“The only thing I’m not sure about is Elena’s reaction to your part of the plan,” Frankie admitted with a glint of dark humor in his eyes. “She’s not the kinda woman who thinks being duped is romantic.”
“We need to get back to New York, fratello. Our Family is under attack and they need their fucking capo to put things to right. This is the only way I can return home and keep her safe.”
“Yeah, she’s gonna like you turning yourself in even less than what you have planned for tomorrow,” Frankie noted.
And he was right.
My fighter would never willingly give me up for anything.
Which was why I was taking the choice from her.
I thought of her upstairs in a guest room asleep beside her sister. She hadn’t thought anything of it when Cosima suggested the girl’s night, even though she made sure to fuck me in the lemon grove before she disappeared for the evening. She had no idea I’d suggested the idea to Cosima so we could adhere to Italian tradition.
The groom should never see the bride the night before the wedding.
“The moment you think you know Elena, she surprises you with more,” I told Frankie. “Think about how much she’s changed since we first met her. I shouldn’t say changed really, because it was already all there beneath the ice and scar tissue. No matter how angry she might be with me, she’ll do what needs to be done when we return home.”
“Cosima did the same thing to me,” Alexander confessed, staring into the bowl of his glass is if memories were playing out on a screen there. “I never knew what love was until her.”
“And she’ll never know it again without me,” I asserted. “That’s why I’m doing this. It might not have happened tomorrow or this year or even the next, but the truth is, none of that fucking matters. Elena became mine the day she got on the plane and I was never going to give her back.”
I told myself that again and again, because honestly, I wasn’t sure how my fighter was going to take the second half of the plan I’d put in place.
She was independent and strong willed, and she was also the kind of woman who had been planning the events of her entire life since she was a little girl.
This was definitely not something she could have predicted.
But there was no other option.
If I wanted to stay alive and keep her out of jail, Elena Lombardi would have to become my wife.
Sixteen
Elena
The Sunday before Christmas dawned bright and cold, a wind rushing in off the bay that rattled the lemon trees and swirled the garbage in the streets of Naples like snow in a globe. I got ready for the wedding alone in the room I shared with Dante, my lover gone long before I woke up to ready himself for the day.
There was a lot to be done if we were going to pull this thing off.
I strapped my thigh holster to my leg under the red wrap dress I wore, secure in the fact I knew how to yield the weapon if I needed to. I took extra time getting ready, making my lips red as my dress, curling my hair until it fell in a mess of Chianti colored waves around my breasts. It was a bold color to wear to a wedding, but I wanted Rocco to see me in the crowd.
I wanted him to think he was safe.
My sink was stained with dye from the night before that I carefully rinsed out before I went downstairs to meet Tore.
He was dressed in a beautifully tailored suit looking every inch the mafia boss as he extended his arm for me to take. When I did, his other hand found my forearm and squeezed.
“I am sorry you had to find out about Caprice and I this way.” His eyes were as golden as the gilt scrolling on the shrine to Apollo in the Duomo di Napoli. As golden as his daughter’s. “I want you to understand, I have loved your mother for most of my life and I do not see that changing.”
“Have you told her that?” I wondered.
His lips thinned. “She knows. She says there is too much water under this bridge.”
“Bridges exist to straddle the void,” I countered. “Maybe you just need to build a new one.”
There was a ghost of smile in his short beard. “I have your approval then.”
“If you need it,” I offered then shrugged. “Though, I won’t ask for yours with Dante.”
“You don’t need it,’ he assured.
I raised an eyebrow, inferring that I felt the same about him. “Maybe a few months ago, I would have judged you and Mama more harshly, but I’m in no place to do so now. If Dante wanted to drag me into the bowls of hell, I’d go with him gladly. Love makes animals of us all, all instinct and heart with no capacity for reason. I won’t judge you for loving her or the things you’ve done in service of that love just as I wouldn’t judge a wolf for slaughtering sheep or a bear for protecting its cubs. It’s just in our nature.”
“Eloquently said.” He patted my hand then led me out the doors to his waiting Maserati.
“Are you ready for today?” he queried once we were settled into the low yellow car I remembered from my childhood and the engine roared into wakefulness.
“Either I end the day Dante’s mistress or we all end it free. Either way, I’ll go down fighting.”
He grinned as he gunned the car, speeding down the driveway with a roar of the engine like a trumpet announcing our call to war.
“In bocca al lupo a tutti noi,” he called over the cacophony.
Good luck to us all.
The church was packed to the gills with smartly dressed Neapolitans. Everyone wore black as if it was a funeral and not a celebration, but the women dripped with jewels to show their affluential connections in the mafia and the men wore sunglasses even though it was a cool, overcast morning and the light inside the church itself was dim.
Tore and I waited in the receiving line to greet the father of the groom, in this case, the uncle.
“Elena,” Rocco said, ignoring Tore even though it was extraordinarily rude and therefore dangerous to do so. “You look exquisite today.”
“Thank you,” I demurred, holding on to Frankie’s arm as if I couldn’t bear to be separated from him.
The truth was, he’d met us at the church with a distinctly distracted aura and wasn’t playing the part of my doting husband very well.
“You will come to the party at my villa after,” Rocco asserted, still holding the hand he’d raised to kiss.
“I wouldn’t miss it.” I gave his palm a squeeze before firmly pulling away from his sweaty grasp. “Frankie and I are taking something of a second honeymoon while we’re here so we might not stay long.”
Rocco’s beady eyes narrowed.
I smiled placidly at him.
He was smart enough to know Dante wasn’t the kind of man who enjoyed being maneuvered into corners, but he wasn’t smart enough to guess at how he might strike back at him.
“You’ll sit behind me during the ceremony,” he announced. “So I can keep an eye on all of you.”
“Va bene,” I agreed easily. “It will be nice to have a front row seat.”
Reluctantly, Rocco gestured for us to move on so he could greet the other attendees in the line. I let out a little breath of relief when we passed into the cool church, my hand clammy on Frankie’s suited arm.