A surprise wedding?
The room spins with shocked gasps and gleeful cackling as Loretta clings to Enzo like a koala with abandonment issues. How the heck did Loretta Stiletto get Nona Jo to hand out the invites? Nona Jo must have really owed someone in the Lazzari family a favor the size of one of my mother’s meatballs.
My brain is still processing Nona Jo’s bombshell when she commands the room’s attention once more with another shrill whistle.
“Loretta Semolina Lazzari!” Nona Jo barks, her voice cutting through the chaos.
“Get your caboose back on the ground and your dress back where it belongs! There are children present!” She pauses, scanning the room.
“Well, maybe not, but there might as well be with how some of you are known to behave.”
Loretta reluctantly unwraps her legs from around Enzo’s waist and slides down to the floor with all the grace of a cat being forced into a bathtub. Her lipstick is smeared across half her face and his, and they both have that sanity-is-optional look about them.
“Now”—Nona Jo continues, smoothing down her vintage dress— “everyone gather around. The night is young, and we have much to celebrate!”
A hand clamps down on my shoulder, and I nearly jump out of my skin as Uncle Jimmy materializes beside me like a particularly well-dressed ghost. That cloud of cologne that follows him around announced his presence a split second before his grip did.
“Good thing your mark is here tonight,” he whispers with his eyes fixed on Enzo. “I’ll double your bonus if you arrange for him to drop dead here in front of everyone. It’s what the scumbag deserves.”
My stomach lurches. Not because Uncle Jimmy is asking me to commit murder—that’s practically a Tuesday in the Canelli family—but because he’s asking me to do it here, now, in front of Cooper and both our families.
Including Cooper’s sister, who, despite her questionable taste in men, probably doesn’t want to watch her fiancé keel over during what was supposed to be her engagement party.
Before I can formulate a response that won’t get me fitted for cement shoes, Nona Jo’s voice rises above the din again.
“Effie! Cooper! Come here, you two,” she calls, waving us over with the enthusiasm of someone who’s either had too much wine or is about to unleash chaos. With Nona Jo, I’m betting on both. After all, one often leads to the other.
Cooper and I exchange wide-eyed looks across the room. He’s wearing a charcoal suit that makes his shoulders look like they could bench-press a small car, his wavy dark hair just tousled enough to make my fingers itch to run through it.
Heck, I know I clean up pretty good, too, in my little black dress that hits all the right curves, but the expression on Cooper’s face suggests we’re both thinking the same thing: What fresh heck is this?
A light smattering of applause breaks out as we hesitantly make our way toward Nona Jo. Watson trots beside us and even he looks hesitant to do so. Something tells me he’d so let me take the fall in a hail of bullets.
“Friends! Family! Enemies who haven’t been whacked yet!” Nona Jo starts, and there’s a ripple of nervous laughter in response. “We are gathered here tonight to witness the beginning of a new chapter for our families.”
Cooper’s hand finds mine, his grip tight enough to suggest he’s preparing for battle.
I can’t blame him. The last time our families were in the same room for a “celebration,” someone ended up with a fork in their thigh—and that was considered a successful gathering.
And that was just a few weeks back at Thanksgiving.
“Eufrasia and Cupertino”—Nona Jo corrects herself, using our formal names that nobody ever uses unless we’re in trouble or about to be—“have shown us that love can bridge the gap between our warring families. They have demonstrated that what matters most isn’t which crime family you belong to, but the love that fills your heart. ”
I blink rapidly. Is Nona Jo getting sentimental?
Has the invasion of the body snatchers finally found its first victim?
And why is this suddenly about us and not Loretta Snickerdoodle and The Ancient One?
“Dinner will be served after the lucky couple is joined as one,” she continues, “and while we dine, they’ll be off in the honeymoon suite I rented upstairs. Once they’ve consummated the marriage, they’ll come down and we’ll all have some cake.”
“What?” both Cooper and I say at once. We’re already practically unified at something.
“The minister will be here momentarily.” Nona Jo plows ahead, her smile widening to slightly maniacal proportions. “But until then, dance and make merry because the lucky couple getting hitched tonight is none other than Cupertino Lazzari and Eufrasia Canelli!”
My jaw roots to the floor, as does Cooper’s.
The room erupts into booming applause as soon as Nona Jo shouts out our formal monikers. The music kicks back in at raucous decibels—some Italian dance number that sounds like a tarantella on steroids—and half the crowd swarms the dance floor while the other half rushes for the open bar.
Nona Jo, who just so happens to look suspiciously pleased with herself, trots off to join a group of elderly women who are undoubtedly her cronies from the senior center, leaving Cooper and me standing in stunned silence.
Watson looks up at the two of us and whines with a look that says, Don’t look at me. I didn’t plan this.
“What should we do?” I whisper to Coop as my brain struggles to process the fact that my grandmother has apparently arranged a surprise wedding.
For us.
Tonight.
Without asking.
Without hope for refuting the offer, too.
There are far too many guns in the room for me to ever consider it.
Cooper gives me a sly smile that sends my heart ricocheting around my ribcage.
“Maybe we should dance?” He picks up my hand and kisses the back of it. “I have a feeling we’ll have to figure this out as we go.”
I’m about to say something when Nona Jo belts out one of her ear-piercing whistles once again.
“And another thing,” she shouts. “I want lots and lots of Italian babies from the two of you,” she calls out from across the room, causing another round of hoots and lewd suggestions from the less than dignified crowd—which is a majority of it.
“She does realize we need to actually agree to get married first, right?” I mutter as Cooper guides me toward the dance floor with his hand warm against the small of my back.
“I think in Nona Jo’s world, the agreement is more of a formality than a requirement,” Cooper says as he dots a quick kiss to my cheek.
We’re halfway to the dance floor when Cooper suddenly veers off course, his body tensing beside me. I follow his gaze and spot the reason for his detour.
Not more than six feet away Loretta is pressed against the wall near the bar with her legs once again wrapped around Enzo’s waist as if she’s afraid he might escape. He has her hands pinned above her head while he kisses her senseless, oblivious to the spectators they’ve attracted.
It’s clear the man has a death wish—or a serious bout of dementia.
A small crowd quickly gathers—mostly Carlotta, Aunt Cat, Suze, Lily, and Lottie, all who seem to be admiring the heat they’re giving off. And I’ll admit, it is pretty steamy, in a National Geographic documentary about mating rituals of the desperate and elderly kind of way.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Cooper growls, stalking over and physically separating Enzo from his sister with the kind of move that belongs in a WWE ring.
Loretta the Slut—I mean, Loretta, Cooper’s sister—falls to the ground with an undignified yelp. While Cooper helps her up, I seize the opportunity to grab Enzo by his frisky arm and drag him away about ten feet until we’re on the dance floor ourselves.
“Listen up, Methuselah,” I hiss, getting right in his wrinkled face. “If you want to make it to ninety, you need to stay away from Loretta.” Although given his advanced age, that’s less a threat and more of a miracle he’d need divine intervention to achieve.
And let’s be honest, given my hit and Coop’s homicidal intentions, this man would be better off dead anyway.
Enzo blinks at me with a foggy expression. He mumbles something unintelligible, then points vaguely to his left before his eyes roll up to stare at the ceiling. He clutches at his heart and gags in my face.
For a second, I think he’s having a stroke, possibly induced by all the blood rushing from his head to his nether regions during that hot-to-trot make-out session with Loretta.
He lifts a finger my way as if he’s about to set me straight—then, without warning, he crumples like a marionette that’s had its strings cut and face-plants directly at my feet.
Screams erupt around us as Enzo’s body hits the floor with a thud that somehow manages to cut through the blaring music.
I stand frozen, staring down at the motionless form of Lorenzo Bianchi, the man I was just ordered to kill, who has apparently decided to save me the trouble.
The crowd surges toward us, and somewhere in the chaos, I catch Uncle Jimmy’s eye. He gives me an approving nod, clearly impressed that I’ve just earned my double bonus.
But I didn’t do this.
At least, I don’t think I did.
Unless wishing someone dead has suddenly become an effective assassination technique—in which case, half the people I’ve stood behind in coffee shop lines should be dropping like flies.
This evening just went from “surprise wedding” to “surprise corpse” faster than Aunt Cat could down a glass of prosecco.
And somehow, I have a feeling that once again, I’m going to be the prime suspect.