By Virtue I Fall (Sins of the Fathers #3)(87)

“We’ll find you a good wife,” Dad assured me.

“I don’t need a wife.”

“Don’t covet someone else’s wife,” Frederica reminded me.

I had no trouble being the second man, the occasional lover. With other women, it hadn’t been a problem in the past. With Anna? The mere idea that Clifford would touch her made me raving mad.

I stood. Dad had to grip my arm to steady me. “I’ll kill him. That’ll solve the problem. Not a sin if I’m coveting a widow.”

“Not if you made her a widow in the first place,” Frederica said.

“Anything you do against this marriage now will lead to severe punishment, Sonny. Dante won’t take it kindly if you do something stupid.”

“I don’t fucking care.”

“She doesn’t deserve you. You deserve someone who chooses you!” Dad shouted.





“I’ll check on Anna one more time,” I told Dante. He squeezed my hand briefly, a rare public display of affection, which meant all the more because of its rarity. I could tell that he was slightly nervous. For a father to give his daughter away in marriage was a major step, and for someone as protective as Dante in particular.

“Talk her out of it,” Leonas muttered under his breath.

Dante gave him a warning look.

Leonas had made his opinion blatantly clear. He thought it was a mistake to marry Anna off to Clifford. He and Dante had butted heads on several occasions because of it. He’d been against the marriage from the start. At first, I’d thought on principle to oppose Dante’s decision. As most sons in our world, he tried to rebel against his dad’s authority, at least in private.

I shook my head at him. Now wasn’t the time or place for him to express himself. I knew boys, contradicted their fathers on principle, but he needed to know his boundaries. He was already eighteen and had to learn to accept his father’s decisions.

I turned and headed to the side door before I slipped into the hallway behind it that led to the room where Anna could gather herself one more time before the ceremony.

Sofia left the room. As one of Anna’s best friends, she’d helped Anna get ready. Worry flooded me when I saw her expression. She quickly smoothed it when she spotted me, but I’d seen the concern on hers.

“Sofia,” I said with a small smile. “What’s the matter? Is Anna feeling unwell?”

“No, no,” Sofia said quickly. “She’s perfectly fine. Just a tad worried about Santino still. She feels guilty.”

Of course, this was about Santino. I’d felt increasingly strange vibes between him and Anna since their return to Chicago.

Anna had been very close-lipped which had made me even more suspicious. Something had happened between them, but they both knew better than to show it. I hadn’t mentioned my concerns to Dante. He would have interrogated Santino and possibly drawn conclusions that would have cost the latter his life.

Over the years, I’d sometimes questioned my decision to have Santino guard Anna. He’d done his duty and done it well, but I knew I wasn’t privy to everything that had happened.

As a mother, it was a bitter pill to swallow that your daughter didn’t confide in you. It made me doubt myself and my relationship with Anna. I’d always thought we had a very close bond. Maybe I was being too sensitive, which was probably linked to my oldest daughter becoming a wife today.

“Santino did his duty,” I told Sofia.

Sofia nodded, but I could tell my words made no impact. I hoped Anna had shared whatever bothered her with her friend.

“I’ll go to Anna now, and your husband is probably already looking for you.”

Sofia gave me a quick smile before she lifted the hem of the green bridesmaid dress and hurried back to church.

I headed toward the door at the end of the hallway and knocked.

It took almost a minute for Anna to answer. “Come in!”

I slipped in, my heart beating faster upon seeing Anna in her wedding dress. She was impossibly beautiful. But then my eyes landed on her face, and it was off. She was smiling at me, but it was a smile I never wanted to see from my daughter, especially on her wedding day.

It was forced and careful.

“You look beautiful,” I said slowly as I closed the door so we could talk in private.

“Thank you. The dress is very beautiful.”

“It’s stunning.”

I’d been a bit disappointed when Anna had chosen not to design her own dress, nor the bridesmaid dresses. She had so much talent and it would have made her special day even more special.

I walked up to Anna’s side and touched her shoulder. “Is there something you want to talk about?”

Anna gave me an amused look. “Please don’t give me the talk, Mom. It’s a little too late for that.”

I gave a quick laugh. I wasn’t caught up in some old-fashioned fantasy that Anna hadn’t made certain experiences while she was abroad. I actually hoped she had, considering Clifford hadn’t held back either. “I know. That’s not what I meant. Maybe you have something else you want to talk about.”

Anna’s expression didn’t give anything away. She reminded me of Dante in that moment. She could be hot-headed and stubborn like myself, but when it really mattered, she became Dante. Her expression softened at the look on my face. She shouldn’t be the one feeling like she needed to console me. “I’ll be fine, Mom. Today I’ll do my duty like every member of our family has always done.”