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“We don’t normally go that long without hearing from you.” Angelica chews on her lip. “We were worried. My husband?—”
“Just give me a minute, and I’ll explain. I’m going to get coffee.”
I return a few minutes later with a raspberry mocha, courtesy of the heavy black credit card that Salvatore left next to my phone this morning. I have no doubt that it doesn’t have a limit, and I plan to exercise that to the fullest today.
“What happened?” Angelica looks at me, her pretty brow creased as she taps her fingers against the side of her mug of tea. “All of that was—” She bites her lip again, glancing at the other two girls. “I heard my husband on the phone that night. I don’t know who he was talking to. One of the other dons, I assume. They’re concerned about Salvatore’s state of mind, after that.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, a little defensively. I’m not sure why, but the idea of the other dons talking about Salvatore behind his back upsets me. It shouldn’t—I’m furious with Salvatore. He ruined my wedding and stole me. As far as I can tell, he gave in to selfish desires and betrayed my father. But—it’s different if the other dons are talking about it. If they decide he’s unfit?—
“Well—” Angelica chews on her lip, and I can’t help thinking that if she doesn’t stop, it’s going to bleed and ruin her lipstick. “My husband wouldn’t tell me everything. He said it’s not really for me to worry about. But he said that Salvatore helped broker that deal with the Russians.”
“Of course he did. He was my father’s right hand.”
“Right.” Angelica frowns. “So why would he destroy a deal he helped broker? It doesn’t make sense to them.”
“He says he thinks my father was wrong to make the deal. That the Bratva would have hurt me and that I would have been in danger with Pyotr.” I wince as I say it. Saying it aloud feels like a betrayal of everything I thought Pyotr and I shared, of the future we planned together. I wait for my friends to exclaim that Salvatore is crazy, that my marriage was arranged for a reason, that he was wrong to step in.
But instead, Angelica and the other two exchange another look.
“What?” I press my lips together. “Just say it.”
Rosaria lets out a slow breath. “We’re all afraid of the Russians. You hear things—” She takes a nervous sip of her coffee, and the cup clatters a little when she sets it back down. “They’re dangerous.”
“So are we. Or the mafia, anyway,” I point out. “But that doesn’t stop you from marrying a mafia son.”
“Marrying one of them is marrying one of us, though. You just said it,” Rosaria points out. “Those marriages might not be for love, but we come from the same backgrounds. If one of us marries a son of a mafia family, we understand each other. What could you possibly have had in common with Pyotr?”
She doesn’t say what she’s really asking, but I can hear it. Why would he want to marry you? It makes me bristle. I know she doesn’t mean to hurt me, but it does.
“He wanted me. He was—I thought he was falling in love with me.” My voice cracks when I say it despite my best efforts not to, and Cristina automatically puts her hand over mine.
“I think what Rosaria means is that—what was in it for the Bratva? Not just Pyotr. But this was a treaty, you said. An arrangement for more than just what you and Pyotr wanted.”
“I mean—” I bite my lip, trying to think. I’ve never really thought that hard about it. My father arranged the meeting, and I wanted Pyotr. My father wanted to give me what would make me happy. It was always as simple as that in my head. The part of it that was an arrangement took a backseat in my head. I only really started to consider what it meant when it became something to fling in Salvatore’s face—first as a means to keep him from postponing the wedding, and then to remind him of his betrayal. “It was about what we wanted. My father wanted me to be happy with the man I married. He loved my mother, and he wanted a chance for that for me, too. So he introduced me to Pyotr, thinking we’d be a good match. And when I genuinely liked him, he let us continue courting. And I fell for him.” I look down at my cooling latte. “But I’ve talked about all of this before.”
“Right.” Rosaria looks at Angelica, and back at me, and I have the distinct feeling that just like the dons have been talking about Salvatore since then, they’ve been talking about me. I don’t like it. “That’s what was in it for you. For your father, even, if his primary concern was your happiness.” There’s the tiniest trace of bitterness in her voice—I know her father has been working on arranging a match for her, and there hasn’t been any concern for whether or not she likes the men he’s been considering. “But what was in it for the Bratva? Not Pyotr, but his father? And the rest of them?”
“An end to all the fighting.” The answer comes automatically, but it doesn’t relax the expressions on Angelica or Rosaria’s faces. Even Cristina lets out a sigh, as if it doesn’t make sense to her.
“It’s not like we’re experts,” Angelica says slowly. “But I’ve never heard my father or husband or anyone at all even hint that the Bratva have ever really wanted peace. As long as I’ve known, they live for bloodshed. They love violence. Why would they want to broker an end to it?”
“My father always says they’re animals.” Rosaria shudders. “I didn’t want to ruin your happiness, Gia, but I was so worried for you, when you told me you were marrying Pyotr. I couldn’t imagine how it would turn out well.”
I feel myself getting tense. This isn’t how I expected the conversation to go. I thought they would all be horrified at what Salvatore did, hopeful that Pyotr would save me, as invested in the future of my seemingly doomed romance as I have been.
But they seem to see Pyotr and the Bratva as the enemy as much as Salvatore does.
“I’m not saying what Salvatore did was right.” Angelica takes another sip of her coffee. “I was shocked. We all were. Like I said, I think the dons are discussing options if this kind of—erratic behavior continues. After all, he only became don because your father didn’t leave an heir.” She says it matter-of-factly, but once again, I feel a flicker of defensiveness on Salvatore’s behalf.
“He was always loyal to my father,” I remind her. “Of course, he would inherit, since my father gave my hand to Pyotr and I didn’t have a brother.”
“I think that’s part of it,” Cristina says. “I hear things, too—my father talking over dinner and such. Everyone always believed your father would marry you into another Italian family, to pass the title on that way. Not give it to his right hand, and send you to the Bratva.” She pauses. “I think they see it as a strange shift in loyalty on his part. It doesn’t seem like his decision to make that treaty was discussed outside his own close circle. But again—” She shrugs. “I don’t know everything. Or much about it at all, really. And you say it was because he wanted to make you happy.”
“He did,” I say softly. “And look what happened.”
“What has happened?” Angelica frowns. “Salvatore threw the Bratva out and took Pyotr’s place at the altar, said the vows—we all saw that. But then—the reception was canceled. We all went home. And none of us heard from you after that. We were all genuinely worried.”
I’m not sure what to say. Suddenly, I don’t know how much I want to tell them. If we were having coffee a few days after my wedding night with Pyotr, I know I’d be excitedly gossiping with them about how it had gone, if it had met my expectations, what exciting new things I’d discovered, and how passionately he’d made love to me. Angelica and I would be comparing notes, and Rosaria and Cristina would be hanging on to our every word, imagining—or dreading—their own wedding nights, but still curious.
