"You can put the dress in the first bedroom at the top of the stairs, Georgio," Ivory said, and he nodded before making his way for the stairs in haste. I had no doubt that the men couldn't wait until they could gossip like women once we were out of the way.
They were worse than most of the women I knew, honestly.
She guided me up the steps, and I resisted the urge to glance back at Lino. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing me feel so uncertain. "Just a little farther. Then you can break," she urged as she wrapped an arm around my shoulder. I nodded to her, fighting back the threat of tears.
"Angel," Matteo called and the two of us froze on the steps. I turned back to watch him raise his eyebrows at his wife, as if he could sense her sympathy for me. "She's ready in an hour, yeah?" The walls of my cage closed tighter, clutching around me with the confirmation that they all knew. They all knew I didn't want this, that I didn't want to be there.
They didn't care in the slightest.
"Yes, Teo," Ivory murmured back, and we continued on until we could hide away in the bedroom. Georgio hurried past us at the top of the stairs, and we stepped into the privacy of the bedroom a moment later. The white fabric of the dress draped over the navy blue bedding artfully, like Georgio had taken the time to arrange it just so rather than just dropping it and running like he actually had.
The door to the bathroom was propped open, and Ivory led me straight for it. "It's okay. You know Lino loves you," she reassured me, but I sniffled back the threat of tears. I couldn't cry again, couldn't actually break.
Not when I only had an hour.
"Not like this," I whimpered as she drew me in for a hug. "Congratulations," I whispered, huffing a sardonic laugh. "I couldn't see her, not with the way Matteo kept her all wrapped up, but I'm sure she's perfect."
Ivory's smooth laugh came from above my head, and it immediately brought back memories of when we'd been closer friends in high school. Of the days when she'd been infectious and happy and filled with all the joy that her relationship with Matteo had brought to my innocent friend. Since the wedding, she'd started finding her way back to that, and I couldn't have been happier for her.
"She is," she sighed, and I could feel the smile in her voice. "You could have one too, you know."
I laughed, because it was ridiculous to think of Lino and I having children. Until two days earlier, he'd never so much as kissed me. "I don't want him to resent me," I admitted. "If he marries me, what happens when he finds someone he actually wants to marry down the line? I'll be in the way, and it will be for the stupidest reason."
Ivory pulled back, putting her hands on my shoulders as she stared at me intently. "Trust me when I say that will never happen, okay? I get the distinct impression that Lino is a lot like his cousin, assuming you can just magically read him. It's okay that we can't, but even Matteo only told me he loved me the day before he put a ring on my finger. You just have to grab Lino and shake him and make him tell you how he feels about you."
“I don’t think I want to know the answer,” I admitted.
“You want him. You have always wanted him, so why have you been crying?"
Ivory turned me to the mirror as she lifted my head up and touched gentle fingers to my throat. "He threatened to lock me away. It's Lino. I just—I never thought he'd hurt me."
She sighed, dropping her fingers from my throat and shaking her head with disappointment on her face. "He shouldn't have done that. These men, they don't know how to cope with the thought that something could hurt us. That need to protect us at all costs, that's their way of saying they love us before they ever find the words." She resumed her work on my throat, working the cover up into my skin.
"That's not—"
"It's not okay. What he did to you isn't even remotely okay, and I know that right now you're wondering how you can ever get past it. But you will, and I promise you that what is waiting on the other side is going to be beautiful." With the faint bruises on my neck finally covered, she set to doing my makeup.
"And what if it's not? I’m so happy that you and Matteo got through all that, but what if that never happens for us? Where does that leave me?"
"If nothing else," she answered, and her voice was uncharacteristically soft. "You're safer with Lino than you are alone. Just give it a chance. You owe it to yourself to try," Ivory sighed, picking up some eyeliner. "Besides, your mother should be here soon." She winced when my eyes widened, and she drew a huge line over my eyebrow.
"What?"
"I take it he didn't tell you he invited her, then?" she asked, and her voice got a little louder with each word. Like the sadness of the moment was a thing of the past, I was going to give it a shot, and that was that.
"Uh no. Why would he invite my mother? It's cruel to—" I broke off, huffing out a breath in indignation. "Oh, that manipulative bastard!"
Ivory smiled at me. "He knows you won't make a scene in front of her."
I swallowed as she cleaned the line off my face. "Yavin?"
"Oh, fuck no," Ivory laughed. "As much as I'm sure it pains Lino to not have your brother with you, we all know just what kind of scene Yavin would make. You two will tell him later. Once it's all final."
I closed my eyes, letting her fuss over me and trying to come to terms with the obvious reality.
I was getting married.
Seventeen
Lino
"How'd she take that?" Enzo asked the moment the girls were behind a closed door. With a sigh, I rubbed my eyes, and dropped Samara’s phone onto the table in the foyer. I couldn’t take any chances that she might try and call Yavin.
He couldn’t know until she was legally mine, because I wouldn’t let anyone stand in my way.
“About as good as expected when you have to rush into a wedding three days after your divorce for the sake of safety,” I grunted. I could hear the lingering rage in my voice, the aftermath of Samara begging to not have to marry me. Her protests only threatened to wake up the worst part of me, the part of me that demanded Samara be bound to me in every way so she could never leave.
Father Alessi shook his head at me as he slipped inside the front door that Scar opened for him, signing the cross over his chest in mock indignation at the mention of Samara's divorce. Like the old bastard hadn't seen things gruesome enough to make grown men cower and not even blinked an eye.
Matteo and Enzo exchanged a glance before Enzo spoke. "So, what exactly did you tell her?"
"That marriage was the best way to protect her." I shrugged, looking at Father Alessi in confusion when even he winced. "What?"
"And did you perhaps mention that you've been obsessed with her since before your balls dropped?" Matteo grunted.
When I didn't answer, Enzo looked to the ceiling with a sigh. "Fucking idiots. The both of them."
"What?"
"It is a good idea to tell a woman how you feel before you marry her," Father Alessi inserted.
I scoffed. "That's unnecessary for us. Samara knows how I feel about her."
"Bro, that woman does not understand that you're even remotely interested. Let alone that this is anything other than a sacrifice on your part. Her head? She's a burden."
Matteo's eyes narrowed on Enzo. "How do you know so much about women?"
"I've got five sisters."
"Shit," I hissed, casting my eyes up to the stairs.
"Yeah, shit is right," Enzo laughed.
✽✽✽
Samara's heartbeat so hard I could feel it in her palm as I held her hands and turned her to face me. Father Alessi stood at the front of Matteo’s sitting room, with us only just in front of him and our little audience on our other side. Her eyes were wide on mine when she turned, and I ignored the way Enzo and Matteo laughed silently in the corner. I ignored the way Samara’s mother sniffled where she sat next to Don. I'd tried to tune out Enzo's words about Samara not knowing how I felt, tried to focus on the fact that after all those years, I would finally have what I'd alway
s wanted.
Samara as mine.
I wouldn't lie and say that it didn't hurt to know I had to force Samara into marrying me, that it hadn’t made me want to chain her to me and throw away the key. When I'd spent my life wishing this moment could ever be possible, she'd married someone else. I couldn't blame her, when I hadn't made myself an option, but I'd thought I'd been very, very clear about my intentions. Matteo and Enzo had oh-so-kindly shown me that perhaps that wasn't true. But I knew my Little Dove enough to know that even if she didn't want to think of herself as a burden to me, she was also skittish as could be.
If I pushed too hard, too fast, I'd lose her completely.
And that just wasn't an option.
The white dress hung off her light gold shoulders by the barest of straps, dripping to a slit between her breasts. The fabric was light and airy, simple, where it flowed over her hips. It was far less elaborate than I'd ever imagined I'd have when I finally had no choice but to marry someone else in a grand wedding I didn’t want.
And it was all the more perfect for it, because even if it wasn’t a fancy wedding, it was ours.
Father Alessi skipped over moments he knew wouldn't matter to us, showing just how unorthodox the priest with the mob ties was. The man had no patience for weddings, much preferring the confessions he gathered like a master of secrets. And the mob had damn good secrets.
"Lino, repeat after me," he said, giving me a brow raise that made me draw in a deep breath. He breathed out the words that would tie me to Samara, and I didn't hesitate before saying them. My eyes held hers, putting as much conviction into the words as I could and hoping that she would somehow wake up and feel it. Feel me.
"I, Angelino, take you Samara to be my lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward. For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part." Her hand spasmed in mine, her eyes narrowing in on the rings that Matteo handed me. I slid the set of three bands onto her ring finger, watching her hand tremble as the oval diamond settled onto her finger, seeming massive against the delicate size of her. The two rings surrounded it with diamond studded leaves, making it look like a flower that a dove would look right at home with.
The band was gold. Her gilded cage that chained her to me for the rest of her life, setting on her finger. I knew she didn't realize the weight of the moment, the weight of what that ring would mean to her future. For Bellandi's, it was truly until death do us part.
And if she ever dared to leave me, in death or in life, I would follow her into the pits of Hell and shield her from the flames.
"Samara," Father Alessi said, and I watched as her head snapped to him. With those blue-grey eyes wide, she looked like a deer caught in the headlights. Terror flooded me, considering for the first time that she might say no.
That maybe Samara wouldn't become my wife on that day, after all.
But when Father Alessi repeated the words for Samara, she turned her gaze back to me and swallowed. Then she held her head high and repeated the words. "I, Samara, take you Angelino to be my lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part." She hesitantly took the burnished gold wedding ring from Matteo, drawing my hand in hers and slipping it onto my ring finger.
Where I'd referred to her ring as a cage, mine felt different.
Mine felt like freedom.
Being free for the first time in forever, to openly love the woman I'd always been destined for. To have someone for myself who knew me down to my roots.
"You have declared your consent before the Church. May the Lord in his goodness strengthen your consent and fill you both with his blessings. What God has joined; men must not divide. Amen."
"Are you going to get to the important shit soon, Father?" Enzo teased from the back.
Father Alessi scowled at him and sighed. "I now pronounce you Mr. and Mrs. Angelino Bellandi. You may kiss your bride."
So I did, leaning forward and cupping her cheek. I pressed my lips to hers gently, sighing in relief when she lifted her face to give me better access and accepted the kiss. Accepted me. It was gentle, tentative. As the first kiss between a man and his wife should have been.
It was everything.
Just like her.
Eighteen
Samara
I was married.
Again.
Mrs. Angelino Bellandi. The name rang in my head, a mantra repeated over and over again as I tried to remind myself that it was everything I'd ever wanted.
Signing my name on the dotted line and watching Lino return the favor with Enzo and Ivory as our witnesses, the reality of what I'd done finally sunk in. I'd married my best friend. Married the second-in-command to the mob boss who ran the city.
And what was worse, I'd married a man who didn't believe in divorce this time. It felt like signing away a piece of my soul, with the rings heavy on my finger weighing me down. If I'd thought it hard to get my divorce from Connor, looking for one from Lino would be impossible.
Standing next to Lino while everyone, save for Ivory, drank and enjoyed themselves felt surreal. Everyone treated it as if this was a genuine cause for celebration, the union of two people who had always been meant to marry each other.
No one was happier than my mother, and I didn’t have it in me to break her heart.
She'd long been more of a parent to Lino than his father, offering him the affection he'd never had from his own family growing up.
I could still remember the way she used to sneak him pieces of candy when his father wasn't looking, toys that his father would have never let him have. She couldn't afford to buy them, but she did it anyway.
Because no boy should be deprived of the right to be a child, she'd say.
The dynamic should have made Lino more like a brother to me, growing up with my brother as his friend and him adored by my mother, but even their relationship hadn't been enough to curtail the attraction I felt for my poor, deprived Lino.
I treasured every display of affection he'd ever given me, because I still recalled the way he'd recoiled the first time I tried to hug him. Like it was a foreign concept.
Like he'd never just been hugged.
She came over, taking my hands in hers and grinning at me with her cheeks flushed from champagne. "I'm so happy for both of you. I never thought you would get your shit together and just be together. Lord knows everyone else knew you two were in love with each other from the first day you met." She pulled back, turning to Lino and pulling him into a fierce hug. "Why did you make me wait twenty years to see you marry my baby?"
He laughed against the top of her head. "I married her as soon as I could," he answered. "My father—"
"Oh, I could strangle that man. I should. It would be a gift to humanity," she hissed, backing away to cup his cheeks in her hands as she looked up at him. "You're finally officially my son now. No matter what that devil of a man tries to tell you."
Lino's face twisted with the force of her words. I knew my mother was one of the few people in his life who openly showed him how much they loved him, and I also knew that sometimes the force of that love proved too much for the man who had never known the love of a woman or girl before us.
By the time she darted away to talk to Don—who watched us from the corner with amusement—Lino just tilted my face up to his and took a kiss. He’d done it since we said, “I do.” Stealing random moments of affection like he needed the touches to remember that it was real. That it wasn’t a dream. That we wouldn’t wake up and go back to just friends.
But I knew that wasn’t the case, no matter how much I might wish it.
So I guzzled my champagne, watching Ivory laugh in the center of the room with her daughter in her arms and her husband looking over her shoulder to coo at the four-day-old baby that I wanted to hold more than anything.
But her words that I could have one stuck with
me, teasing me. Luna felt like a threat, a reminder of something I would never have, but that would awaken the want inside me.
It was better not to want anything at all.
There was no disappointment that way.
Nineteen
Samara
No matter what someone wanted to say about how unorthodox our relationship may have been, we were familiar with one another, probably more content in each other's presence than some newly married couples. So, we had that going for us.
We’d changed out of our fancy clothes the moment we got home, letting go of all the pretenses and going back to what we knew. There would be no romantic honeymoon for the two of us, or even a night of lovemaking.
"What are you thinking about?" Lino whispered, curled up on the couch next to me as I read on my kindle. His laptop sat on his legs where I would have loved my head to be, and he paused his typing to watch me.
"What if we fuck this up? I don't want to lose you," I whispered, voicing my fears I had for our future. Everything was uncertain, and I felt like with Lino and I's relationship shaken there was no longer a rock for me to cling to. Everything had changed, in a way I knew it would never be the same.
"You will not lose me. You're my wife."
"That doesn't mean things won't change. It doesn't mean that we won't resent each other for making this decision so suddenly. We both know I will resent you for the way you threatened me into it. Things are already changing," I sighed, setting my kindle on the coffee table when he moved his laptop there and shifted to lean over me.
"You'll forgive me," he repeated his words from earlier. The way he stared down at me as he lifted my chin to touch his lips to mine gently felt like he was trying to sear something into my soul. Branding me, imprinting me with something I didn't understand. "You won't have a choice. I'll spend my life wearing you down until you accept that I did what needed to be done for both of us in the long run."
Forgivable Sins: A Dark Mafia Romance (Bellandi Crime Syndicate Book 2) Page 11