With practiced ease, he guided me through the formalities: greeting his family, presenting ourselves before the Don. His father, Rowan Valente, sat at the head of the long table in the estate's private reception hall, the amber beads of an old rosary threaded between two fingers, turning slowly. When Dante brought me forward, the beads did not stop. That, I would learn later, was approval. His mother, Julian Valente, straightened a single place setting at the table as we approached, the gesture so automatic it seemed less about the silverware and more about the world she was quietly arranging around her son's new marriage. She kissed both my cheeks and smelled of jasmine and old linen. Dante's poise and grace put me at ease. He knew exactly how to handle every situation, never once making me feel uncomfortable. When a capo's wife addressed me by the wrong family name, he corrected her with a half-smile that carried no malice but absolute finality. When the priest asked me to repeat a phrase in Italian I had not rehearsed, Dante murmured the words a half-beat ahead of me, his lips barely moving, so that I could echo them without stumbling.
When it came time to get into the wedding car, his attentiveness continued. He made sure everything was in order, ensuring I was settled before stepping in himself. His hand hovered at the small of my back without pressing, a question rather than a command. The soldier who held the door shut it with a respectful nod once we were both inside, and the convoy began to move. As the car's engine roared to life, the anxiety that had gripped my chest began to ease. Through the tinted window I watched the cypress-lined drive fall away, and I realized I had not thought of Adrian Falcone once during the entire ceremony.
Meanwhile, in another wedding car across the city, Adrian couldn't hide his agitation.
The Falcone motorcade cut through midtown traffic with the usual escort: a lead car, two flanking sedans, and a tail vehicle carrying soldiers whose sole job was to ensure the heir's wedding day proceeded without incident. Inside the principal car, Adrian sat rigidly in a charcoal suit that had cost more than most men's yearly salaries, his jaw shifting once to the side as he checked his phone again. It was his wedding day, yet there had been no word from me. Not a single message. No updates. His phone might as well have been glued to his hand as he scrolled and rechecked his notifications for what felt like the hundredth time.
Nothing.
He had expected something. A plea. A bitter farewell. Even anger would have satisfied him, because anger meant attachment, and attachment meant the door was still open. But the screen offered nothing but the mocking parade of congratulatory messages from associates and distant relatives who understood that a Falcone wedding was less a love story than a territorial announcement. Serafina DeLuca was becoming Serafina Falcone today, and the merger of DeLuca money with Falcone muscle was supposed to be the headline. Yet the groom's mind was twenty blocks north, circling a woman who had stopped answering his calls weeks ago.
By the time he arrived at the hotel, the unease in his chest had grown unbearable. The venue was a Falcone-controlled ballroom on the top floor of the Regency, one of the family's flagship front properties. Crystal chandeliers threw fractured light across two hundred place settings. Soldiers in tuxedos stood at each exit, their earpieces nearly invisible, their postures that of men who could shift from service staff to enforcers in the space of a breath. Adrian scanned the bustling wedding venue, his mind racing. Turning to his groomsmen, men who had grown up in Falcone orbit and understood that the heir's moods were weather systems best navigated carefully, he issued a firm order.
"Make sure Bianca doesn't show up here to cause trouble."
The command hung in the air for a beat. One of the groomsmen, a Falcone associate who had known Adrian since they were boys running errands for the old capos, pressed his lips together. The stifled laugh that escaped was the kind of sound a man makes when he has been handed information so absurd it overrides self-preservation.
"Relax, Adrian," he said, grinning. "Bianca's not coming to crash your wedding. She's busy with her own."
Adrian's hand went still on his phone.
"She's getting married today, too. Right about now, she's probably in the middle of the ceremony at another hotel."
