SWNOVELS Brutal Vows: Chapter 18
The rehearsal goes off without a hitch, but for me, it’s thirty minutes of absolute hell.
I don’t look at Quinn. I want to, badly, but I don’t. If what Sloane said is true, then this insane carnal attraction I feel toward him is mutual.
And very obvious.
Which means we’re standing on top of two tons of dynamite, and it’s only a matter of time before someone strikes a match.
I beg off the dinner afterward by claiming a stomachache. The limo drops me off at the hotel, and I go straight to the bedroom and lie down. I get up after five minutes and raid the minibar.
When I pour the vodka into a glass, my hands tremble.
Two hours later, Gianni, Mamma, and Lili return.
Lili goes into her bedroom and locks the door. Mamma heads to the sofa in the living room and lies down. Gianni whips off his tie and tosses it onto the back of a chair in the dining room, shaking his head and muttering.
“How did dinner go?”
He stops his muttering to glare at me. “How did it go? I’ll tell you how it went. Quinn didn’t speak a goddamn word to me the entire time.”
From the sofa, Mamma calls, “He didn’t speak to anybody else, either.”
Gianni nods in agreement. “Not even his own boss! You should’ve seen him, sitting there grinding his molars in silence while everyone else tried to make conversation around him. Who does he think he is, king of the universe?”
Actually, yes. But I don’t say that out loud. “He’s probably just nervous about tomorrow.”
“What does he have to be nervous about, the rude son of a bitch?”
I say cuttingly, “Only that his new bride was the target of kidnapping a week ago. Maybe he’s worried about what might happen at the wedding!”
Mamma chuckles. “If he shows up. That man has feet colder than the iceberg that sunk the Titanic.”
“Don’t even suggest it! On Monday, the families are holding a vote for the new capo. If that Irish bastard doesn’t show up for the wedding…” Gianni shudders, unwilling to even finish the thought.
“Jesus, Gianni. Do you care about anything else but becoming capo?”
He looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind. “What a stupid question. Of course not.”
I pour myself another vodka, then go knock on Lili’s door. She doesn’t answer.
“Lili?”
“Go away, zia. I need to be alone right now.”
“But—”
“This is my last night of freedom!” she screams from behind the door. “Leave me the fuck alone!”
I close my eyes and bang my forehead gently on the door several times. Then I shoot the rest of the vodka and go to bed.
I wake in the morning with a sense of dread so powerful, it feels like a premonition.
I run to Lili’s bedroom in a panic and bang on her door. When she opens it, I’m so relieved to see her, I almost collapse into a pile at her feet.
“Thank God,” I say breathlessly, pressing a hand over my hammering heart.
She makes a face at me. “Did you think I escaped out the window in the middle of the night?”
“No. But now that you mention it, yes.”
“We’re on the nineteenth floor. The only thing I’d be using the window for is to throw myself out of it. Now please leave me alone. I have to put on my shroud and get ready.”
“It’s not a shroud, it’s a wedding dress.”
When she only stares at me in baleful silence, I say, “You’re right. It’s the same thing. Are you okay? Scratch that, what I meant was do you need me for anything?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Tell me how to kill my husband and get away with it.”
I close my eyes and draw a breath. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”
“Then you can’t help me with anything. Knock on my door when it’s time to leave. Until then, I’m holding a candlelight vigil for my lost future.”
She shuts the door in my face.
At four o’clock, we head to the church. In the limo, everyone is tense and silent. Even Mamma looks unhappy. When Lili sees the huge crowd milling around on the steps outside the church, she turns white.
I murmur, “Steady, tesoro.”
She doesn’t respond. Nobody else says anything, either.
Surrounded by a barrier of bodyguards, we go inside the church. The coordinator, an elderly woman in a red cardigan who has stooped shoulders and a sweet smile, shows us girls into the bride’s dressing room while Gianni heads off to make sure Quinn has arrived.
In her wedding dress, Lili drops heavily into an overstuffed chintz chair in the dressing room and stares blankly at the wall. Her bouquet is already here, waiting on the coffee table in a white box with tissue paper. My bouquet is with it, a smaller version of hers.
“I’m sorry your father wouldn’t allow you to have any other bridesmaids besides me,” I say gently, touching an orchid in my bouquet.
“It doesn’t make a difference,” she says, her voice lifeless. “I won’t be seeing my friends again, anyway. I’ll be living here in Boston from now on. And you know they won’t be allowed to come visit me.”
I’m about to protest that Quinn will let her have friends when Gianni bursts into the room in a rush of excitement.
“He’s here! Quinn’s already here and everything’s fine and I think I’m having a heart attack!”
Sounding bored, Mamma says, “You can die after you walk me to my seat. I don’t want to navigate that crowd alone.”
She gives Lili a kiss on the cheek and hobbles out on her cane. An exultant Gianni follows behind, leaving me alone with my grieving niece.
Before I can think of something appropriate to say, she asks me to leave her alone until it’s time for us to walk down the aisle.
My heart aching for her, I leave, quietly closing the door behind me. Ignoring the guards stationed outside and avoiding the crowd of people in the vestibule, I find a deserted ladies’ room in a back hallway and lock myself in a stall for a few minutes to try to catch my breath.
I can’t. I sit there hyperventilating for long, awful minutes until finally, the church bells start to ring. Then I head back to the dressing room, feeling like a cement block has been dropped on my chest.
When I open the door to the dressing room, I freeze in horror.
Lili is on her knees in the middle of the floor, sobbing.
She’s clinging to a young man with dark hair dressed in a brown leather jacket, jeans, and a white T-shirt, who’s standing protectively in front of her, using his body as a shield.
Juan Pablo’s dark eyes burn with defiance and fury.
Gianni stands six feet away, pointing a gun at his chest.
Reacting purely on instinct, I slam the door shut so the guards can’t see what’s happening and order, “Gianni, put down the gun.”
He spews curses in Italian, then shouts in English, “You cocksucker motherfucker piece of shit! You crawled in through the window like a cockroach? Say your fucking prayers, coglione!”
Lili must’ve called him from the hotel. She called him and told him where she was getting married, and he came here to stop the wedding.
Despite kicking myself for leaving her alone in a room with a telephone, I have to admit I feel a deep sense of admiration for Juan Pablo’s bravery.
He’s brave, but so, so stupid. Gianni will never let him walk out of this room alive.
“Papa, please! Please listen to me!” wails Lili, crying so hard, her whole body shakes.
“Why should I fucking listen to you? You’ve dishonored your whole family!”
Creeping closer to Lili, I say, “Everyone calm down. Take a breath, Gianni. Don’t do anything stupid.”
He looks at me, his eyes wild and his face bright red. “She’s been fucking this kid, Reyna! She just admitted it! She thinks she’s in love with this…this…son of a pool man! She’s ruined! And she’s ruined me!”
When he lurches a step closer to them, waving the gun like a lunatic and shouting about how Juan Pablo’s about to meet his maker, Lili screams in terror, “You can’t kill him! I’m pregnant!”
Gianni freezes. His eyes widen. All the blood drains from his face.
Pregnant.
Beyond my shock, there’s a dawning anger. Lili would’ve married Quinn if Juan Pablo hadn’t shown up. She would’ve married Quinn and tried to pass off their baby as his.
Would she have ever told me? Would she have expected me to keep that from him, that the child he believed to be his own was, in fact, another man’s?
Pretending to be a virgin on your wedding night is one thing. Lying for an entire lifetime about the real identity of your child’s father is quite another.
My anger gets sidetracked when Gianni hisses, “Then you both have to die.”
Before he can pull the trigger, I jump in front of Juan Pablo. “No!”
“Get out of the way, Reyna,” Gianni snarls.
Holding out my hands, I say, “You don’t have to do this! There’s another way!”
“There’s no other fucking way! There are four hundred people out in that church waiting to see a wedding. When Lili doesn’t walk down the aisle, who do you think will be blamed? What do you think will happen to me? To us? Quinn will be humiliated. The contract will be canceled. We’ll lose our standing with the other families, I won’t be named capo, and we might as well start digging our own graves. It’s all over for all of us unless Quinn gets a wife!”
Unless Quinn gets a wife.
Oh shit. I knew today was going to be a nightmare.
I drag a deep breath into my lungs and give my life away.
It’s not the first time I’ve done it, but it is the first time I’ve done it for a noble cause.
Saving three lives counts as noble, right?
Staring straight into Gianni’s wild eyes, I say quietly, “Lili isn’t the only single woman in the Caruso family.”
It takes him a moment before he understands. Then he puffs out an astonished breath.
“Now put the gun down, and send someone to go get Mamma.”
“What do you need her for?”
I exhale, barely able to believe the words about to come out of my own mouth.
“She has to alter a wedding dress.”