Page 50 of Savage Union (Rosso Mafia #1)

Rina

I know that voice. Even before I turn, I know.

Liam Costello stands in the center aisle, his tall frame impossibly out of place amid the sacred ceremony. His blue eyes burn with righteous fury, his face flushed with the particular rage of a man watching what he considers his property being claimed by another.

The cathedral erupts in controlled chaos—security personnel moving with practiced efficiency, weapons appearing from beneath jackets, Commission members ducking into pews. Beside me, Vito transforms instantly from bridegroom to predator, his body coiling with lethal intent.

"You dare," Vito says, the words soft yet carrying through the sudden silence. His hand moves beneath his jacket, emerging with a matte black pistol that looks obscenely wrong against his wedding attire.

Liam ignores him, his gaze fixed on me. "Tell them, Caterina," he calls, taking another step forward despite the half-dozen weapons now trained on him. "Tell them about our arrangement."

Time seems to slow as horror washes over me. My mother pulls Sofia behind her, Elena moves to shield them both, and Marco positions himself partly in front of Vito. But no one is protecting Liam from his own recklessness.

"This isn't the way," I manage, my voice sounding distant to my own ears. "Please go."

"Not without what's mine." Liam's expression hardens as he addresses the assembled crowd. "She promised herself to me. We had a deal—her hand in marriage in exchange for her father's death."

Murmurs ripple through the cathedral, Commission members exchanging glances, capos whispering urgently. The private arrangement Vito discovered last night is now explosively public.

"A deal made null when I killed her father," Vito states coldly. "When I claimed her as mine."

"You stole what wasn't yours to take," Liam counters, his Irish lilt more pronounced with emotion. "She belongs to me by her own word."

"She belongs to no one," I interject, finding my voice despite the terror coursing through me. "Least of all you."

Liam's expression shifts, hurt flashing briefly before hardening back to anger. "You came to me, Caterina. You asked for my help. And I would have given you everything."

"You would have given me another cage," I retort, the truth of it crystallizing as I speak. "Different bars, same prison."

Vito moves slightly, positioning himself more fully between me and Liam. The gesture is so instinctively protective it catches me off guard.

"You've said your piece, Costello," Vito states, his voice deadly calm. "Now leave while you still can."

"I'm not finished." Liam takes another step forward, reckless confidence in every movement.

"Liam, stop," I plead, seeing the growing danger in Vito's stance, in the hardening of his expression.

"Your promises to him mean nothing," Liam continues, addressing me directly now. "They were made under duress, after he murdered your father and took you captive."

"And yours were made from desperation," I counter, aware of every ear straining to hear our exchange. "Before I understood what either of you truly wanted."

Vito's head turns slightly, his eyes meeting mine for a heartbeat. Something passes between us—an acknowledgment, perhaps, of the impossible situation I've navigated between these two dangerous men.

"Enough." Vito raises his weapon, aiming it with the steady precision of a man intimately familiar with death. "One more word and you're dead, Costello."

The threat hangs in the air, vibrating with promise. I should be horrified, should be screaming for him to stop. Instead, I find myself frozen, caught between the man I once believed would save me and the man who has, against all odds, become something more complicated than captor.

"Caterina," Liam says, my name a plea and accusation combined. "Come with me now. This is your last chance."

"There is no chance," Vito responds before I can speak. "She will be my wife. Mine by choice, by law, by sacred vow. Your claim is void."

"Let her decide." Liam's hand moves slightly, and I notice for the first time that he too is armed, the outline of a weapon visible beneath his jacket.

"She already has." Vito's finger tightens on the trigger, his patience visibly eroding. "Your final warning, Costello. Leave or die."

The tension stretches between them, two predators circling the same prey. Except I'm no longer prey, not really. Whatever I was to either of them initially, something has shifted. I see it in Vito's protective stance, in Liam's desperate plea.

Liam's mouth opens, some final declaration forming on his lips. But it's his hand that telegraphs his true intention—a subtle shift toward his concealed weapon, muscles tensing to draw.

At the same instant, a flash of movement catches my eye. One of the cathedral's side doors eases open, revealing a figure I don't recognize—a lean man with the hard look of Liam's enforcers. His arm rises, a weapon appearing in his hand, aimed directly at Vito's back.

Everything happens in slow motion.

I don't consciously decide to move. My body acts on instinct—protectiveness overriding fear, certainty displacing confusion. I lunge forward, shoving Vito sideways with strength I didn't know I possessed.

"Behind you!" I scream as we fall.

Vito twists as we go down, his weapon discharging with a deafening crack that echoes through the cathedral. My wedding dress tangles around my legs, the train billowing like a sail as we hit the marble floor.

Return fire erupts—the gunman's weapon, then multiple shots from Vito's security team. Through the chaos, I glimpse Liam staggering backward, blood blooming across his shoulder where Vito's bullet found him instead of the headshot it would have been if I hadn't pushed him off-balance.

"Stay down!" Vito commands, his body covering mine protectively as glass shatters somewhere nearby.

More gunshots. Screams. The thud of running footsteps. Vito rises to one knee, firing precisely toward the side door where the gunman has already disappeared. His second shot catches Liam as he turns to flee, adding another crimson stain to his already bleeding shoulder.

"This isn't over!" Liam shouts, his face contorted with pain and rage. His eyes find mine one last time—no longer possessive but betrayed.

He staggers through the door his man fled through, leaving a trail of blood across the marble floor.

Vito's men surge forward in pursuit, weapons drawn. Marco shouts orders, directing the security response. My mother and Sofia are hustled away by Elena, their faces masks of horror. Father Alessandro crosses himself repeatedly, backing away from the altar.

And I remain on the floor, white lace pooled around me, spattered with blood that isn't mine. Vito kneels beside me, his expression a complex mixture of fury, calculation, and something I've never seen before—concern.

"Are you hurt?" he demands, hands moving over me with clinical efficiency, checking for injuries.

"No," I manage, though my pulse races so fast I feel lightheaded. "The gunman—he was aiming at your back."

Understanding dawns in Vito's eyes. "You saw him."

"Yes."

"And pushed me out of the way."

I nod, words temporarily failing me.

His expression shifts, something unreadable flickering across his features. Before he can speak, Dante appears beside us, face grim.

"Boss, we need to move. Now." His tone brooks no argument. "Costello's men are in the perimeter. This was coordinated."

Vito rises in one fluid motion, pulling me to my feet. "Get her out," he instructs Dante. "Safe house protocol. I'll handle the pursuit."

"Vito—" I begin, uncertain what I even want to say.

His hand cups my face briefly, the gesture so unexpected it steals my breath. "Go with Dante. I'll come for you when it's safe."

"My family!"

"They'll be safe. I swear it." Then he's gone, moving with deadly purpose toward the back of the cathedral, weapon ready, Marco falling into step beside him.

Dante's hands close around my shoulders, guiding me urgently toward a side exit. "Move, princess! We need to get you out of here."

The world blurs around me—marble and wood and jeweled light swirling into a kaleidoscope of color. Something warm and wet slides down my cheek, and I realize I'm crying. After all my determination to remain dry-eyed, the tears have finally come, unbidden and unstoppable.

Blood stains the bodice of my wedding dress, Liam's blood. The sight of it—so stark against the white lace—breaks something open inside me. A sob tears from my throat, then another.

"Hey, hey," Dante's voice softens as he guides me into a small antechamber. "You're okay. You're safe."

"Safe?" I laugh, the sound edged with hysteria. "Liam just exposed everything in front of the entire Commission. People are shooting in a cathedral. There are blood stains on my wedding dress. How is any of this safe?"

But even as I voice these fears, one certainty crystallizes in the chaos. I chose. When the moment came, when life and death hung in the balance, I chose Vito. Not consciously, not with calculation, but instinctively—protecting him without thought for consequences.

What that means, what it says about my tangled feelings for the man is a question I can't begin to answer as Dante rushes me toward a waiting car, sirens wailing in the distance.

I close my eyes against the brightness of the day, the tears continuing to fall despite my efforts to contain them. Whatever comes next—whatever consequences follow from this catastrophic ceremony—one thing is certain: nothing will ever be the same again.

For any of us.