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No sooner had we taken our positions at the end of the long aisle than the guests rose. I didn't have to look around to know that Carlotta and Emilio had gathered all the important families.
And all just to show with whom the power actually lay.
Carlotta handed Amedea the bridal bouquet. At the same moment, the music started.
Weddings had never excited me. They were just a display of emotional feelings, money, and a trophy to put on the shelf with your future wife. At least, if you believed all the old farts gathered in the front rows.
I fixed my eyes on Taddeo while Amedea moved closer to me as I led her to the altar and the priest waiting there.
For a split second, I exchanged the grim expression on my face for a beaming smile, for the show and to signal that this was all about power.
Taddeo Santoro had tried to threaten us and believed he would emerge victorious. He was not only mistaken but had also made a severe mistake, one he realized when he returned my gaze.
We reached the priest, and the ceremony began. It was now definitely too late to back out.
* * *
"You may kiss the bride."
That was it, the sentence I was most afraid of. It immediately tore open old wounds and brought me back to a much happier day with another woman. I was glad Carlotta had followed my request that this wedding was different to my previous one.
Rina and I had celebrated with a private wedding on a small, almost overgrown stretch of beach. Only the closest relatives had been there. There had been no pageantry, no huge celebration or pompous ceremony.
It had been intimate, not a display of power or money like today.
Rina had looked stunning in her dress. Pure white, airy, and light enough that the wind had caught the skirt and played with it. I remembered the details clearly. The subtle rose gold necklace and the ribbon in her hair, which had been tangled repeatedly by the light gust from the sea. Her radiant smile, the warmth and happiness she had radiated that day and the second I had slipped the delicate ring over her finger, I felt like the richest, luckiest man on earth.
For a fraction of a second, I managed to keep this memory alive and recreate what had flowed through my body then. But the feeling did not last and died the second Amedea approached me with a gentle smile.
I turned into a robot that had internalized the movements for what followed and needed no intervention on my part.
My hands closed around her waist as I pulled her toward me and bent over her. I put one hand on her cheek so no one would notice that this kiss was nothing more than a charade. A short touch of our lips, more chaste than my grandparents had displayed in public.
To create a little more distraction, I lifted her, spun us around in a circle once, and set her down again before kissing her on the forehead in a more traditional – and definitely more intimate – way. Amedea played her part perfectly, miming the happy bride who was relieved to have the official part behind her.
She seemed liberated, but I was sure she didn't feel that way.
Behind us, there was applause and enthusiastic heckling. Another thing that I detested at events like these and yet had needed to undergo because it was another difference from what I had experienced with Rina quite a few years ago.
I did not intend to overwrite the memory of my first wedding with this. When I thought of the happiest day of my life, I wanted Rina to be the woman by my side, not a young woman whose only salvation was a marriage of convenience with a bitter widower.
I wrestled a smile from myself but was sure it looked more pained than pleased.
Amedea reached for my hand and leaned toward me in an intimate gesture that appeared familiar. After all, apart from my family and her father, no one knew that this wedding was nothing more than a farce.
While half the people supposedly believed that I had once again found the love of my life and would return to the mafia life, my siblings did not succumb to the illusion we had created.
Carlotta put on a smile and Dario wore a grim expression. Emilio remained professionally bored because his attention rested alternately on Flavia and his phone.
This was just an act, and we all knew it. Nevertheless, leaving the chapel by the quickest route didn't seem to be an option right now. I wondered if Taddeo had noticed that Fiero and Natale had hunted down his men.
I looked across the rows to the back of the chapel, they were both leaning against the front door, attentive as always.
"We have to face the hungry mob," Amedea muttered, with a grin that belied the undertone in her voice.
"I know. But I'd much rather run away and get this shit over." Let's hope no one heard that.
Amedea knew as well as I did that I would not run and how I actually meant the statement, but our guests did not.
