He spoke fluently in French. “We’re running late.”
“Oh?” I ask, pressing the pointed end to my Balenciaga earrings into my lobe. “That’s fine. I’m almost ready, but I’ll busy myself with Don Julio.”
“We will meet you there.” He hangs up on me, and I slide my phone into my clutch, breathing in and out.
Papa is a hard man, but with me, he doesn’t need to feel like he isn’t. I take him in all shades of his grumpiness. I told him once that he reminded me of the dad on Clueless. Grouchy, but terrifying, but loving? How?
The door opens and then closes, and Preacher walks through holding a bouquet of flowers. I bring them to my nose and inhale sharply, closing my eyes. Honeydew and freshly cut grass.
“These are so nice.”
Preacher pulls me in close until his lips touch my forehead. “Only the best for you.”
I smile meekly up at him, careful to leave the same smile on my face while lowering them onto the table. “We will take our own car. I’d like to be able to leave whenever I need to.”
I married Preacher because I had to, but I haven’t killed him yet because he makes me feel good. After Luca, I needed a man like Preacher. Someone soft and gentle, who will take care of me. I didn’t need someone rough like Niko. Preacher is the son of Lorenzo Ricci, and because their family and my family have been at war over the state of New York since Preacher and I were children, when they were hit with a common enemy—someone I still don’t know—they decided to swallow their pride and write up a contract that I would marry Preacher when the time came and provide a united front to this common enemy. Cliché as fuck, entirely boring, and predictable—just like our marriage and sex life.
Lorenzo surprised me. I was expecting an uptight, murderous asshole, or a Niko 2.0 since he was the son of a Mafia capo, but he wasn’t that at all. He was… well, he was boring. Sometimes I think I would have had more fun with his daddy.
He takes me by the hand and kisses it. “Let’s go then. We don’t want to be late.”
We can be late, I want to say. I want to scream at Preacher and tell him to fuck me so hard and long that we have no choice but to be late, but I don’t. I don’t because if I ever said that to Preacher, he would probably cry. I’ve never understood how a capo in a crime family could be so soft. I once asked Papa, but he brushed me off and said it runs in their blood and that I should count that as a blessing.
We make our way down the hallway and kitchen area to the open foyer of the Cathedral. I completely tore apart the inside and transformed it into a living room, kitchen, and lazing room. Gone is the church on the inside, but the aesthetic stays the same on the outside.
The gallows, well… that’s now my most favorite part of this entire house.
The walls are painted white and cut with beige trimmings, and the furniture is all modern leather, sleek and comfortable. The stained glass windows offer the perfect light throughout the day, and depending on where the sun hits, the color that pours through could be a mixture of all. Plants decorate everywhere I could put them and tucked behind the oversized U suite is a minibar that’s always freshly stocked. My life is boring, it can’t be sober and boring. There’s a one-hundred-inch LCD TV that hangs on the wall directly above the gas fireplace that I spend way too much time watching, and the coffee table that sits on top of the Persian rug was built from the pews that we demolished. I didn’t want to put all that wood to waste, so I hired someone to turn the wood from the gallows into my Alaskan king bed. Demented? Possibly. Again, I’m bored.
Obviously, Preacher has money, but thanks to Papa Dearest, so do I. I made the most out of redecorating the Cathedral. It was like the more time I spent on it, the stronger our connection became.
Scooping up the keys, we make our way outside. The old bell that used to hang dangerously with rusted screws now sits in the center of the driveway, where water pours out from the center and into a fountain. I really went all out when it came to transforming this place into my home. It was always my home, but I needed it to feel like a house.
I push a button on my keys and unlock my Aston Martin. “Just grabbing the tickets,” I call out, leaning over the driver’s side to open the glove compartment before jogging back to the waiting limo. Handing him the tickets as I slide inside, I kiss him gently on the lips. “Papa is running late.”