Page 26 of The Vatican
I was getting married.
Chapter 14
Francisco~
She showed up to our wedding wearing a black t-shirt, jeans, ankle-high black boots, and anger. Lots, and lots of anger. Her hair was in a ponytail, and her face was fresh of makeup. She was still beautiful, but her message was clear: she wasn’t dressing up for this shit.
I wore a dark grey suit, but that was nothing new. I’ve been wearing suits every day since I was eighteen. I was also wearing a fresh cut across the left side of my jaw, marking the skill my lovely bride had with a letter opener.
When I had sent a group text last night letting everyone know we’d be getting married this afternoon, Uncle Ciro had sent back a separate text asking me if we were okay. Marguerite had called him and broken the news to him about her office. After assuring him that his niece was still in one piece, he told me he’d take care of Marguerite’s office, and congratulations.
The tension in the room was palpable. Even poor Father O’Rourke was sending up silent prayers for everyone in the room. The women looked heartbroken. The men looked resigned. However, I wasn’t feeling charitable. They deserved to feel uncomfortable. I had a slice on my face from where the woman I was tying myself to life for tried to kill me. So, yeah, I wasn’t caring much if the people partly responsible for this mess were feeling uncomfortable as Father O’Rourke spoke the vows as old as time. Like our parents, we used traditional Catholic vows, and the word ‘obey’ was in there along with everything else.
Father O’Rourke addressed me first, and I made quick work of agreeing to take the little attempted murderess as my wife.
When he addressed Ria, the tension in the room rose a couple of notches when he had to call for her attention. “Luca?”
Her eyes blinked in awareness. “What? Huh?”
His white bushy brows rose in concern. “Dear? Do you agree to take Fran-”
Saveria waved his words away. “Yeah. Sure.”
Father O’Rourke reached out to her. “Luca, I need the words. But if you are unsure…”
Once she realized she was making the priest uncomfortable, she quickly changed her tune. “I’m sorry, Father,” she said contritely. “Of course, I understand. And, I do.” He smiled but it looked strained. The damage had been done, and he had done his best to finish the ceremony on a happy, spiritual note.
After he pronounced us man and wife, I knew better than to try to kiss the bride. We stood there like the adversaries we were, and we thanked him before Uncle Sal and Uncle Leo had walked him out.
The first challenge of my marriage came when the door shut behind Uncle Leo and the silence in the room was broken by the sound of Ria’s wedding rings dancing across the conference table. She looked at me and wiggled her ring finger at me, which still had one of the diamond bands on it. “This band is enough, don’t you think?” she mocked. “No sense in wearing a set of diamonds that beautiful to represent a bullshit marriage.”
Aunt Frankie gasped in horror. “Luca Saveria Fiore!”
“Benetti.”
Aunt Frankie looked at me. “What?”
I looked over at her. “Benetti,” I repeated. “Luca SaveriaBenetti.”
Ria’s attitude screamed throughout the room. “I’ll always be a Fiore,” she disagreed. “I’m a Mancini and Fiore by blood. I’m a Benetti by force.”
The tension in the room was bordering on painful and, family or not, if I didn’t handle this, I’d never be trusted to lead. “Will you all please excuse us for a moment,” I said, and they all began to file out like I knew they would.
One thing their generation believed in, and that was you did not interfere in a man’s marriage. The only condition was that you were not allowed to beat your wife. That was the only time they’d interfere.
As soon as the door shut with just me and Saveria in the room, I walked over, grabbed her by the back of neck, and squeezed until she let out a hissed. With my hand firmly wrapped around her neck, I forced her over to the conference table, and I held her steady as I picked up her rings with my free hand.
I released her neck, grabbed her left hand, and forced the rings back on her finger. The rings had been sized to fit perfectly, but I pushed them up so roughly, they tore her skin and blood began to ooze from the torn flesh.
But I didn’t care.
His girl needed to learn her place, once and for all.
I grabbed her by the chin with one hand and tangled the fist of my other hand in her ponytail. Because she was so much shorter than I was, my hold lifted her on her tiptoes. I stared down at the woman I just pledge to spend the rest of my life with and said, “You willneverdisrespect me like that in front of other people ever again, Luca.” Her eyes glowed wildly. “I don’t give a fuck what you do when we’re in private, but in public, even if it is our family, you will know your fucking place and you betterneverforget it again.”
She didn’t disappoint. “Or else what?”
There was only one thing I knew she valued enough to use: her independence. “I’ll tell Uncle Sal to fire you, and you will be restricted to the house. I will lock you up until you start to go crazy with it, and no one will stop me.”
