Chapter 44
KILLIAN
I sat at a mirrored dressing table Sera had actually been right that I would need and adjusted the sides of my tie.
She’d insisted that, to commemorate the special occasion of our wedding, I had to wear something other than black or gray.
I’d assented to a tie in the deep blue-violet Sera had chosen for the main wedding color.
Apparently, it contrasted the flowers but didn’t clash.
“Looks uneven,” Tommaso said as he sauntered into the room.
“I’ve been tying my own tie for forty-three goddamn years?—”
“Forty-four,” he corrected. “You forgetting how old you are now?.”
I turned back to the mirror, away from my best man.
I shook my head at him. “I wasn’t tying ties when I was a baby.
” Today was also the anniversary of my father’s death, after all.
The man who’d taught me how to tie the ties I’d been wearing all my life.
He’d raised me to be the man I was before Sera.
Mano Della Morte , running Philadelphia with an iron fist. Vividly, I remembered being sent home from kindergarten for stealing another kid’s cookie.
He’d gotten to me first and told me in no uncertain terms that stealing candy from babies was below a Ricci man.
Then, he’d glanced around and added that if I was going to do such a thing, I ought to know better than to get caught.
With a small smile, I adjusted my tie one last time and tied it.
“Ah, so weddings pull a smile even out of the stone man.” Tommaso leaned into my vision, already fully dressed. “Thinking about your gorgeous bride?”
“Thinking about what my father would say if he were here,” I replied.
“Hmph. Bit dramatic, but whatever it takes to keep the wife happy,” Tommaso replied in an impersonation good enough to startle a laugh out of me.
“He’d be standing in the corner and smoking like a chimney,” I said.
“And then he’d pull both of us aside to tell us that if we didn’t get our acts together and start behaving like men, we’d lose the best things that ever happened to us.” Tommaso grinned. “Then look around and ask us to tell your mom he said that.”
I nodded, and my chest grew tight. My father raised me to be the man I was before Sera, but I knew he’d appreciate the man I became with her. Even if that meant ending Ricci control of Philadelphia. I clapped Tommaso on the shoulder and smiled.
“Knock, knock,” Adrian drawled as he leaned into the room. “I was told this is where the handsome, suited men go.”
“By Penny?” Tommaso asked, pivoting effortlessly away from the private moment he knew I wouldn’t want shared.
Patrick walked in after Adrian. “Olivia, actually.”
Adrian fidgeted, trying to avoid the insinuation about his relationship with Penny. They weren’t anything official yet, but everyone could see the writing on the wall. Perhaps, like Tommaso and me, leading the city would lead him to what his heart really wanted.
I’d spent too long writing my vows last night. I rubbed a hand over my face and tried not to look like I’d sat up until three in the morning.
“Fuck, man.” Tommaso stepped out the door, loudly ordered some coffee, and returned. “Last night before marriage sex, or bridezilla?”
I rolled my eyes. “Do you really see Sera as a bridezilla?”
He snorted. “Uh, yeah. I remember the fit she pitched when you kidnapped her.”
I shook my head.
“At least I had the decency to buy my girlfriend,” Tommaso continued.
Adrian and Patrick snickered.
“What do you think of this for my toast: I’ve known a lot of men who would beg, borrow, and steal to find the love of their life, but no one who took the last option there as literally as Killian.”
I turned to see my old friend with a fake glass raised in the air and couldn’t hold back a smile. “Stealing worked for me.”
He burst into laughter, and Adrian and Patrick joined in. A moment later, one of the million waitstaff Sera had hired for the event pushed inside with a carafe of coffee. Tommaso thanked the girl then poured cups for each of us and raised his.
“To get a little serious,” he said. “Let’s drink to the good men we lost on the way. None of us would be here without their sacrifice.”
I raised my cup, then sipped the burning black brew.
He was right. I’d lost so many men on this road.
The trail of blood behind me stretched for years, good and bad men alike.
At this moment, the last hurrah of my mafia career, I even missed Francesco in his own way.
Every drop spilled brought me to this moment.
I’d expected to die like my father, with my hands still painted red.
But Sera gave me a chance to, if not wash them clean, keep them from growing redder.
I didn’t know that I could ever repay her for that.
Someone knocked on the door, and I turned, expecting to see another member of the waitstaff. Instead, my mother’s newest nurse poked her head inside. I stood. For a moment, I thought this might also by my mother’s death day. A fitting fate for the Hand of Death.
“She wants to talk to you,” the nurse said.
The moment dissipated. I nodded and let her lead me up to the room my mother moved into a few days ago, so the stress of coming downstairs wouldn’t exhaust her too much to attend the wedding.
The blinds were drawn, and the room was dark, but my mother sat in a wheelchair in the middle of the room, blinking blearily.
The nurse nodded at one of the pill bottles on the bedside table.
She’d been heavily drugged, likely to reduce her pain.
“Who is that?” she croaked.
“Killian.” I stepped into the room. “You wanted to see me?”
She reached vaguely for my hand, and I offered it to her. Her thin skin wrinkled easily in my grasp. Like this, it was so easy to forget she’d tried to kill Sera so many times.
“Today is the wedding, hm?” she said.
“Yes,” I replied. “I’m marrying Sera.”
She scoffed. “I’ve never liked her.”
I clenched my jaw. “I know that.’
“But you’re the man of the house now.” She squeezed my hand weakly. “You do what you must. Just like your father always did.”
I squeezed her back just as gently. “Thank you.”
“You know I got married in your grandmother’s garden as well?” she said.
“No, I didn’t.” I sat in a chair next to hers. “What did she have to say about that?”
My mother cackled. “Hated it. But I guess that’s as fine a tradition as any to carry down the Ricci line, eh?”
The Ricci line. When Sera asked me about children, I honestly hadn’t known how I’d answer. I was the fucking Hand of Death. I couldn’t exactly picture myself fitting in at T-ball practice. But as soon as I opened my mouth, I knew I couldn’t live in a world without a little baby that had her eyes.
“It’s almost time for the wedding,” I said. “I have to go.”
“I love you. Your father loved you,” she said.
I swallowed. “I know.”