Brutal Vows

43

18

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he 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 b***h?”

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 f**k 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.”