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Even from a young age, I knew my great-uncle was more than a man who demanded obedience. Something sinister lives inside him. He gets off on the tears and pain of others—especially mine. My sorrow is his joy.
I was never blinded by his actions, his words, or even his stares. With Domenico, my heart feels like it constantly wants to jump out of my chest. His voice is like a balm coating chapped skin. His touch calms the fears inside my head. His eyes penetrate soul deep, confusing me, warping my thoughts, making me want things that will never be possible for someone like me. For someone that was born into the wrong family.
The feel of Domenico’s lips still lingers on mine. The taste of his tongue still coats mine despite the three glasses of sticky, sweet champagne I’ve poured down my throat since sayingI doin front of a handful of Domenico’s family, friends, and whoever else is here mingling about out on Tony’s back patio.
As a waiter dressed in all back to match the gothic theme crosses my path, I snatch another flute from his tray with the hand my deceiving wedding band decorates. The young man pauses for me to hand him my empty glass before he continues his trek around the party.
Feeling a towering presence, I flick the gaze that had been following the waiter to the man now standing in front of me.
“Dance with me?” Lorenzo has a carefree smile on his handsome face. He and his brother favor each other in many ways, but where Domenico has the weight of . . . who knows what sitting on his shoulders, Lorenzo looks happy.
Not believing he could be speaking to me, I look to my left and then to my right, searching for his wife or even his sister—anyone but me.
“You’re my sister now,” he informs me. “I think it’s only right to get to know you better,” Lorenzo adds as he presents his right hand to me, palm faced up.
Swapping the champagne flute to my other hand, I place my left hand in his and then put my other hand over his shoulder, my glass dangling behind his back. “Are you sure you’re not just trying to keep the bride from looking awkward, Lorenzo?”
“Call me Ren. Hearing Lorenzo makes me feel like I’m being scolded. I get that enough from everyone else.” He wraps his free hand around my waist and gently pulls me closer. “And no, that’s not what I’m doing, nor do you look awkward, Ciera.”
“Now, I really don’t believe you,” I say half-jokingly, though I’m one-hundred-percent serious. And if I didn’t look awkward before, I do now.
As Ren swings us around, I observe that we’re still the only two people dancing. Not a person has joined us on the outdoor patio set up to be a dance floor. The DJ doesn’t go unnoticed either. He keeps looking at me and then down at his cell phone like he’s reading and typing a text message. Before Ren showed up, I was starting to feel uneasy.
Sasha is seated at the temporary bar on the other side of the pool with her back to the bartender and her eyes on us. There is no malice in her stare. It just looks like she’s observing us.
The two men dressed in suits standing several barstools down from her are a different story. One of them has hatred in his stare, while the other looks wary, unsure if he trusts me not to pull out a loaded weapon and start massacring everyone.
Sienna and her husband are nowhere in sight. I saw Matteo following an older woman inside the house like he was on a mission to get information from her. Sienna followed him, which left their daughter, or Matteo’s daughter and Sienna’s stepdaughter, in Giovanni’s care. They’re sitting alone at a table. She’s eating cake and looks to be talking his head off. He doesn’t seem like he minds, though. He looks happy to be keeping her company.
Tony exits the house while Krishna walks away from Domenico to head in his sister’s direction. My husband hasn’t taken his eyes off me since he perched himself against the white column close to the back of the main house until now, when his dad stops next to him.
A few others are sitting together three tables down from Giovanni. Two of them are wives of the two men at the bar, but the other three ladies I don’t know, nor was I introduced to. The only reason I think two of them are wives of Tony’s men is that I remember them sitting together during the ceremony.
“I’m not lying to you, and you should consider yourself lucky,” he says, pulling my eyes up to look into his brown ones. “So far, you’re the only person in our family I haven’t lied to or kept something from.”
“Then why are people watching me like they’re two seconds from attacking me?”
“Like who?” he inquires.
“Giovanni keeps glancing at me. Two men near your wife are watching for any signs I’m the enemy, and the DJ is giving me the creeps.”
“Even I’m still trying to figure Giovanni out, so you aren’t alone there. I think he’s trying to rediscover his place in the family. The two men at the bar work for Dad. They wouldn’t touch a hair on your head without the boss’s approval; that I promise you, Ciera. The DJ probably thinks you’re hot.”
He smiles, and it’s genuine; at least, that’s what I think I’m seeing from him. “You didn’t marry into the safest family, little one, but rest assured, Tony Caputo does make sure we’re all safe here. That you can count on.”
I’ll be glad when this night is over and the people that don’t live here leave, but I keep that thought to myself as I give Ren a closed-lip smile. His effort was nice and something I won’t forget. But I wish for once in my life I could let my guard down and not question what type of evil lives inside every person I meet.
CHAPTER 23
DOMENICO
My spine between my shoulder blades rests against the white column next to the brick stairs that lead from the patio at the back of my father’s house down to the stone-paved patio extension. To the right, there’s a temporary bar for the wedding. Directly in front of me is the pool with an elaborate fire pit behind it. The pool house is between the stone seating that makes a crescent moon around the roaring fire and where Bennett set up the bar early this afternoon.
To my left and up four wide stone steps is another patio with round outdoor tables and chairs covered in black linen to match the funeral-like theme I requested. I shouldn’t have doubted that my father would follow through on my request, but gothic is more fitting for what it is, and not at all what I had in mind. A funeral it is not.
I’d laugh, but the joke’s on me.
“Do you think she’s ready for us?” K asks from my left, where he stands holding an empty glass of whiskey.
