However, there was no reason this wedding had to be postponed until later. Another day, another time, were unpredictable. And when I wanted something, I made it happen.
I wanted Mariposa as my wife today.
I lifted my arm, the sleeve of my suit pushing back, and checked my watch. She was running late. Three minutes.
“Guido said ten minutes,” Rocco said. He and his wife, Rosaria, were standing as witnesses. She sat next to him, rolling her bracelet around her wrist, watching me.
I met his eyes, not one to prolong the inevitable. His smirk was starting to irk me. “Parla.” Speak.
Rocco rolled his shoulders, getting more comfortable in his suit. “I did not expect this,” he said in Italian.
Our entire conversation took place in the language.
“We discussed it before,” I said. “This was part of the arrangement.”
He shook his head. “We discussed a different date. Later. Now here we are. Today.” Our eyes held, and then he switched gears. “You did not tell me how the meeting with her family went.”
“They’re not her family,” I said. “Friends.”
“She considers them family,” he said, not caring if he pissed me off or not. “They take care of her. She trusts them.”
“Last I checked, family members are not supposed to cross romantic lines.” The blood in my veins burned with the thought of Harry Boy. Strings.
He was instigating trouble on more than one account. Bringing up the war to spark Mariposa’s curiosity, even though he was a part of it. Harry Boy was the new lawyer for Cashel “Cash” Kelly, the leader of a connected Irish family. Right before Harry Boy took the job, the old leader had been killed, and Cash took his place. He hired Harry Boy not long after. Cash called him Harry Boy, so I did, too. I wanted him to know that I knew everything. Not long after that, he bought the house on Staten Island for the woman I’d be marrying in a moment.
Too late, fucker, I cut those strings. Snip. Snip.
“Ah,” Rocco said, the grin growing wider. “One of the Ryan brothers cares for her.”
I lifted my arm again. Seven minutes. I started to pace the hall. Women took time to do whatever women do, but the clock ticked, and it was loud in my head. It needed to be silenced.
“You should not worry.” Rosaria waved a dismissive hand. “I doubt there is a woman alive who would stand you up.”
My comment about family not crossing romantic lines was aimed at her, too. Rocco and Rosaria also had an arranged marriage, but their marriage was open, to a certain degree. She had made numerous passes at me over the years. Rocco was like my brother. And Rosaria was not my type.
That aside, Rosaria hadn’t met Mariposa yet. She had no idea how different she was, and Harry Boy could offer her something that I couldn’t. A no-scars-included history. If Harry Boy fucked this up for me, they’d find him six feet under, or maybe never at all.
Eleven minutes.
“I know I’m late!” Her voice carried to me through the expansive hall, her heels clicking against the marble floor in a rush.
I turned to find her hustling toward me as though she wasn’t wearing one of the most beautiful dresses I’d ever seen, and she wasn’t the most gorgeous woman in my world.
Her hands clutched the dress, lifting it so the floor couldn’t dirty it.
Don’t you know, woman, the dirt is what’s going to make memories one day, I had the urge to say, but didn’t. Whatever she bought, she appreciated, almost reverent about the purchase. It would take her time to understand that, if her life was full of pristine things, she wasn’t living enough to wear them down.
Scars on skin meant living. Blood on knuckles meant living. Dirt on white clothes meant living. Living meant taking chances, even if we got soiled up in the process.
The late afternoon light caught the material as she passed by a window, making the silky material glow and the pearls and crystals shine. Her small waist and pronounced collarbone were perfectly displayed. Her tits—the only fat she had on her body—were pushed up, jiggling as she tried to hurry. Her hair was swept back, small tendrils framing her face. The style showed off the regal set of her nose and her softer features, those lips.
“Since this was last minute,” she said, barreling right through the fact that I couldn’t take my eyes off of her, “I had to rush and get a few things done.” She eyed me up and down. “You look...”
“Sei sbalorditiva,” I said before she could finish.
Her eyes narrowed. She was thinking hard. “You called me stunning. You are stunning,” she repeated in English.
“I did.” I turned her in a circle. The dress dipped into a deep V in the back. “This dress pleases me.” You please me.
“You wanted me in a dress, I delivered,” she said. “But that’s not…I understood what you said to me, without you having to translate.”
I nodded once. “You’re catching on.”
She shrugged, but I didn’t give her another second to think about it. I offered her my arm and we stepped into the room with the officiant. After a few minutes, we repeated the simple vows and I slipped the ring I’d given her back on her finger. When it was her turn to do the same to me, I went to speak, to say that we’d be skipping that part.
“Wait!” She turned to Guido. He stepped up and handed her a box. She opened it and took out a chunky white-gold ring with a square black diamond in the center and the letter M done in gold. She handed the box back to him and turned to face me, smiling a little. “Late, remember? Something last minute to do. It wasn’t supposed to be ready, but the jeweler took pity on me and rushed the order.” She took my hand and slipped the ring on my left finger.
After the officiant pronounced us husband and wife, the kiss we shared to seal the deal was soft, my mouth finding the corner of hers, hers finding my cheek. Rosaria and Rocco pulled her to the side after, each of them hugging her. As they did, I slid the ring up and down my finger, not prepared for the weight of it, like a leash around a full-grown wolf.
Then something caught my attention on the inside. An inscription.
Il mio Capo.
My Boss.
“Capo?”
I turned to look at my wife. She sat next to me in the car as Giovanni drove us home. Judging by the look on her face, she had tried speaking to me before.
After we were married, something had been nagging at me until I made sense of what she had done.
She had been miserly in using the stipend, finding bargains, even on food. She was even using coupons. The ring she bought, though, easily cost more than two thousand dollars.
She had spent her money on me.
The only person who would’ve done this under my nose would’ve been Rocco. He had invited us to celebrate at the exclusive Italian restaurant he owned with one of his brothers, Brando. When I had pulled him aside to question him about it, he had told me that she came to him and asked him to do her a favor.
A favor.
From a Fausti.
She wanted him to buy the ring so that I couldn’t see the purchase. In return, she offered to fill in for Giada while she was on vacation. No pay. Rocco had accepted her offer, but he still had the other women in his office help my wife regularly. He said she had a lot on her plate with the wedding in Italy.