Page 79 of Brutal Vows

I beg off the dinner afterward by claiming a stomachache. The limo drops me off at the hotel, and I go straight to the bedroom and lie down. I get up after five minutes and raid the minibar.

When I pour the vodka into a glass, my hands tremble.

Two hours later, Gianni, Mamma, and Lili return.

Lili goes into her bedroom and locks the door. Mamma heads to the sofa in the living room and lies down. Gianni whips off his tie and tosses it onto the back of a chair in the dining room, shaking his head and muttering.

“How did dinner go?”

He stops his muttering to glare at me. “How did it go? I’ll tell you how it went. Quinn didn’t speak a goddamn word to me the entire time.”

From the sofa, Mamma calls, “He didn’t speak to anybody else, either.”

Gianni nods in agreement. “Not even his own boss! You should’ve seen him, sitting there grinding his molars in silence while everyone else tried to make conversation around him. Who does he think he is, king of the universe?”

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

“What doeshehave 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 theTitanic.”

“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.”