Page 11 of Lorenzo

My bride is on her way.

Max is already standing in the receiving line when I walk into the ballroom.

He’s wearing his second-best black suit. He saves his best for funerals, like the one for my Uncle Silvio a few months back.

I remember how he stood at the graveside with his hands folded like an altar boy. At the same time the priest mumbled Latin words over a man we both knew deserved worse.

But today is a happy occasion. Or so they say.

Max shoots me a knowing smile as I join him in the receiving line.

Leave it to Max to know instinctively the naughtiness that’s just transpired.

It’s a small wedding as far as this city’s luxury hotel is concerned. Just fifty people.

But only the best of the best will do for me and my family.

Waiters in white gloves move through the room with flutes of Dom Pérignon, the kind that runs more than eight hundred a bottle.

A spread of Royal Osetra caviar sits on a bed of crushed ice at the center table. Mother-of-pearl spoons lie fanned out beside it like a hand of cards.

“Getting your last minute of freedom in?” Max teases.

“Last minute of freedom?” I take a flute from a passing tray and drain half of it.

“This is a marriage in name only, Max. I still don’t know why I agreed to Dante’s ridiculous command.”

“Because you’re his bitch, man,” Max says.

We both laugh.

It’s true. But since my brother is the Manhattan family’s don, I can’t refuse him. What the Don wants he gets.

“And I wouldn’t worry. Dante resisted his own arranged wife Gina at first,” Max says. “Maybe you’ll get along with this Boston bluestocking.”

“Wishful thinking, bro. It’s just temporary. So it doesn’t matter if I do or if I don’t. I just hope I can tolerate her.”

“You tolerate everybody. You’re Mr. Nice Guy.”

“Not certain the assholes I’ve whacked over the years would agree.”

As we speak, I look over the few single women milling about.

Slim pickings in our organization.

Close-knit Italian families like ours marry off their girls as young as possible.

I’m only thirty-two, and a respected consigliere for the organization.

For more than a decade, local families have been parading their daughters under my nose hoping I’d take one of them in marriage.

They consider me a good catch, partly because Dante’s so powerful.

There are others in the community who dismiss me as a rake. A playboy.

The stone-cold killer with that charming smile.

I’ll answer to any of those monikers because all these facets of me are true.