Blood vow

Chapter5

Elena had never imagined her wedding day would begin with a decision about whether to betray her husband.

She sat before the mirror while three women worked on her hair, her makeup, and the tiny silk buttons down her back. Her face looked calm. Underneath, her mind ran the same terrible loop it had run all night.

Tell him about Salvatore, and people die. Stay silent, and Marco might.

In the glass, a stranger looked back: ivory silk, bare shoulders softened by a thin veil, lips painted a deep, dangerous red. The woman looked like she belonged in this house.

Good, she thought. If I'm going to survive it, I'd better look the part.

When the women left, the connecting door opened without a knock.

Elena turned, and her breath caught.

Dante stood in a black tuxedo, one hand still on the handle. For a moment he said nothing. His eyes moved over her slowly, from the veil to the buttons to the red mouth, and something dark and hungry crossed his face before he locked it away.

"You're not supposed to be in here," she said. "Bad luck."

"I don't believe in luck." He closed the door behind him. The click was very quiet. "I believe in what I own."

Her pulse jumped. "Dante..."

He crossed the room in four steps. She backed against the dressing table, and he stopped close enough that she could smell cedar and smoke. Then he held out his palm.

"The key."

She went cold. She had kept it in her hand every night, tucked under her pillow, the only proof that something in this house belonged to her.

"You said it was mine," she whispered.

"I said I didn't want you here because you were afraid." His voice was low, almost gentle, and utterly final. "I've changed my mind. Today you become a Moretti. Tonight you sleep where I can reach you."

"That's not what we agreed."

"The contract says you live under my roof. It says nothing about locks." His eyes held hers. "Give it to me, Elena."

Her fingers trembled as she reached into the little silk pocket Rosa had sewn into her dress. She set the brass key in his palm.

He closed his fist around it, and the tension in his shoulders eased, as though a weight had lifted.

"Good girl."

She should have been furious. Instead heat flooded her cheeks, and she hated that more than the key.

"I need something from you," she managed. "Marco. Move him. Somewhere only you and I know."

"Why?"

"Because I don't trust anyone else with him."

Including your family. She didn't say it. She held his stare and prayed he couldn't read the rest.

A long, dangerous pause. Dante's thumb brushed her jaw, tilting her face up. It wasn't tender. It was inspection.

"You're lying to me," he said softly. "Not about Marco. About the reason."

Her heart nearly stopped. "I..."

"I'll allow it. Once." His grip tightened a fraction. "You'll tell me when you're ready. And you'll be ready soon, Elena, because I don't like secrets in my own house."

"And if I'm not?"

His mouth curved, cold and almost beautiful. "Then I'll learn to be patient in other ways."

He released her, pulled out his phone, and sent one message. "Marco will be moved within the hour. Now come. They're waiting."

The ceremony took place in the garden, beneath an arch of white roses, in front of three hundred guests.

Elena walked the aisle alone. She had no father to give her away, and Marco lay in a hidden bed somewhere in the city, so she crossed the rows of faces by herself. Men in dark suits. Women in jewels. Cousins, uncles, business partners, and, near the back, a small cluster of strangers who watched her with polite, dead eyes.

Rossis.

Dante had invited his enemies to his own wedding. A show of strength. Or a trap.

He waited at the end of the aisle, utterly still. When she reached him, he took her hand and didn't let go. His grip was warm and unyielding, the grip of a man who had never once been refused.

The priest began to speak. Elena heard almost none of it. In the third row, Salvatore smiled over his champagne. At the garden's edge, Luca tilted his head, watching her with bright, curious eyes.

"Do you, Dante Moretti, take this woman to be your wife?"

"I do." No hesitation. The words went through her like a current.

"And do you, Elena Marchetti, take this man to be your husband?"

Her throat closed. She thought of Marco's split lip. Of the man on his knees in the study. Of the key in Dante's pocket.

"I do," she said.

"The rings."

Dante slid a band onto her finger, over the diamond, and the metal was cold. Then he did something that wasn't in any ceremony. He raised her hand and pressed his mouth against the ring, his eyes on hers.

"Mine," he said, so quietly that only she heard.

A shiver ran down her spine. She told herself it was fear.

"You may kiss the bride."

She had braced for something brief, a polite brush of lips for the guests. Dante lifted her veil, slowly, and for one breath he simply looked at her like a man memorizing a face.

"Last chance to run," he murmured.

"I signed the contract."

"That's not what I asked."

Before she could answer, his hand closed around the back of her neck and his mouth came down on hers.

It was not polite. It was a claim. His kiss was hard and deep, one hand at her nape, the other sliding to her waist to pull her flush against him, and she felt the shape of his restraint, a violence held on a leash. Her fingers curled into his lapels before she knew she'd moved. The garden, the guests, and the roses fell away.

When he finally lifted his head, her lips were bruised and burning. His eyes were black.

"Everyone saw," he said against her mouth. "Good. Now no one will mistake what you are."

The crowd erupted into applause.

It's for show, Elena told herself, dizzy. It's all for show.

But her whole body was still shaking.

The reception was a blur of champagne, music, and strangers kissing her cheeks. She smiled until her face ached. She danced with Dante, who held her too close, his palm splayed at the small of her back, and with Salvatore, who held her too tightly and called her a beautiful bride. She said thank you. She hated herself for it.

Dante watched every second. When Salvatore's hand lingered at her waist, Dante's gaze fixed on it, level and cold, until the older man let go and stepped away with a stiff laugh.

Then she slipped onto the terrace for air, just for a moment, and a stranger stepped out of the shadows.

"Mrs. Moretti."

He was big, with a shaved head and a Rossi crest pinned inside his lapel. He smiled, and his hand closed around her wrist.

"Let go."

"Mr. Rossi wants a word. It won't take long."

"I said let go."

"Feisty." He tugged her toward the steps. "He said you would be."

She opened her mouth to scream.

She never got the chance. A hand clamped around the man's wrist, and Dante's voice, low and utterly calm, said, "You're touching my wife."

The man's smile died. "Moretti, we're only..."

The sound was sharp and wet, like a branch snapping. The man screamed. Dante had folded his wrist back with no visible effort, and he held the man there on his knees on the stone terrace, his face as empty as a sheet of paper.

"Dante," Elena whispered.

"Look away if you want." He didn't take his eyes off the man. "You came to my wedding. You put your hand on what's mine." He bent closer, his voice a thread. "Tell Vincent that if anyone touches her again, I won't stop at a wrist."

He let go. The man crumpled, sobbing, clutching his hand. Dante straightened his cuffs, took Elena by the elbow, and led her back inside as though nothing had happened. She noticed that his fingers were trembling very slightly. Not from effort.

From rage.

"Are you hurt?" he asked quietly, in the empty hallway.

"No."

"Did he mark you?"

"Dante, I'm fine..."

He turned her wrist to the light. Red fingerprints bloomed on her skin. His face went terrible, and for a second she thought he might go back out and finish what he'd started.

Then he lifted her wrist to his mouth and kissed each mark, slowly, one by one.

"No one," he said against her skin, "touches you but me."

Her heart pounded. She should have been horrified. Instead she stood frozen, her pulse racing, caught between terror and something she refused to name.

"A word, Mrs. Moretti?"

The voice came from behind her, smooth and cool, when Dante was called away to speak with a guest. Elena turned.

A silver-haired man in a gray suit stood at her elbow. He wore a signet ring on his right hand, engraved with the letter R.

"Vincent Rossi," he said, and bowed slightly. "Forgive my associate. He mistook his instructions."

"He grabbed me."

"And lost a wrist for it. Dante is nothing if not consistent." Vincent smiled, thin and courteous. "I only wished to offer you advice. Between family."

"We aren't family."

"No?" He tilted his head. "Your brother would disagree."

Everything in her went cold.

"Marco," Vincent said softly, "is a very interesting young man. Dante may have bought his debt. But he hasn't bought what your brother knows. Ask him about the night of the fourteenth, Mrs. Moretti. Ask him what he saw."

"What are you talking about?"

But Vincent Rossi only bowed again and melted into the crowd.

Elena stood frozen in the middle of her own wedding, the music swelling around her, the ring heavy on her finger. The words circled in her head.

The night of the fourteenth. What he saw.

Across the room, Dante lifted his head and met her eyes, as though he had felt the shift in the air. The look on his face was sharp, alert, a hunter suddenly aware of something moving in the grass.

He started toward her.

Elena forced herself to smile.

It was the first of many lies she would tell her husband.

And the way he was looking at her, as if he could already taste it, told her it would not be the last he found out about.