He did?
“Marry them,” Narciso growls, his gun pointed at the priest’s temple. The priest’s hands shake as he opens his prayer book. Santo holds his head high and grips me firmly.
“The abbreviated version, Father.”
The priest fumbles over words. One eye’s swollen shut, his lip bleeding. Someone roughed him up and made him come here, made him do this. I’m sick to my stomach.
Romeo… where’s Romeo? I hated the thought of marrying him, but now the thought of being married to anyone else…
“I won’t agree.” My voice sounds high and thin in the stone-walled chapel. “Do what you want to me, but we aren’t married unless I take those vows, and I will not.”
I have to stall. If I can stall, I can get out of here…
Santo shakes his head and winces. “Don’t do this, Vittoria,” he warns. “I promise, I’ll treat you well. I’ll treat you like a queen. But I can’t stop him…”
The priest plows on as if no one’s talking, uttering words that are meant to bind a man and woman together. I look around me frantically, at the flickering candles and brilliant windows, the beautiful, dim interior of the chapel filled with hard wooden benches and memories. I feel as if I’ve been yanked from the modern world into a time warp, where my rights no longer matter and the word of a monarch rules all.
Narciso shouldn’t be that monarch any longer. It’s time to knock him from his throne and bring justice to this family. It’s time for Romeo to become my husband and me his wife. It’s time for me to take the Rossi name and begin a new era.
“I won’t,” I shout, stomping my foot. Santo grips me harder.
“No, Vittoria,” he says. “Don’t. You don’t know what you’re saying. You don’t know what you’re doing…”
“I will not marry you!” I scream, as the priest’s words drone on and Narciso screams in fury, our voices and shouts melding into one horrifying rant. Santo grabs my shoulders and shakes me until my teeth rattle, but when Narciso starts toward me, Santo shoves me behind him, blocking Narciso’s blow. He strikes Santo across the cheek, the sound of the wicked slap making me ill.
Narciso shoves Santo to get to me, but Santo stands his ground.
The sound of a woman’s voice at the back of the chapel halts him in his tracks.
“No!”
He peers into the darkness. Whoever it is walks slowly, with a heavy sigh I feel in my bones, weary and tired.
“Show your face!” Narciso yells.
“Mia donna, stai zitto.” Nonna steps into the light. She folds her arms across her chest. “You. Traitor,” she says, matching Narciso’s fury. “My husband had wishes. You!”
She wags her finger at him.
“You fault my Romeo go to jail! You fault my husband dead.”
“Santo, silence her,” he growls. Santo looks to her then me. If he reaches for her, he has to let me go and my legs are no longer bound. Narciso’s enraged, unaware of the two choices Santo has. My eyes dart around the room, looking for an escape, when Nonna looks me in the eye.
“Vino, Vittoria.” Her eyes dart to the corner of the room, to a door I hadn’t seen before.
Vino. Wine. It takes me a second to realize what she means, but when I do, my heart races.
“Now, Santo!” Narciso booms, clearly more intent on hurting Nonna than he is in securing me.
Santo reaches for her, letting me go. I duck in case Narciso tries to get me, and I run.
I hear Narciso’s furious scream, a muffled thump, and the deafening shot of a gun. Nothing hits me. I reach for the door, yank it open, and fall.
Chapter Nineteen
“Ay me! sad hours seem long.” ~Romeo and Juliet
Romeo
“Where is she?” Marialena and Rosa scour The Castle with Tavi and Orlando, but something in my gut tells me she isn’t here. God.
God!
How could I have let her get taken away? I know my father was behind the attack, and I suspect I know why, but how he managed to pull her straight out from under me... I’m frantic with the need to find her, to secure her. I know he’ll hurt her.
But not if I kill him first.
I’ll forfeit my throne if I do. It’s the most foundational principle of our brotherhood, the Rossi Family’s unalterable rule: the Underboss can’t hurt the Boss. If we allowed that, men could off their bosses to usurp a position of leadership.
But if he had anything to do with this attack, if he created a diversion by attacking his very own family, we’ll make an exception. We’ll have to. He’s gone insane, and lost whatever power his position gives him.
I have to find Vittoria. I have to keep her safe. Fire burns in my gut, fueling the need to find her, to make this right. She came into my life for a reason, and I’m going to make her my wife.