Besides, not only had we never been a religious family, we doled out life and death on a regular basis. Why should he care if I engaged in some premarital sex with my fiancée? There was such a bizarre cast to Angelo’s features. I didn’t know how to read them.
“Where do you expect me to stay tonight?” I asked him, cautiously.
He crossed in front of me to the wet bar and poured two glasses of scotch whiskey. He handed me one. “Here. Consider this your bachelor’s party.”
The morning of my wedding, I sat with my head resting on my father’s desk still wearing the suit I’d put on the day before. My head hurt not only from the awkward position I’d been in, but also due to the copious amounts of alcohol I’d imbibed. Worse, my father was nowhere to be found. The last thing I remembered was him guzzling his scotch like it was Gatorade.
Shouldn’t he be passed out somewhere?
I rushed out of our headquarters and toward my rooms, only to find two of my father’s goons standing guard outside my door. The two closed ranks as I approached as if to hinder my entry.
“Let me pass,” I commanded them, but they shook their shaved heads in unison.
“Cavetti said no dice,” the bulkier and shorter of the two informed me, his mouth held in a grim and stubborn line.
“These are my quarters, and my fiancée is waiting inside for me. Stand aside.”
“You’ll have to speak to your father about the arrangements. He said you’re not allowed in until the lady, her maid, and her sisters have been taken to the church,” the tall one said, watching me with a dark beady gaze.
“And where exactly is my father?”
“Don’t know,” Shorty said.
Just then the door rattled and Philippa appeared, holding a sizable garment bag over her arm. The twins came out next, followed by the woman I most wanted to see.
“Signore Angelo said you must prepare at the chiesa.” Philippa said, talking to Lucia about the church. “He said we are to leave now.”
“But where’s—” Before she could finish, she glanced up and caught my eyes. “Romeo.” Lucia smiled at me, but her features were more relieved than excited.
“Are you all right?” I asked her immediately.
“Yes. I was just…” She looked down as if ashamed.
“Just what?”
“I was just worried that you might not wish to go through with the ceremony anymore. When you didn’t come home, I…” she trailed off.
“Nothing in heaven or on earth could keep me away today, farfalla,” I told her, disproportionately pleased at hearing her refer to my quarters as her home. And despite the grunts of disapproval from my father’s two guards, I reached out and took Lucia in my arms. Someone had done something to her long black hair, swirling it into some sort of updo that had pearl-encrusted roses at the center of a high twist. It made me yearn to lick her exposed neck. “I’ll follow in another car in just a few minutes.”
She nodded, and Philippa led her off and out of the house. It took a great deal of discipline on my part not to insist on riding with her. Not because I was that needy for her—though I had missed her last night—but more because of how my father kept mandating the strange rituals around our wedding. He’d been acting almost as if he’d started to believe in the old superstitions, that if we didn’t abide by them, something about either the wedding or the marriage wouldn’t go to plan.
And that, in this day and age especially, was absurd.
Quickly, I jumped in my shower, trimmed my beard into a fine layer of scruff, and put on the wedding suit I’d commissioned for this special day. I was more than ready to make Lucia mine in both word and deed.
17
Lucia
On the ride to the church, my mind was preoccupied by the expression on Romeo’s face, which could only be considered ironic. Here I was out in the world again for the first time in months, and the thing I worried about most was the state of the man who’d captured me. The man I’d hated. The man I now cared more about than I would’ve ever thought possible or advisable. Yet, I couldn’t deny that while parts of my life had spiraled down the drain by being with him, other parts were better satisfied than I had imagined they ever could be.
Santa Maria help me, but I wanted Romeo. I needed him, needed all the light within him and some of his darkness also. And I’d come to discover that he needed me.
Throughout this past month, I’d be able to visit my sisters, and I’d been so relieved. They’d both been fine and had visited one another due to a reason I never would’ve suspected. Marcello and Savio. Romeo’s brothers had begun to show interest in the twins, Marcello with Chiara and Savio with Alessandra. And they’d each been sneaking around and letting Chiara and Alessandra be together. I wondered just how involved my sisters were with the brothers, but each of them proved to be exceedingly tight-lipped about the matter.
For better or for worse, the three of us Bonifacio women had been targeted by the three Cavetti men. I just hoped that none of it would ultimately end in heartache.
While there was a lot of activity taking place at the church’s altar, the rooms further back—rooms that during the weekdays were used as classrooms—were mostly abandoned. The only people I saw as we came holding garment bags, cosmetics, and toiletries, were the nuns who likely taught there at the school.
Because we only had an hour before the ceremony was to take place, all of us flurried about to get ready. We assisted one another with our makeup and hair, but just before I started to put on my dress, my stomach clenched in an uncomfortable way and I had to run to the restroom. Due to everyone being so near, they heard what I’d done. As soon as I came out, my siblings pounced on me like lionesses.
“You’re shaking like a leaf, sit down,” Alessandra told me.
“You’re so pale, too,” Chiara added.
“I’m fine. I’ll be just fine,” I assured them.
“It’s probably because it’s such a big day. Are you feeling nervous? It’s normal if you do,” Alessandra babbled, she’d always been the most talkative of the two, of all of us, really. “Maybe it’s cold feet.”
“It’s not cold feet,” I told her, setting a hand on her arm. “I haven’t been able to keep much down lately, that’s all.”
It was then that the twins caught on to the subtext of what I was saying. Philippa seemed to catch on, as well. All of them stared at me, Chiara and Alessandra with their identical gray eyes and the maid with her dark brown. It was Philippa who dared ask the question first.
“Signorina, are you incinte?”
“I believe so.”
Chiara seized my arm and brought me to a nearby cushioned chair so I could sit down. “You’re not sure?”
“I haven’t told anyone and haven’t had access to a doctor. I’m two weeks late, though.”
Alessandra looked thrilled while Chiara seemed frightened. “Too bad you can’t confirm it before you take your vows,” Alessandra mused out loud, but then, she cut herself off. “Well, maybe you can. There’s a pharmacy down the block…” But then, she fell silent. Despite what was happening today, my freedom had remained limited, and I was certain theirs had, as well.