Page 80 of Brutal Vows

“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.

Reacting purely on instinct, I slam the door shut so the guards can’t see what’s happening and order, “Gianni, put down the gun.”

He spews curses in Italian, then shouts in English, “You cocksucker motherfucker piece of shit! You crawled in through the window like a cockroach? Say your fucking prayers,coglione!”

Lili must’ve called him from the hotel. She called him and told him where she was getting married, and he came here to stop the wedding.

Despite kicking myself for leaving her alone in a room with a telephone, I have to admit I feel a deep sense of admiration for Juan Pablo’s bravery.

He’s brave, but so, so stupid. Gianni will never let him walk out of this room alive.

“Papa, please! Please listen to me!” wails Lili, crying so hard, her whole body shakes.