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‘I’m not proud of the fact, it was a game we played… me, Gianni, Enzo, my brother Paolo and a few others… young men demonstrating how we could take the others’ women. I didn’t know she was pregnant with you. That you have to believe.’
‘Why should I?’ I questioned and regaining my equilibrium, I shrugged my shoulders at the same time as I offered his wife, son and men that had made a wide circle around us, a devious smile and deliberately made my voice loud enough for everyone to hear. ‘So, because your cock wasn’t fucking big enough to feel me inside of her, you think it’s alright that you fucked around with her life.’
‘I was young, and Gianni didn’t deserve her.’
‘No, he fucking didn’t… but neither did you. And now, all these years later, I’m getting my retribution and taking your daughter away from you like you took my precious mama away from me.’
‘Serafina doesn’t deserve that,’ he spluttered.
‘Neither did my mama, and you need to remember it’s on our Don’s orders,’ I reminded him. ‘But I might be gentle with her, for a while anyway, if you tell me why?’
‘Why what?’ His voice contained a small element of defeat at his daughter’s fate.
‘Why cast my mama aside when you’d won her?’
‘She told me she was carrying you.’
‘And that was such a kick in the fucking balls to you, that four years later you had to rip her out of my arms and steal her away from her only child?’
‘I didn’t. Why would I?’ He shook his head. ‘I was happily married by then. Why the hell would I want to stir up my past indiscretions?’ he protested. ‘I never saw her again after she told me she was carrying you. She told me she wanted to win Gianni back.’
‘LIAR.’ I gritted my teeth and hissed the single word into the shell of his ear.
‘I implore you, Salvatore De Luca, as you become my future son-in-law, to think about what I’ve just said… I’m not lying. You’ve been working hard these past couple of months to find anything to prove me guilty. The reason you’ve found nothing is because I’m not the man you’re looking for.’
Closing my eyes briefly, I let his protestations sink in and understood that there might just be a single thread of truth in them. Suddenly, I felt unstable. Half of my entire life’s work so far, had been focussing on finding a way to watch his life’s blood pour from his veins. If that was so, then I didn’t deserve retribution and couldn’t claim Serafina as my own.
Sensing her nearby, I knew I couldn’t deny myself the girl, newly turned into a beautiful woman, who had been part of my existence for years. Forcing down my doubts at his guilt, I stood abruptly and pushed his chair away from me but kept hold of the arms making the chair jerk. In surprise at the action, his eyes came back to mine.
‘This I swear to you, Giordano. If you, like your son, have taken any part in the Calabrian women and children being stolen and sold into the sex trade or worse, then yours will be the third throat I slit, after Zeno and Serafina’s.’
‘No, you wouldn’t?’ His voice was hardly recognisable as fear gripped him and after raising my eyebrows at him, I looked away, as my attention was directed elsewhere.
My bride had arrived.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SERAFINA
‘It’s not too late,you know?’
‘Enough, Dante,’ I reproached him and at the same time turned to a concerned looking Mia, before squeezing her hand with my own in reassurance.
The door to the car we had travelled in opened wide, giving me the first glimpse of the church. It had to be said, the florists had done a wonderful job. My only request was that the church, inside and out, was to be adorned with any white flowers they could find. Bowers of flowers, adorned with large white net bows, had been placed against all the arches and tiles of the red bricked Byzantine church, offering a stunning contrast.
Just as soon as I’d finished taking in the beauty of the place, a prickling sensation started up my spine as an awareness consumed all my senses. I alighted the car with an air of desperation to find out if I was right. I could hear Dante and Mia talking beside me, but what they were saying became background noise to the questions that were going around in my head.
He can’t be here?
‘Your dress is ready,’ Mia spoke, and I felt a draft of warm air on my legs as she dropped the piece of material back to the floor. I tendered her a smile of thanks as I moved forward. A need to find out if my senses were correct, made any nervousness that had been building on the drive here evaporate and a ridiculous feeling of excitement found me placing my hand onto Dante’s extended arm.
I strode ahead of him as we walked under the arched entrance to the consecrated church grounds. Ahead of us, I could see my mother and Alessio going into the building. Earlier today, I’d hoped her shock at seeing my choice of dress could have been dealt with outside, but now strangely, it was the very least of my concerns.
I watched as my papa turned his chair towards me. At first, I was concerned, as Papa’s face was bright red. He looked as if the short journey from home to here had been difficult. And here I was, possibly making things even harder. For a terrifying few seconds, I thought that my choice of wedding attire might be too much for him. Then slowly, I assessed his reaction. A slight shake of his head in disbelief was quickly replaced with a look of pride. I understood that Dante had been right all along, when I looked closely into his eyes and all I found there was love.
My papa lifted his hand as he gestured to his men that he was ready. Then using the same hand, he put his fingers to his lips and blew me a kiss, a kiss of acceptance of his daughter dressed in black for her wedding day and in the pit of my once again churning stomach, I also knew it was a kiss of goodbye.
My gaze moved from him, as he disappeared into the church, to the group of three men who were now the only ones outside other than Dante, Mia, and me. Two of them turned to look at me and just the one stayed with his back towards me. It didn’t matter. I didn’t need to see his face. I swept my eyes quickly up and down his large frame. The suit he was wearing fitted him to absolute perfection and I knew it had been made especially for him. His hair was still just a little too long and unruly, but I could see it had been tamed and trimmed and even without being able to see them, I knew his dark eyes were focussed deliberately on the church in front of him as he waited for me.
