Page 22 of Mafia Bride
I don’t want him to touch me, but I can’t stop staring at him. I want to throw up, but I won’t be a coward while the Virgin is watching. She didn’t throw up. I want to make her proud.
“Marriage brings us here today, to be witnessed by God,” the priest creaks, his voice old and warbling. I close my eyes and focus on his lilt. On his oaths. On his promises. Anything, anything, to keep from crying. The weight of sleeplessness is heavy. The weight of fear is heavier.
A large hand takes my right hand. I know it’s Santino’s before I see it. Only he could have a hand so large I feel like a child once again. I open my eyes when I feel the wedding set on my ring finger. There is an intensity in his eyes that’s heart-stopping. I’m afraid to understand the meaning of that much passion, because I can’t be the object, and the motivation for it is anything but love.
The wedding and engagement ring nest together heavily on my finger. The massive rectangle of a diamond sits above two neat rows of smaller diamonds and shines bright as the sun under the colors of the stained glass.
Yesterday, this would have sent my jaw to the floor.
Yesterday, I would have been beyond thrilled to be the recipient of something so big and glittery.
Today, this diamond is the hard solidification of the fact that I’m living in a nightmare.
“Do you, Violetta Antonia Moretti, take this man to be your husband?”
Santino bores a hole through my body with a simple glance. I know what I’m supposed to say, but I cannot make my mouth form the words, open to share them with my jailer and God Himself. Tears, instead, fill my eyes so Santino is nothing more than a watery shark in a suit standing before me, terribly out of place.
He can’t see me crying under the veil and I wonder if it would matter at all if he did.
What if it wouldn’t? Could anyone be this much of an animal?
“Say it,” he commands.
“I can’t.”
“You must.”
I can’t even refuse with words. My throat is locked like a chastity belt. Tears trickle and tickle their way down my face. All Gia’s careful work is coming undone.
I shake my head, swishing the veil.
He leans forward, grabs my face, and squeezes my cheeks tight. The netting scratches my skin and the fabric stretches over my open mouth.
“Say it.”
My bouquet nearly falls from my trembling hands, had our bodies not been so close together. He’s hurting me and as much as that stuns me, worse is liking the strength of his power against me. I don’t understand why my heart races as his brow furrows and his grasp tightens. Tears fill my eyes now to the brim, and I cannot see, only feel the force of him on my cheeks, and I want to die.
“Say the words, Violetta, or I will choke them out of you.”
Will he? I want him to. I’m not sure if it’s a death wish in my heart or something darker and more forceful that’s screaming for release, but if he’s going to take me like this, he’s never going to know how much I want it. I can’t even admit it to myself.
“Let me go,” I whisper, lips puckered between his tight grasp.
He lowers his hand. I can feel the soreness radiating across my jaw, but I wonder if I’ve stalled this. Maybe he heard me, and he doesn’t want to force me.
“Lo voglio,” he says to the priest. The words mean “I will,” and I realize I’ve stalled nothing.
Dear God,lo voglioin his mouth sounds likelet me goout of my mouth when it’s being squeezed, and the wedding is being officiated by a deaf and blind mafia priest.
“You may now kiss the bride.”
He raises the veil, and I can see him clearly for the first time since I entered the church. He is more beautiful in the clear, unobstructed light of day and that’s not comforting. I hate him, but I’m turned on by him, and I should cut off my hands for this fucking tragedy.
But he doesn’t kiss me. Santino grabs the back of my neck and growls in my ear. “This ring stays on your finger unless someone cuts it off. The answer is yes.”
Terrified, I nod.
He pulls away just enough to look me in the eye, much like he did the first time we met, and again yesterday before he upended my entire world. I can feel the same intense passion, now coded violent, but it isn’t necessarily aimed at me. He’s looking around me. Through me.
