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WE DECIDED TO MEET at Oasis since the St. James family had already had a board room designed for them to move in and out without being seen by guests or staff from a hidden pocket of the attached parking lot. When Brocco and I walked into the dark boardroom, Storm headed the table surrounded by her brothers. She purposedly chose that power seat so there wouldn’t be any argument between me and Xavier. Brocco moved to the side with Pierre, and I eased beside Xavier leaving a chair in between.
“Good. We’re all here.” Storm smiled at me and nodded at Brocco. “Three days ago, Brazino stopped by Gavin’s house unannounced, and it was clear that he still plans to take Harlem.”
“Why am I just being told?” Xavier asked quietly.
Before I could answer, Storm replied, “Because your ego and temper get the best of you, and you would’ve been ready to start a war without thinking how many of us would be killed.”
“You don’t make decisions for me,” Xavier growled, and I could feel the tension bouncing off his body in waves. “You tell me every motherfucking thing that involves the family. I don’t care if you’re about to be a DeLuca.”
Pierre intervened before Brocco and I were set off by his sullenness, bordering disrespect, and he looked at me. “What are you prepared to do?”
“We took one of Brazino’s men out as a warning the same day he stopped by the house,” Brocco replied. “I’m assuming we’re all here for the same thing and can trust what’s said in here remains here.”
Xavier waved his hand dismissively. “There’s no trust, but we can come to an understanding. Brazino needs to die.”
“Facts. I can’t stand the red-faced motherfucker. We just have to be strategic with how we do it,” I said quietly and clasped my hands on the table. “They plan to ambush before the wedding so that there are no consequences from the commission or from the DeLucas back in Italy.”
“How do we know it’s not a set-up? We can be prepared to defend or strike, and then we will end up destroyed at the outset.” Pierre asked cautiously, “Can we trust the source who said we’re being ambushed?”
“Yes,” I replied, not wanting to reveal my source, understanding more about Lil Tate’s hesitation to tell me his source. One can never know the dire consequences of warning people in this life.
“Then we take him out now. That punk bastard is always at his pizza shop harassing the neighborhood. We go in blasting.” Xavier hit the table with his fist.
Pierre inhaled and exhaled. “Bro, we don’t have the manpower to fight the rest of the commission. We can take Brazino and his gang out, but when the remaining four families –“
“Three,” Brocco said. “The DeLucas will remain out of war if it involves the St. James family.” He deferred to me.
“We are aligned now by word and soon legally. We aren’t bond to protect or fight for the commission once a marriage is involved or an agreement is made with an outside party. We also can’t fight on your behalf openly.”
Storm pointed out. “You can pretend to be neutral while secretly fighting.”
“If we secretly take Brazino out ourselves, the commission will blame Xavier for it and rain down on your heads. Suppose we openly kill him without a justified reason. In that case, we’re bringing the commission on our heads and risking the wrath of our family in Italy. We can quietly get in the ears of the families who hate Brazino and remind them that Manhattan can be divided. We erase those who refuse to comply until the dissenters are gone, so there’s a chance St. James survives. The more likely scenario is the commission kills your whole family for taking out an Italian family before we’re able to convince enough people that the Brazino kill was deserved regardless of who did it,” I said.
Xavier gritted his teeth and then began speaking, “The second option is I kill him myself since I’ll be blamed anyway, and we die fighting for Harlem. He won’t walk away from Harlem now that he believes he can own it.”
Storm leaned forward and looked at me. “Or we get married right now. It doesn’t matter if they believe our union is real or not. We’ll have papers, and if Brazino still tries to ambush, they won’t have the Commission's protection or defense. Branzino is risking suicide at this point, and we all know he’s too much of a coward to take his own life. Getting married today is the simplest and best solution,” Storm said and tapped on the intercom. A clergy man walked into the room, holding a folder. “Thank you, Pastor McKinney. My future hubby is the pretty man with the blonde hair.”
He gave a folder to me and opened it to my signature line. I sat there dumbfounded, as did everyone else. Storm arranged all this in two hours?
“This is all we need to be legally married. You’re the main part of the family since neither of our parents are here. You are my witnesses.” Storm looked at each of us and then quickly took a pic of us with her phone. “Gavin, I already signed mine. Once you sign yours, Pastor, a notary, will make sure our forms are legal and submit them to the courts. We’ll make sure he has security until it’s complete. The announcement of our marriage will be made on IG and in the New York Times tomorrow.”
The Pastor gave me a pen, and I perused it quickly before signing it. My heart skipped when Storm smiled her approval. And just like that, we were married on paper. Storm rose and beckoned me to stand next to her. When we stood side by side, facing the Pastor, he reached into his pocket and passed us each a platinum and gold band. “Are we ready to proceed?”
Everything was happening so fast that our brothers remained speechless. I still hadn’t found my voice again. The boardroom became eerily silent as they waited for my answer.
I shook my head slowly at Storm. “This isn’t how I pictured our wedding.” I wanted to shout that I thought I had time to convince her to love me again before we married.
Storm wrapped her arm around mine and gazed into my eyes. “You used to tell me that it didn’t matter what type of wedding we had as long as the person you were marrying was me. Well, here we are.”
I looked back at Brocco, who only shrugged his shoulders.
Pierre seemed amused, and Xavier remained stunned, his mouth open.
“I guess I’m ready,” I finally replied.
The Pastor began stating our vows, and within minutes, the love of my life, Storm St. James, became my wife. Storm St. James DeLuca. We kissed sweetly and politely since we were in front of our brothers. Brocco and Pierre clapped immediately while Xavier reluctantly clapped.
Once Pastor left the room with our marriage papers tucked in a briefcase escorted by one of St. James’s men and one of our men, Brocco grinned and held his hand out to Pierre. “Guess we bros now.”
