THE FALCONE'S STOLEN BRIDE

The priest is three words into "I now pronounce", when the doors at the back of the chapel slam open. Valentina doesn't turn around. Not yet. Her hand is still locked in Marco's, his palm sweating through the ceremony like it's sweating through everything. Then the screaming starts. "Everybody down! Now!" Chairs go over. Someone's champagne glass shatters against marble. Valentina's mother is on her feet, mouth open, no sound coming out. Marco lets go of her hand first. She turns to look at him — really look — and he's already backing toward the altar rail, putting his own body behind the priest's. "Marco." He doesn't answer, he doesn't even look at her. “A man in a charcoal suit is walking up the center aisle like he owns the building”. Two more flank him, black jackets, no masks, and not bothering to hide their faces. That's the part that stops Valentina's breath, they don't care if she can identify them later. That means there isn't going to be a later where it matters. "Sit down," the man in charcoal says. Not loud. He doesn't need to be loud. The whole room is already frozen. Valentina's father is somewhere behind her, near the front pew. She waits for his voice. Waits for him to do something. He doesn't. The man in charcoal reaches her first. Up close he smells like cedar and gun oil. His eyes go over her face once, clinical, like he's checking a delivery against a manifest. "You're smaller than the photo," he says. "Get away from me." He doesn't. His hand closes around her wrist — not rough, worse than rough, efficient, like he's done this exact motion a hundred times and stopped noticing the person attached to the arm. "Let go of her!" That's her cousin Isabella, three rows back, voice cracking. Nobody moves to back her up. Valentina yanks against the grip. It doesn't loosen at all. "You're hurting me."..."You'll live." He starts walking, and her body goes with him whether she agrees to it or not. Her heels catch on the runner carpet. White fabric drags behind her, veil slipping sideways off her hair. She twists to look for her father one more time. He's standing perfectly still by the front pew. Not shouting. Not fighting, his face has gone the color of the tablecloths. "Papa" "Valentina, don't" His voice breaks in the middle of her name, he doesn't finish the sentence, he doesn't move his feet either. That's when she understands, in the ten seconds it takes to be dragged past him, that he already knew. The two men flanking charcoal-suit fan out behind her, boxing her in on both sides. One of them puts a hand flat on her lower back to keep her moving. She elbows backward on instinct and connects with something solid. "She's got fight in her," the one she hit says, almost amused. "Wasn't part of the description," charcoal suit answers and not even glancing back. “Outside, the August heat slams into her like a wall after the chapel's air conditioning. Three black cars idle at the curb, engines running, back doors already standing open”. Someone must have known exactly how long the ceremony would take to get interrupted. "Get in." I'm not going anywhere with you. “He doesn't argue. He picks her up under one arm like she weighs nothing, like the dress and the veil and six months of planning weigh nothing and puts her in the car the way you'd put luggage in a trunk.The door slams”. Locks engage with a heavy, final click. Valentina grabs the handle anyway. It doesn't move. "Child locks," charcoal suit says from the front seat, catching her eyes in the rearview mirror. "Save your energy." The car pulls away from the curb before she can answer, through the windshield, guests are spilling out of the chapel doors now, too late, hands over their mouths, phones half-raised and then lowered again — nobody filming this, she realizes. Nobody wants their name near this. She twists around in the seat, veil catching under her, and looks out the back window instead. Her father has come outside. He's standing on the chapel steps in his black suit, and for one second she lets herself believe he's about to run after the car, he isn't running. A fourth man in a gray jacket has walked up to him, easy and unhurried like they've met before. Her father reaches out and shakes his hand. Not a rescue. Not a negotiation. A handshake. Firm. Businesslike. The kind you give when a deal closes exactly the way you wanted it to be. The car turns the corner and the chapel disappears behind a row of buildings, but Valentina keeps staring at the space where it used to be, at the shape of her father's hand still closed around a stranger's, her own hands are shaking too hard to make fists. "Address confirmed?" the man in the passenger seat asks, phone pressed to his ear. Charcoal suit checks the mirror again. "Confirmed. Falcone wants her delivered tonight, not the safe house." “Valentina's stomach drops,” "Falcone." The word comes out of her before she can stop it. "Adriano Falcone?" Nobody answers her. That's worse than if they had. The driver takes a hard right — away from the direction of the city, away from anywhere she recognizes — and the seatbelt locks tight across her chest as the car picks up speed.