Page 109 of The Butcher's Wife

“Like what?”

“Well, for one, letting you get married to another man.” He leans closer to me.

My heart thumps in my chest.

He was just a familiar face then. A man I’d shared a single kiss with. I smile, imagining him bursting into my wedding to throw me over his shoulder and ride off into the sunset.

It would’ve been chaos.

It would’ve been amazing.

“Do you ever think about that kiss outside your parents’ house?” he asks in a low voice.

“All the time.”

He huffs a laugh like my answer surprises him. And then—there it is again, that look he’s giving me, the one he’s given me before, like he’s seeing me as stronger, braver, more loving. Like he’s seeing a version of me only he can see.

“I’m sorry for leaving,” I whisper, my heart rate spiking.

“You came back,” he says easily.

He leans in to kiss me.

When his lips press against mine and my body melts into his, I understand.

Forgiveness isn’t love. It’speace. And it’s not something I give to another person, it’s for me, and maybe for Dom, too, the version of myself that he deserves, the one we both deserve.

Maybe I didn’t know all Serafina’s secrets, but I knew who she was, and I know the love we shared was important and real.

And as I kiss my husband in the empty stillness of the cemetery, I allow myself to let go of some of the pain, and I let myself make room for something new.

26

ANNETTA

A month passes quickly.I look out over the black, frost-kissed waters of Lake Michigan. Delicate piano notes trickle out of theSpirit of Serenity, broken up by bursts of laughter.

A few partygoers I vaguely recognize from other family events stumble past us, rosy-cheeked from the winter air and huddled together. The men in the group nod respectfully to Dom as they pass onto the massive party yacht.

“We don’t have to do this,” Dom murmurs.

I break my gaze from the dark waters and turn to him. Tonight, he let me tame his hair into a half-up style, and he’s dressed up in an all-black three-piece suit with a light blue pocket square. There are a few buttons undone to reveal a tantalizing window of tattoos and chest hair.

Next to him, I feel like a fraud.

I’m wrapped in a beige wool coat, a pink sheath dress with a modest neckline, and conservative beige heels. My makeup is made to look completely natural, and my nails are long and blush pink. The tip of my nose aches, a lovely winter reminder of my nose job. My hair’s beaten into a shimmering, golden waterfall. Only one thing would betraymy picture-perfect image if anyone thought to look—the gun I’m carrying in my purse.

“Mom would be upset,” I say.

She was very clear that this party would be of utmost importance in convincing the rest of the family that I was Serafina and not a threat to anyone. I’ve done everything I can to keep up with that ruse, subjecting myself to another “spa day” to look like my sister and perfecting the floral arrangements for their delivery.

He slips his cold fingers into the warmth at the nape of my neck. “You always listen to your Mom?”

“Salvatore would be mad.”

Don Salvatore agreed that acceptance from our family would undercut the Chiarellis’ beliefs about my identity and paint them as blood-hungry paranoids.

“Fuck Salvatore.”