I touch my belly. I’m not showing yet but everyone knows why we’re rushing this ceremony with a bigger one planned for after the baby’s birth. I was fine to wait until after, but Sergio wouldn’t have it. He wanted the baby born to us as husband as wife. Between that and his mom’s health, I didn’t fight it.

Taking one deep breath, I draw the front of the veil down over my face and pick up the bouquet of antique pink roses wrapped in a wide, pale blue ribbon. That’s my something blue. Something old, something borrowed, the veil fulfills those. Something new, my dress.

It will bring us luck. I’ve done it right. All of it. We’ll have good luck, Sergio and I.

I force my eyes from my reflection when they get watery, take a deep breath in and walk out the door and down the stairs where my father waits, still confused at this rushed ceremony, still trying to process the fact that I’m pregnant. And that I’m getting married to a man he’s only just met. Who is next in line to rule the Benedetti mafia family.

I guess we’re all trying to pretend like this is normal.

Only immediate family and Drew are gathered in the living room. Drew is sitting beside my mom. The Benedetti family is sitting across from them, Mr. and Mrs. Benedetti and Dominic. I don’t look at Dominic. I don’t need to to see the one-cornered smirk of ‘I told you so’. I also don’t look at Sergio’s uncle. His ruthlessness terrifies me almost more than Franco Benedetti’s.

What a turn of events.

Salvatore is standing beside his brother. I have no maid of honor. A priest I don’t know waits, bible in hand. The pianist begins the wedding march again. I realize I missed the first cue. Sergio clears his throat when I still don’t move.

I look up at him. He’s not smiling. He’s just watching me. Waiting.

“Mine. Always. No matter what.”

And I’m doing this.

I take the first step and my father squeezes my hand and we walk down the aisle toward my destiny. My future. With this man who is as good as he is brutal. Who has killed with the same hands with which he has made love to me. This man whose baby is growing inside my belly. The man I’m bound to. Was bound to from before I ever set eyes on him.

27

Sergio

For a minute, I’m not sure if she’s going to do it. If she’s going to take those steps down the aisle. Down to me. She’s in her head and I know she’s hasn’t been sleeping. I see it in the shadows beneath her eyes.