Brutal Vows (Queens & Monsters #4)(46)

Actually, yes. But I don’t say that out loud. “He’s probably just nervous about tomorrow.”

“What does he have to be nervous about, the rude son of a bitch?”

I say cuttingly, “Only that his new bride was the target of kidnapping a week ago. Maybe he’s worried about what might happen at the wedding!”

Mamma chuckles. “If he shows up. That man has feet colder than the iceberg that sunk the Titanic.”

“Don’t even suggest it! On Monday, the families are holding a vote for the new capo. If that Irish bastard doesn’t show up for the wedding…” Gianni shudders, unwilling to even finish the thought.

“Jesus, Gianni. Do you care about anything else but becoming capo?”

He looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind. “What a stupid question. Of course not.”

I pour myself another vodka, then go knock on Lili’s door. She doesn’t answer.

“Lili?”

“Go away, zia. I need to be alone right now.”

“But—”

“This is my last night of freedom!” she screams from behind the door. “Leave me the fuck alone!”

I close my eyes and bang my forehead gently on the door several times. Then I shoot the rest of the vodka and go to bed.

I wake in the morning with a sense of dread so powerful, it feels like a premonition.

I run to Lili’s bedroom in a panic and bang on her door. When she opens it, I’m so relieved to see her, I almost collapse into a pile at her feet.

“Thank God,” I say breathlessly, pressing a hand over my hammering heart.

She makes a face at me. “Did you think I escaped out the window in the middle of the night?”

“No. But now that you mention it, yes.”

“We’re on the nineteenth floor. The only thing I’d be using the window for is to throw myself out of it. Now please leave me alone. I have to put on my shroud and get ready.”

“It’s not a shroud, it’s a wedding dress.”

When she only stares at me in baleful silence, I say, “You’re right. It’s the same thing. Are you okay? Scratch that, what I meant was do you need me for anything?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Tell me how to kill my husband and get away with it.”

I close my eyes and draw a breath. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“Then you can’t help me with anything. Knock on my door when it’s time to leave. Until then, I’m holding a candlelight vigil for my lost future.”

She shuts the door in my face.

At four o’clock, we head to the church. In the limo, everyone is tense and silent. Even Mamma looks unhappy. When Lili sees the huge crowd milling around on the steps outside the church, she turns white.

I murmur, “Steady, tesoro.”

She doesn’t respond. Nobody else says anything, either.

Surrounded by a barrier of bodyguards, we go inside the church. The coordinator, an elderly woman in a red cardigan who has stooped shoulders and a sweet smile, shows us girls into the bride’s dressing room while Gianni heads off to make sure Quinn has arrived.

In her wedding dress, Lili drops heavily into an overstuffed chintz chair in the dressing room and stares blankly at the wall. Her bouquet is already here, waiting on the coffee table in a white box with tissue paper. My bouquet is with it, a smaller version of hers.

“I’m sorry your father wouldn’t allow you to have any other bridesmaids besides me,” I say gently, touching an orchid in my bouquet.

“It doesn’t make a difference,” she says, her voice lifeless. “I won’t be seeing my friends again, anyway. I’ll be living here in Boston from now on. And you know they won’t be allowed to come visit me.”

I’m about to protest that Quinn will let her have friends when Gianni bursts into the room in a rush of excitement.

“He’s here! Quinn’s already here and everything’s fine and I think I’m having a heart attack!”

Sounding bored, Mamma says, “You can die after you walk me to my seat. I don’t want to navigate that crowd alone.”

She gives Lili a kiss on the cheek and hobbles out on her cane. An exultant Gianni follows behind, leaving me alone with my grieving niece.

Before I can think of something appropriate to say, she asks me to leave her alone until it’s time for us to walk down the aisle.

My heart aching for her, I leave, quietly closing the door behind me. Ignoring the guards stationed outside and avoiding the crowd of people in the vestibule, I find a deserted ladies’ room in a back hallway and lock myself in a stall for a few minutes to try to catch my breath.

I can’t. I sit there hyperventilating for long, awful minutes until finally, the church bells start to ring. Then I head back to the dressing room, feeling like a cement block has been dropped on my chest.

When I open the door to the dressing room, I freeze in horror.

Lili is on her knees in the middle of the floor, sobbing.

She’s clinging to a young man with dark hair dressed in a brown leather jacket, jeans, and a white T-shirt, who’s standing protectively in front of her, using his body as a shield.

Juan Pablo’s dark eyes burn with defiance and fury.

Gianni stands six feet away, pointing a gun at his chest.