Page 20 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia King

7

Nadia

My lips feel bruised. I stare through my reflection in the window and try not to look in my own face. Ren is taking me to buy my “wedding gown.” We sit on opposite sides of the car, the partition between us and the driver making the back of the car feel like a cage.

I’m still trying to digest it. Still working out the puzzle—thewhyof it all.

“There are things you’ll be expected to do,” Ren says, as if we’re just carrying on a polite conversation, as if I can’t still taste his rage on my tongue. “and you will do them,” he continues, when I turn the slightest glare of defiance toward him, “because I am sheltering you from Dellucci, and because it’s in your daughter’s best interest.”

“Don’t you dare use her against me,” I whisper, “or they’ll be digging your body out of the trash next.”

Ren’s eyes flick, cold and flinty, like an animal’s.

“I said her best interest, Nadia. I won’t threaten her safety. This is about what you deserve, not her. I won’t make her answer for your sins.”

“You made my mother and my brother answer for what my father did to your family. You’re making me answer for it now. So why not? Why not lump her in with the rest of us?” I demand.

Ren doesn’t answer me. Typical. He probably doesn’t even have an excuse. He can’t face me when I make a decent point. His silence just makes me angrier. He doesn’t look at me again until the car comes to a stop in the Garment District.

“Behave while we’re in public,” he drawls, like I’m some child, before stepping out and slamming the car door. I am led into a dress shop, elegant white gowns on display in the windows. My nerves bunch up inside me, ready to lash out at the slightest provocation.

“You know, the groom isn’t supposed to see the dress before the wedding,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Good thing I’m not one for tradition.”

His hand on my lower back forces me deeper into the shop.

A lovely older woman—her outfit a bold spot of magenta fabric amid the soft creams and whites of the store—comes sweeping up, smiling a perfect, sales-pitch smile.

“Mr. Caruso. Lovely. Please, come in. Such a vision,” she says, as her eyes wander over me. I can’t find it in me to smile in return as I am pulled into the depths of wedding gowns and shawls and veils, the hallmarks of other people’s happiness.

It’s a mockery, taking the dream of every little girl and turning it into a weapon. A farce. I stand rigid, solider-like, as the woman prattles on about my body shape, my color tone, which shades of white will best complement my complexion. And then she stops in front of a few gorgeous, flowy dresses and says, “—but of course, it’syourday andyourdress. The only thing that really matters is what does it look like in your head?”

I keep my eyes forward, but I feel Ren’s gaze burrowing into the back of my skull. God, he must be loving this.

I try not to picture it. Try to block it out. The images that I have perfected over the years. I wonder if all girls do that. If they can close their eyes and paint the perfect day in broad, abstract strokes and tiny, crucial little details like I can.

A few things had changed over the years as trends came and went: the kind of dress I thought I wanted and the color scheme, for example. One thing stayed constant, though. It was always him—always Ren—waiting at the altar. Sometimes I think it was him before I ever met him, that he fell out of those dreams and into the world. My eyes sting, but I force the tears back.

“…I…I don’t know. Let’s just try something on,” I say, desperate to get it over with.

I don’t want it to look the way it was supposed to. I don’t want it to be my perfect dress and my favorite shade of eggshell. And it’s not like either of us has many friends or family left to invite. Rencan force me to marry him, can stage a stupid, fake wedding just to hurt me, but he can’t make me give him my real dream.

The woman frowns at my demeanor, but like a true saleswoman who has navigated more awkward moods than ours, she smooths over my awkward stalling with a smile.

“Of course, dear. Nothing is better than seeing the dress in action. Will the groom be staying, or—”

“I will,” Ren says, his voice steel.

The woman checks my face, as if double-checking that I’m alright with this obvious breach in the wedding norms. But I keep my expression empty, a perfect mirror of Ren’s usually stoic demeanor.

“…Well,” she prattles, “I suppose that’s one way to make sure everyone is happy, isn’t it?” she asks, with a big fake smile for two people who are obviously very unhappy.

“We’ll look around,” Ren says. The seamstress agrees. She takes the first chance she gets to escape our thundercloud mood. We’re told, in too cheery a tone, to come and get her when we have an idea of what we’d like to try. I am steered by my elbow through rows of white, and ivory, and cream, and rose pink. I look at the hems, eyes down.

“Well, Nadia,” he mutters coldly, “which one?”

“You’re picking the punishment. You might as well pick the dress, too. Why would I care?”

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