Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Antonella
The car is silent.
I sit with Gianna in the backseat. Claudio drives. My father on the passenger seat next to him. No one speaks. No one looks at each other.
My wedding dress rustles every time the car hits a bump. Simple white silk. Nothing fancy. The woman the Sartoris sent picked it out. She measured me. Ordered the dress. Arranged for alterations. All in five days.
The veil sits heavy on my head. Pins dig into my scalp. I didn't want a veil. But the woman insisted. Tradition, she said. As if anything about this wedding is traditional.
Behind us, Oliver follows in his car.
Gianna's hand finds mine. Her fingers are cold. Trembling. She hasn't said a word since we left the house. Just sat there in her pale blue dress, staring straight ahead.
We're all wearing funeral clothes to my wedding.
The thought almost makes me laugh. Almost.
Claudio turns onto a narrow street. Old brick buildings line both sides. A church rises at the end. Stone walls. Stained glass windows. A cross reaching toward the gray sky.
St. Michael's.
I've never been here before. The Sartoris chose it. Another decision made without me.
Two men stand at the entrance. Black suits. Hands clasped in front of them. They watch our car approach with flat, empty eyes.
Guards. Not guests.
Papa pulls to the curb. Kills the engine.
Silence.
No one moves.
I stare at the church doors. Heavy oak. Iron handles. They look like they weigh a thousand pounds.
In a few minutes, I'll walk through those doors. Down an aisle. Toward a man I've never met. A man who will become my husband.
My stomach twists.
"Antonella." Papa's voice is rough. Strained.
I don't answer.
He opens his door. Steps out. The cold air rushes in. I shiver beneath my thin dress.
Gianna squeezes my hand. "Nell—"
"Don't." I pull my hand free. "Please. I can't right now."
She nods. Tears glisten in her eyes. But she doesn't cry. She knows I can't handle her tears. Not today.
Claudio opens his door. Climbs out. Offers his hand to Gianna. She takes it. Slides across the seat. Disappears from view.
I'm alone in the back seat.
The veil obscures my vision. Everything looks soft. Blurred. Like a dream I can't wake up from.
Papa appears at my door. Opens it. The cold hits me full force. I gasp.
He extends his hand.
I stare at it. At the fingers that signed away my future. At the palm that held cards instead of his children. At the hand that gambled everything we had.
Everything I had.
I exhale.
Take his hand.
His fingers close around mine. Warm despite the cold. He helps me out of the car.
I straighten. Adjust my veil. Look up at the church.
The guards haven't moved. They watch us with the same flat expressions. One of them speaks into a radio. His lips move, but I can't hear the words.
Oliver's car pulls up behind ours. He steps out. His eyes find mine immediately. He nods once. I'm here. I'm not leaving.
I nod back.
Papa still holds my hand. His grip tightens.
"Antonella."
I turn to face him.
His eyes are red. Wet.
"I'm sorry," he says.
My throat burns.
I can't cry. Not here. Not now. Not in front of the guards and the church and the man waiting inside.
I swallow the tears down. Force them back. Lock them away in the same place I've locked everything else for the past two years.
"I know," I say.
It's not forgiveness. It's not absolution. It's just acknowledgment.
Papa's face crumples. For a moment, I think he might cry. But he doesn't. He pulls himself together. Straightens his spine. Lifts his chin.
"Let's go," he says.
He tucks my hand into the crook of his arm. We turn toward the church.
The guards step aside. One of them pulls open the heavy oak door.
Bruno
Twenty minutes earlier
Valentino stands beside me near the altar, his posture relaxed but his eyes constantly scanning. The pews sit empty except for a few of our men positioned at strategic points.
"You look like you're about to face a firing squad," Valentino says.
"Felt that way once. Didn't end well."
He doesn't laugh. Neither do I.
My wheelchair is positioned at the end of the aisle, angled so I can see both the entrance and the priest's alcove. Father Donovan waits in the sacristy, probably praying for all our souls.
"The Romano girl," Valentino says. "What do you know about her?"
"Nothing." I adjust my cuffs. The suit is Armani. Pietro insisted on the best. As if expensive fabric could disguise what I am now. "Nico says she volunteered. Stepped up to protect her younger sister."
"Brave or stupid?"
"Does it matter?"
Valentino considers this. "Might matter to you. Eventually."
I don't respond. The heavy oak doors at the far end of the church creak open, and my spine straightens instinctively.
Pietro enters first, Nora on his arm. My brother's hand rests on the small of her back, protective and possessive. He looks at her the way Riccardo used to look at Ava.
The way I'll never look at anyone.
Lorenzo follows with Sophia. She's wearing something soft and blue, her dark hair pinned up. Lorenzo guides her with that gentle attentiveness he's always had, the touch that makes everyone feel valued.
They approach, footsteps echoing in the cavernous space. I keep my face neutral, my hands still on the armrests of my chair.
"How's everything?" Pietro asks, stopping a few feet away.
Valentino answers before I can. "Men positioned at every entrance. Two on the roof, four in the parking lot, six inside. No one's spoken outside the family, so there's no possibility anyone beyond Sartoris or Romanos knows about today."
Lorenzo releases Sophia's arm and moves closer. "The Romano family should arrive within the hour. Their car left twenty minutes ago."
The doors open again. Nico enters with Kristen beside him, her hair bright against her simple black dress. She's holding his arm, but there's nothing soft about the way Nico moves. He's scanning the room the same way Valentino did, cataloging threats and exits.
"Vittoria and Dmitri just arrived," Nico announces. "They're parking now."
My sister. The thought of seeing her loosens something in my chest, just slightly. Vittoria has visited me more than anyone since I woke up. I've always been a jerk though. I deserve a medal for constantly being a jerk.
"How is she?" I ask.
Nico's expression flickers—something complicated passing behind his eyes. "Glowing. Dmitri won't let her out of his sight."
"Sounds about right."
The Bratva Pakhan treats my sister like she's made of glass and steel simultaneously. I haven't decided if I approve or if I want to put a bullet in him. Probably both.
Sophia moves to stand beside Lorenzo, her hand finding his. "Should we take our seats?"
"Not yet." Pietro checks his watch. "We wait for everyone. Then we wait for the bride."
The bride. My bride.
Antonella
The church doors swing open, and organ music fills the air.
I take my first step inside, my hand resting on Papa's arm. The aisle stretches before me, lined with dark wooden pews. Candles flicker in iron sconces along the walls, casting dancing shadows across the stone floor.
My eyes find the altar.
And everything stops.
Bruno Sartori sits in a wheelchair.
Not stands. Sits.
The man I'm about to marry—the man whose name carries enough weight to terrify half of Chicago—is seated in a black wheelchair, positioned just to the left of where a groom would normally stand.
My feet keep moving. One step. Another. Papa's arm trembles slightly under my fingers, but I can't look at him. Can't look anywhere except at the man waiting for me.
He's handsome. That registers first, cutting through the shock. Dark hair. Sharp jaw. Broad shoulders filling out a black suit. Even seated, he radiates something terrifying. Something that makes the air feel thinner.
But he's in a wheelchair.
No one told me.
Not Lorenzo with his polite smiles. Not my father. Not Nico with his cold demands. Not the woman who came to help me prepare, who measured me for this dress and arranged my hair and never once mentioned that my future husband couldn't walk.
I don't know how to feel.
Relief tries to surface first. He's not the monster I imagined.
Not some cruel, able-bodied predator who chose a desperate bride for sport.
There's a reason the Sartoris needed this marriage.
A reason they accepted my family's debt in exchange for me instead of simply taking everything and leaving us with nothing.
Bruno Sartori needed a wife. And apparently, finding one the normal way wasn't an option.
But anger follows close behind the relief. Not at him. The anger is for everyone else. For Papa, who must have known. For the Sartori brothers who sat in our living room and never said a word. For the woman who zipped up my dress this morning and smiled like everything was perfectly normal.
They let me walk into this blind.
They let me spend five days imagining every possible version of my future husband and not once did anyone think to mention the wheelchair. Not once did anyone give me the chance to process this information in private, to work through my feelings before I had to face him.
Now I'm walking down an aisle with a hundred thoughts crashing through my head and no time to sort through any of them.
My grip tightens on Papa's arm.
I'm halfway to the altar now. Close enough to see Bruno's face more clearly. His expression is carved from stone. Just dark eyes watching me approach with something that looks almost like resignation.
He expected this reaction. He's watching me process the wheelchair, watching me struggle to keep my composure, and he expected it. Maybe even dreaded it.
How many people have looked at him exactly like this?
I force my gaze to stay steady. Force my feet to keep their rhythm. The organ music swells around us, filling the silence I can't break.
The Sartori family fills the front pews on the right side of the church.
My family occupies the left side. Claudio sits rigid, his jaw tight. Gianna's hands clasped in her lap. Oliver is there too, in the pew behind them, and when our eyes meet, I see the same shock I'm feeling reflected back at me.
He didn't know either.
None of us knew.
I close my eyes.
Just for a second. Just long enough to breathe. To push down the anger and the confusion and the thousand questions screaming for answers.
I got this.