Without another word, he turns and strides over to shake my father’s hand. “Your daughter is as lovely as I’d heard,” he says. “I’m honored to have the opportunity to bring our families together with this union.”
I want to scream and hurl the bottle of tequila at his head, but my father already looks like a pressure cooker about to blow its gasket, so I settle for sloshing more alcohol into the two shot glasses I retrieved earlier. As soon as King is gone, Dad strides over to the bar and rips the shot glass from my hand.
“You will not disrespect our family like that again, do you understand me?” he roars, his face twisted in rage. The legendary Pomponio temper is nothing to mess with. Dad doesn’t have a short fuse, but when his fuse is lit… I scurry off the chair and around the bar, putting the solid oak between us.
“I’m sorry,” I wail. “It’s just that he’s so horrible, Daddy! He’s going to kill me! He’s going to make me pay for the war between our families. I can’t marry him, Daddy! I just can’t! I’ll die!”
My father’s nostrils flare, and he heaves a series of heavy breaths as he stares at me, his face returning to something closer to its normal color. He used to always fall for my tantrums, but I think he’s catching on. Maybe he’s right. Maybe it is time I moved on to a new family, a new man who doesn’t know my tricks quite so well.
“The wedding is happening,” he says. “And that’s final. Do you understand me?”
I nod, swallowing down the lump in my throat. I might have been faking the hysterics, but that man really was terrible. And I really do fear what the future holds, what punishments he’ll consider fitting to pay for the crimes of my family. As much as I hate it, I know there’s no escaping fate.
I’ve always known this is my duty to the family, the price of being a Pomponio. I’m proud of my name, and proud of where I come from. Part of that heritage means marrying for political reasons. I’ll just have to make the best of it. Maybe King has one of the more dangerous jobs, one that will make me a widow before I’m twenty-five, anyway. If not, I’ll just have to put my foot down from the start, show him I’m not some obedient, subservient little house slave. I’ve always been a rebellious daughter. Now I’ll just be a rebellious wife instead. I’m going from being my father’s property to my husband’s, after all. Does it really matter which man is trying to control me?
Dad takes my silence for obedience and lets out a heavy breath. “Sylvia can help you plan. I would also like you to involve the daughters of the other families in some way. One from each family as a bridesmaid along with some of our girls. With all five families together, we look stronger than ever.”
I don’t have to ask who they’re showing unity to. I know there are other organizations in the city. Besides, Dad will want to show the other families that we’re now good with the Valentis. It protects us from their allies and makes us look stronger than ever.
“Do I have to invite Lizzie Salvatore?” I ask, dreading the thought of the trashy little New Jersey princess being one of my bridesmaids. Yes, she’s fun to party with because she’s been doing it since she was thirteen and she knows all the party spots. But she’ll probably cut her dress to right below her ass, get falling-down drunk, and conveniently forget to wear underwear. I might not care for my groom much, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want a nice wedding. Every girl deserves that, even if she has to marry a monster.
“All the families,” Dad repeats. “You’ve got six weeks. You’ll use the place in the Hamptons. And I expect you to call your future husband and make an apology. A man doesn’t want to marry a drunk.”
With that, Dad takes his leave. I slump back to the couch, laying my head back and taking a deep breath. Despite the day’s events, I’m not a drunk. I wish I were. Then I could just numb out the whole thing. Swim through the soup of life in a disoriented fog.
Even I know I wouldn’t be happy with that, though. Yes, I like to party and get stupid on occasion, and lately I’ve been doing it more than I should. But alcohol is a rebellion, an assertion of my independence. It’s not something I use to cope with life’s traumas. I can deal with those just fine on my own. I don’t need help. I’ve fought too hard for my little freedoms to walk into a cage of my own making.
seven
King
The music starts, and all eyes go to the entrance. The audience stands. I’ve been standing, but suddenly, I need to sit down. This is real. I’m getting fucking married to a girl I’ve met exactly three times—once for an introduction, once for engagement pictures, and once for the rehearsal dinner last night.
At the photo shoot, Eliza apologized for being drunk during the first meeting, but I told her I understood. She probably thought it was some kind of platitude, and I wasn’t going to go into the details about my sordid family, so we left it at that, the words sounding hollow and insincere. I may not have been happy to see her that way for our first meeting, but I do understand. After all, it wasn’t my father who taught me how to survive the Life, how to go numb and feel nothing. Ma taught by example, showing me firsthand the one rule you need to make it in the mafia.
My bride steps into the aisle, and a funny little ache starts in my stomach, right below my sternum. She’s so damn pretty. Her black hair falls in loose curls down her back, a little braid of some sort going around the top like a crown. She chose to wear her veil back, so everyone can see her face, the delicate lines of her jaw, her full lips, her thick, inky lashes and luminous, whiskey colored eyes.
She pauses for one moment, as if waiting for everyone to take in the sight of her, all beauty and pure innocence in that flowing white dress. She doesn’t look like a virginal, blushing bride, though. There’s nothing delicate in her gaze when it meets mine. Hatred burns in her eyes, and she marches toward me with the determination of an assassin going in for the kill. I may not relish the idea of marrying a stranger or a lush, but her feelings are beyond that. A knife could be easily concealed by all that fabric…
Let her fucking try it. I’m not going to be taken out by some mafia asshole, and I’m sure as fuck not going down by my own wife’s hand. If she pulls a weapon on me, she’ll see who ends up paying.
Mr. Pomponio kisses her cheek and leaves her with me. She’s in my hands now. My wife. My responsibility.
She looks up at me with those big, doe eyes. The priest goes on for a minute while I stare back at her. God, she’s so fucking pretty. Too pretty for a mafia asshole like me to put his hands on. Her skin is dewy, her cheeks glowing. She lowers her eyes to her bouquet, her long lashes curling against her cheek. She looks like some kind of fairy, too fragile to touch, too pure for any man, let alone one like me. I haven’t been saving myself for her. I’ve fucked lots of girls, all of them meaningless. And now here is this girl who should mean something, the only girl who should mean anything, and I can’t let her.
I can’t give her what she deserves. I can’t love her.
As I repeat the vows, I mean the rest of the words. I will give her what I can, making up for the missing parts of myself, the ones I can’t give. I can’t give her my heart or my innocence. I no longer have either of those things. But I’ll give her everything else. I can still be a good husband, even without love. I will honor her, respect her, and value her. I’ll listen to her. I will treat her as an equal. I will be faithful. I will provide for her. I’ll take care of our children if we have them. I will protect her heart by making sure she never loves me, even if she tries. Because the one thing I can’t promise, the thing no made man can promise, is that she won’t end up a widow.
Those things aren’t in the vows, so I don’t say them aloud. But I vow them to myself, and that’s more binding than saying them to her or a priest.
Eliza hands her bouquet to her bridesmaid, the one who’s been eye-fucking me every moment I’m in her line of sight since we met at the dinner last night, where she not-so-subtly suggested that she could be my last hurrah before married life.
I’ve been to enough weddings to know the bride usually hands off the bouquet before the vows, and I can’t help but wonder if Eliza kept them between us on purpose, not wanting to be closer to me than she has to, not wanting me to take her hands as we repeated the vows.
I slid her ring on while she held the bouquet in her other hand, and now she slides mine on, shoving it into place with her slender fingers, cold despite the heat of a New York summer.
“You may now kiss the bride,” the priest says.