentle circles on my knuckles. “It would ruin Cassidy’s night.”
Right on schedule—but not soon enough for Luca Butcher, apparently—the band begins to play Frank Sinatra’s The Way You Look Tonight.
With eyes unwavering on his wife and her new dancing partner, Max Butcher rises, every muscle under his tailed black jacket bunching.
I swear I see seams protesting his enormous biceps.
He downs his whiskey in one smooth movement, then crosses the room with a prowl so lethal it seems more menacing than an outright storm.
Cassidy peers up at him as he meets her on the dance floor, big hazel eyes full of relief and understanding.
I think she says, “Oh, menace,” and loops her arms around his neck.
“Dance with me, little one,” he rumbles, moving his body into the man as if he were already a dead man—a ghost. Max pulls Cassidy into his arms. His expression remains stoic as they dance, but in his eyes I see the boy he might have once been, before the world ordered him to break bones and walls.
He sings the words to her, “Lovely, never ever change.”
“That is their first dance song,” Clay advises.
I. Melt.
All around me, the same air of warning and adoration rolls between couples.
At the bar, Bronson is now clinging to Shoshanna, speaking only to her—inside jokes, years of understanding, a language that is all their own.
When she laughs, his grin is so sudden it borders on scary.
And behind them, in a dark corner, Xander and Kaya sway in a slow embrace, nose to nose, eyes locked as they giggle secrets I probably don’t want to know.
Then, a man steps on Kaya’s gown.
Oh, crap.
Clay sighs hard. “This might be interesting.”
Fury flashes across Xander’s face. He thrusts his hand out, closing it around the man’s collar.
Suddenly, Bronson materializes at his side—fuck—I bounce my gaze between the empty spot by Shoshanna, and Bronson, wondering how he moved so fast. A friendly clap on the man’s back, followed by a tight grip.
Xander releases his hold to pull Kaya closer as they continue to dance alone while Bronson steers the man away from the floor.
“Woah.” My brows hit my hairline, surprised. “Xander has a temper.”
“Indeed.”
The men and women of the Cosa Nostra blend love and violence, possessiveness, and respect.
It’s like a dance they know the steps to.
I wonder if Clay and I have a version of this dance?
“The men and women don’t notice my gaze,” I say.
“But when you look at them, I can almost see their hackles rise, Sir. Your attention is dangerous.”
He simply smiles, smooth and easy, his silence far more authoritarian than another man’s roars.
I’ll be your pretty little observer, Sir.
I can do that for him. Go unnoticed. I have been around snakes my entire life, seen more fake smiles and practised smirks, been fooled, been betrayed.
I feel I’ve been training for this since I came out of the womb.
To catch the subtleties they hide from him.
My Don is infallible, but he is human—I think.
For the most part.
Not the part between his legs.