Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
ADELINA
The fabric was heavy but tight across my chest, and the white lace sleeves and decolletage made the olive tones in my skin pop. I admired myself in the mirror for a second before I stepped out of the dressing room. Immediately, my mother’s eyes popped open, and her mouth dropped as Caterina said, “Yeah, that is the one!”
My cheeks burned because yes, it was the one. It was the perfect wedding dress. It was my wedding dress. As though Vera Wang designed it especially for me.
I glanced toward the front of the wedding shop we had rented out for privacy. Alongside Papà’s man, Alessio, Graff stood in the door, watching the rest of the mall. I wanted him to look at me in this dress. I wanted to judge his reaction... to see if he would lick his lips or if he would study me with that artistic eye of his. I wanted him to say how beautiful I was because I was fucking stunning. The other dresses I’d tried on needed so many alterations they wouldn’t be done by Saturday.
“Lina?” asked Caterina. “Should we have the clerk pack it up?”
“She should to try on another,” said our mom, glancing down at her phone. Probably arranging a gala or charity auction.
I sighed, wishing Nonna were here to see me. “You don’t like it, Mamà?”
“I really do like it,” she replied, smiling in a way only a mother could, “but I’m not sure the long sleeves suit you for a wedding. They would be appropriate for a formal evening, but let’s see what other options we have.”
With a huff, I turned on the podium to face the mirror and then smoothed down my dress. In the reflection, I could see Graff’s broad, leather-clad shoulders, and finally, he glanced back at me. An easy smile spread across his face, and a thrill rushed through me. My core throbbed at the memories of yesterday morning.
Had that really only been a day before? And night before last that Sas had fucked me on the long table, Graff had given me an orgasm to prepare my body, and Rafe had watched it all. His eyes had burned into me, making the pleasure so much more intense.
“You have another dress picked out, don’t you, Adelina?” asked Mamà.
“Yeah.” I stepped down from the dais in front of the mirrors. “A couple.”
“Yes,” corrected Mamà. “The word is ‘yes,’ Adelina. You’ve been spending too much time with these crass bikers.”
“Perhaps I should wear leather rather than lace,” I snipped.
My remark worked to get the desired scowl from Mamà, and Caterina giggled as I hid an eye roll. Still, as Mamà wished, I headed into the next room. I had a rule about dresses since I was a kid: I would only wear one if I could put it on and take it off myself. However, I would have Sas; he liked to see me naked. But would he want to help me out of a wedding dress? And Graff liked to take care of me. And Rafe to...
I let the wedding dress pool around my ankles and stared at myself in the mirror.
My body hadn’t changed, but I felt like a new person, and I wondered if others could see how I’d changed. Perhaps there was a small light of wisdom in my eyes that hadn’t been there before. But that was dumb. Millions, no billions of people or more had sex every day. I was no unicorn in that. Could it have been that hope had sprouted?
Rolling my eyes at myself, I grabbed the next dress from the hanger. It was all right, my second choice, and I slipped it on. The bodice was snug to my top and flared at the bottom. The collar was tight around my neck but left my shoulders exposed. I smirked at the dress and what it showed as I turned to regard my back.
When I stepped out and took a spin, my mom gasped. Even Caterina cut off her yammering.
“You got a tattoo!” Mamà pushed to her feet faster than I had ever seen her move.
She halted a few feet in front of me, red in the face, and her finger jabbing at me. Still wearing his earbuds, Graff had left the front-of-store duty and was hanging off to the side, now watching us openly.
While my mother was eccentric—she had to be to deal with my father—she wasn’t violent. I wasn’t scared of her. In fact, I had to stop myself from laughing because of how ridiculously she acted. It was only a tattoo. A tattoo that Graff had given me, and he would probably give me more.
Mamà pulled at her hair. “Too much like those tactless bikers.”
“I kinda like it,” said Caterina, and Mamà whipped around to her.
“You will not get a tattoo,” she commanded.
“Come on, Mamà,” whined my younger sister. “Everyone has a tattoo now.”
“Not my daughters!” she gasped.
“Not your daughter !” Cat crossed her arms over her chest and pouted.
“Enough,” I muttered, admiring my dress in the mirror. The style was growing on me.
“We’ll use makeup to cover it up for the wedding,” said Mamà.
“No. We will not,” I said, the words stunning me as I said them. The tattoo was on my flank and the back of my shoulder, so I couldn’t see it, but I recalled that only a portion of it reached the place where it would be visible. I barely even remembered it was there, because it had already become a part of me.
“And then we can get you some laser treatments to remove it,” continued Mamà like she didn’t hear me. “Just wait until your father finds out. He may take a knife to it and—” She cut off with a shudder.
She didn’t need to finish.
Soft piano music played overhead, a creepy backdrop to the notion she just put out there.
“I’m wearing this dress for my wedding,” I declared.
“Fine,” muttered Mamà, taking a step back.
My mother didn’t agree to the dress, but she wasn’t going to fight now that she had my tattoo to focus on. She returned to her phone and started typing. Whatever she was looking up, I couldn’t spend the energy to care about.
Cat might still be under her thumb, but I refused to let her control me any longer. She lost that privilege when she condoned Papà’s deal with the MC.
I would have a big fight with my father about the dress and the tattoo and everything else that proved that I was my own person after being cast out of the family. Honestly, I had more freedom with the MC than with my father, an unimaginable notion. But I wasn’t about to give it up now that I’d tasted it.
Graff checked over his shoulder at me, and he was smiling. He really liked this dress too; I could see it in his artist’s eye. Thankfully, his earbuds likely muffled the small spat Mamà, Cat, and I were having.
“Your father wants the perfect wedding for you,” said my mother.
I snorted as I stepped down from the dais in front of the three large mirrors. “Why would he care? He basically railroaded Sas for not marrying me sooner. Without anyone from the family there.”
Mamà prattled on, still intent on ignoring my comments. “He has the best wedding planners working on it.”
“And stealing flowers and things from other weddings?” I asked, quirking a brow.
Mother laughed musically. “Never. He’s paid for a master florist to be flown in from Spain. Only the best for his little princess.”
Rolling my eyes, I asked, “Do you think the wedding planners took any of my ideas?”
At the time, I hadn’t cared about the wedding or what I wore or how it looked. However, things were changing.
“I don’t think the planners used your flower suggestion,” said Mamà, a note of I can’t believe you would even suggest that in her voice.
“Was the belladonna too much?” I asked, saying it loudly enough to cut through Graff’s music.
By the way his shoulders moved, he heard. His face was pointing away from me again, but I thought he was laughing.
“Your grandmother would’ve liked it,” Mamà said dryly.
“I know.”
“I think belladonna is kinda tacky,” inserted Caterina. “Come on, Lina. You were just trying to make it difficult because you didn’t want to marry the biker, so you went in and put a bunch of crap on your list. But you’ll have a very beautiful wedding. I’ve talked with the planners myself.”
“You have?” Mamà and I asked at the same time.
I didn’t need to yell at my sister when our mother narrowed her gaze on Caterina and then stomped over, already speaking quickly in a low tone. And in Italian.
Cat rocked back in the chair, finally turned off her cell phone. Fear was etched into her face, and she shot me a helpless look. I wasn’t saving her now; she was the one who had gotten herself into this situation.
“I’m going to change,” I said, walking away from my sister and mother.
When I came out of the dressing room again, now back in my normal clothes and ignoring the other wedding dresses I had picked out, my mother was in another dressing room with her mother-of-the-bride dress and Caterina was unsupervised. My younger sister stood close to Graff, flipping her long hair over her shoulder and giggling loudly. I recognized that laugh from the hundreds of times she had used it to flirt with our father’s colleagues and capos or with random guys when we went to the clubs.
She was young and foolish—and it was just a game to her—but hot jealousy rushed through my veins. Especially as Graff smiled down at her, polite and forced, but that was still my smile. His face was mine.
“Caterina,” I snapped, and she whipped around, jutting out her chin like she was ready for a fight.
We were close, but even the closest sisters fought. I forced my voice into a soft tone and said, “It’s your turn to try on dresses.”
“Mom will find something she likes for me,” said Cat and then turned back to Graff.
“How about you choose a couple?” I offered. “I want you to feel pretty in it as my maid of honor.”
“You know my choices won’t make it past her,” whined Caterina, and Graff looked away. My sister was acting like a child, and while I had been called a brat—many times—I didn’t pout like her.
“She’ll allow the dress you choose if I say I like it,” I said. I wasn’t sure I believed my lie, but Caterina couldn’t pass it up. “Anyway, if you’re standing at my side, I need your dress to match.”
Caterina grinned up at Graff, who stiffened, but undaunted, she purred, “Can you help me with my dress?”
“No,” I said quickly, and Caterina groaned. “He cannot because he is here to keep watch over us. He’s working.”
Still Caterina didn’t move.
Looping my arm around my younger sister’s shoulders, I turned her around towed her in the direction of the changing room. Her feet dragged over the carpet, but I pulled her along, even as she glanced back. Thankfully, Graff had turned his back and was speaking to one of the capos lingering nearby, another—Alessio—remained outside the store.
“Come along,” I said. “There are some dresses already in the dressing room.”
“Lina,” she whined.
I pushed her into the changing room. “Go already.”
Papà’s limo driver took the bags and returned to the limo to wait for our call. We meandered through the mall, window shopping. When we came to a fine jeweler, I pulled away from the others and strolled through the door at Iceberg Jewelers.
Wandering between glass cases of rings and other jewelry, I assessed their quality. I had seen better cuts. Bigger rocks. More variety. Granted, those stores were in Paris and Milan. But this was Las Vegas, and while we had nice things, most people getting married in Vegas were tourists who would regret their choices later.
So, we also had lots of cheap things—knockoffs, cut glass, cubic zirconia, and the like—alongside the real deal.
I pressed my fingers against the glass, leaving my fingerprints everything. I smudged the glass purposefully, marking this territory as my own until Mamà called me back to her side. The jeweler had pulled out gold rings for us to admire. It was better than silver, and I knew Sas would’ve preferred stainless steel or something more modern grunge.
What I grew up with, though, was anything but modern or industrial.
Perhaps he would like titanium or white gold. At least it had the more rustic look of silver.
I brushed over the different options, each different widths and designs, some plain and other intricate. Each of them had been polished, and I kept catching my own face in the reflective surface. Like in the mirror, I looked different from before I’d left, but I was different.
That’s what being sold did to a person. Aged them. Made them tougher than nails and harder, perhaps colder, than the gold bands I examined. And then... losing my virginity made me a woman who could decide what exactly to do with her life. It was simple to say and think.
“Which one do you like?” asked Mamà.
I pinched my lips, torn in different directions. Then I pointed at one with an intricate gold vine inlaid in the white-gold band. The design had detail that an artist would appreciate, and it reminded me of the vine work on Graff’s left arm. But it definitely wouldn’t suit Sas.
The jeweler reached for it and placed it on a black velvet–covered display board. “Excellent choice, miss.”
I pointed at a second one. “Is that black?”
The jeweler said, “Yes. It’s one of our newer titanium looks.”
“I’ll take that one too,” I said with conviction. The darkness of it, the lack of shine or reflection screamed Sas.
“Do you want help choosing?” asked Mamà.
“No, I want both of those, and.. . that one.” I pointed at one with braided gold—strands intertwined like my life had always been with Rafe.
“All three?” asked Mamà, confusion ripe on her high cheekbones.
“We can afford it,” I said as though it were nothing.
“We can, but why three?”
“In case Sas doesn’t like one,” I lied, knowing he wouldn’t like any of them.
Sas would fucking hate the small symbol that meant he was mine. He would view it as a leash, but that was just fine from my point of view. At least the black one suited him. As for the others, they were special gifts.
The set of three rings stared at me from the black velvet, and I could envision them on the hands of each of the three men who meant something to me. Perhaps this was premature, but I could see it. Taste it. If not now, one day.
While maybe legally, I could only marry one of them, and God—if he was out there—probably wouldn’t approve, I was staking my claim. All three were mine.
The rings and the men. They just didn’t know it yet.
“Yep. Those three,” I said to the jeweler, giving a final nod.
When the rings were boxed up, the lady dropped them into a pink bag with silver accents and handed it to me while one of the capos paid. We walked out to meet Graff, Alessio, and the other capo waiting in the wide mall corridor.
Graff gave me a look, eyeing the bag, but he couldn’t see inside. His smirk, however, and the light in his eyes made it feel like he could read my mind.
No, he didn’t know—couldn’t know. I had my secrets for a while longer.
We made our way down the marble-floored hallway toward the mall’s exit. As the door opened and the heat of the evening pressed down on me, I considered the city itself. Twilight was in full descent, and the lights across my home city started twinkling to life.
Vegas had a unique pulse, life breathed into it by the millions of bodies packed into a few square miles. Some called the desert city home and others came for the sin and nightlife that lined the streets, so many poor souls with hopes of striking it rich. That would never happen with businesspeople like my father in position. Everything here was rigged to ensure the moguls’ pockets were the ones lined.
I stood on the curb in the heat—heavy, but not wet like the cities in the Northwest or Milan, places our family visited regularly. And the temperature was starting to drop with the sun having fallen below the horizon.
Caterina chattered in my ear. “Have you met your future in-laws?”
“I’m not sure Sas has family, Cat. He might have hatched from an egg somewhere in the Redwood forests of Northern California.”
“Adelina,” Mamà scolded. “That’s no way to speak of your future husband.”
I rolled my eyes and looked away, trying to keep the peace with Mamà. Despite how she always stood taller when she and Papà interacted, she held firm beliefs that were grounded in the 1950s. Women should honor their husbands, serve them when necessary, always be the pretty armpiece, and obey them.
There were times when I would gladly obey Sas, but those would only come with the promise of pleasure. Again, he didn’t understand how much his rough attitude and demanding nature turned me on. Maybe one day, he would. The thought of it made my lower belly heavy with want.
Caterina grabbed my left hand. “You don’t have a ring.” She pouted as she lifted her big brown eyes up to meet mine.
I, unfortunately, had no answer to her observation.
“She will,” Graff interjected, and I stretched my eyes wide, surprised.
I pulled my sister into an embrace when I noticed the scowl on her forehead, but I kept my gaze locked with Graff’s. Only for her ears, I said, “It hasn’t been a normal engagement, Cat, but it’s okay.” I didn’t want to bring Mamà into this conversation.
Across the parking lot, cars passed on the highway in streaks of red and white light. They burped exhaust, horns blared, and tires whined against the pavement. And we waited for much longer than usual.
“Where’s the fucking limo?” Alessio’s voice boomed as he swiped a hand over his brow. The man was huge, with wide shoulders, and putting him in the suit Papà insisted on had him sweating even though the heat sucked all moisture out of the air.
None of us had a chance to answer before motorcycle sounds—the rev when the rider cranked on the throttle and the puttering of the exhaust—broke through the Vegas white noise. A single blinding headlight aimed in our direction, and Graff moved toward the figure. The only sign of his high alert was the slow movement of his hand drifting around his back.
Noting his caution, the capos reacted too.
“Let’s go back inside, ma’am,” said Alessio to Mamà, and then ushered her, my sister, and me back into the mall.
I backed up slowly, through the sliding glass doors, but when the motorcycle came to a stop, I recognized the cut. Alessio’s hands were full with Mamà and Cat, so I ducked around Papà’s enforcer.
Graff dropped his hand, his shoulders relaxing too. False alarm, at least a little. For a second Graff and Ghost bent their heads together, talking in hushed tones.
Fear trickled down my spine.
Moving up to Graff’s side, I asked, “What is it?”
Ghost—the prospect who Kaos had been riding in the club’s courtyard that first night I was in LA—glared over at me, and his eyes trailed down my body and back up. It made me feel naked, but instead of checking to make sure my clothes were in place, I rolled my shoulders back, refusing to play second fiddle to this prospect.
A small hand grasped my forearm from behind.
“Adelina, hush,” said Mamà. “Let them work.”
She’d escaped the enforcer too, and Alessio now stood to the side, scowling.
Her deference to her husband was how she had always behaved when the capos and Papà were working, but I wouldn’t be silenced. Once I married Sas, I would outrank this lone rider, so I wasn’t about to cower before him.
Bou—the club’s first lady, as Wilde had declared—set a fine example in this department.
“What’s going on?” I asked, and Graff thinned his lips as he waited for the prospect’s reply.
Something silently passed between them, but all Ghost said was, “Sas sent me over to make sure everything here was secure.”
My heart thumped in my chest. Had something gone down back at the hotel after we left? Graff appeared calm, but guarded, and I couldn’t read Ghost.
“Is there a problem?”
“No,” said Graff, turning from Ghost. “It’s fine. Look, here’s the limo.”
“Oh good.” Mamà sighed, and I turned around to see her fanning herself. “The AC will keep us fresh. I hate having to shower at night.”
Mamà shouldered her purse higher and made for the back door one of the capos held open. Alessio circled the car and ducked into the passenger door.
“Girls,”—Mamà looked back at us—“let’s go. We’ve got a meeting with the planners regarding the rehearsal dinner tomorrow night.”
Shit. What was my family planning? Mamà loved to entertain, and her parties were pretentious, to say the least. It appeared I wasn’t getting away with a quickie wedding, and I worried what Sas would say about that. La Famiglia’s idea of a wedding was a grandiose affair, and that could get uncomfortable quick.
I glanced up at Graff, hoping he could find a way to help me out of this situation.
Cat looped her hand through my arm and pulled, all while batting her eyes at Graff. “Come on, Lina.”
My feet, however, were riveted to the concrete.
“It’s okay,” Graff said. “You go. I’ll ride behind the limo with Ghost.” He started toward his bike in the motorcycle parking slots across from the mall’s entrance.
I really wanted to believe Graff—that everything would be okay. More than that, I wanted to jump onto the back of his bike and ride into the sunset. But I didn’t. I dragged my feet as Cat and I moved toward the waiting limo, my stomach still twisting into a tight knot.