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Even my favorite ravioli doesn’t spark an appetite.
I don’t even touch the wedding cake I spent six hours contemplating the flavor of.
My mother went all out with the caterers to create the perfect meal for our reception dinner. Even though only sixty guests were invited to the wedding, she sent out one hundred fifty reception dinner invites.
The wedding was a personal affair.
The reception would have been a party.
How most nuptials go in my family.
I taste metal with every bite, as if the man’s blood were still in my mouth. To add to my anxiety, my mind won’t stop racing after seeingGretchen. I never questioned Benny about her because I didn’t expect to see her again. I thought she was a random woman he’d used to taunt me.
My mother makes most of the conversation. She offers Natalia baby advice and talks with Gigi about her travels through Italy over the summer. Surprisingly, like me, Bria and Isabella are on the quiet side. I’m sure they are processing what happened as much as I am. Even though they kept brave faces as the man held a gun to my head, I know my sisters. They were holding back fear and tears.
“Alfonso is going to take us home when we finish,” my mother tells me. “But I want you to call me first thing in the morning.”
My father insisted Alfonso stay at the mansion with us. My mother made him a plate, and he told us he preferred to eat in the car. Alfonso is a man in his fifties, who insists on listening to Bob Dylan during every car ride and keeps to himself. My father said he’s silent but deadly.
“Benny instructed me to show you to his room when you’re ready,” Gigi tells me.
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that,” I reply. “I can sleep in a guest bedroom.”
Gigi cracks a smile. “Trust me, babe. Benny will drag you out of there and throw you in his bed if you go anywhere else.”
My head throbs, and all I want to do is collapse into a comfy bed, so I nod.
* * *
Benny’s bedroomin the mansion is nothing like his plain home.
It’s dark, sophisticated academia, and it fits him better. Instead of hospital white, the walls are warm-toned. Dark leathers instead of minimalistic white furniture. There’s a TV on the wall above a brown leather ottoman. Aesthetic, old photos in bronze frames hang on the walls.
I skim my fingers along the wood shelf lined with books before opening a door leading into a walk-in closet. Since leggings are uncomfortable to sleep in and I don’t want to ask Gigi to borrow pajamas, I steal one of Benny’s black shirts.
What’s his is now mine.
I button it halfway and wiggle out of the leggings.
With each step I take toward the bed, I feel like a zombie. My exhaustion grows heavier and heavier. I yawn a few times as I slide into the crisp sheets, and I quickly doze off.
My sleep doesn’t last long.
A gasp bursts from my lungs when someone rips the blanket off my body.
CHAPTERTWELVE
BENNY
“I wantan explanation as to why my goddamn wedding was shot up,” I sneer at Severino, staring at him from across his desk.
My father and I spoke before driving to Severino’s home. If the wedding violence were our fault, it would’ve been at the hands of the Lombardi family. The murdered men at the church weren’t Lombardis. We’re still unsure who those motherfuckers were, but Raul has been digging into their identities.
Besides the Marchettis, three families are active in this city—the Cavallaros, the Lombardis, and the O’Connors. So far, we’ve found no affiliation to any of them.
I promised my father I’d have restraint and provide Severino the benefit of the doubt, but who was I kidding?
I left all that promised restraint at the door.
