Page 46 of Vengeance

I can’t let her get away with that.

So no one but her and maybe the priest officiating can hear, I say, “For someone forced into this, you look quite pleased.”

Another woman would giggle and blush.

Dele, as I knew she would, rolls her eyes like she’s been doing toward me since she was fourteen.

The priest goes through the ceremony, and as expected, we say, “I do” with no hesitation. Not even her. Despite me forcing her into this when she didn’t want to yet.

“You may now kiss the bride,” the priest says.

Having been waiting for that part since that all began, I snatch Dele to me, causing her to let out a squeak of surprise and lose her footing as she falls into me. I kiss her hard and forcefully while the crowd claps and cheers behind us.

When I pull away, I look into her shiny, dazed eyes and say, “Mine. Now and forever.”

Dele smiles slightly and averts her gaze from me before looking back and saying, “I thought we settled that long before now.”

“Just in case you forgot.”

“I could never.”

I let go of her just to hook my arm around hers to pull her close to my side. She ushers for the children to join us. Leon is still holding Velia’s hand, so she too joins us. A maid then places Bella in Dele’s free arm and we stand still long enough for the photographer to get decent pictures before we walk back down the aisle as husband and wife.

******

I’ve about had enough of the reception. I’d had enough of it as soon as it started. I hadn’t even wanted to go by the time I’d kissed Dele at the altar, wanting nothing more than to whisk my new bride away somewhere, hitch her wedding dress up to her waist and fuck her. I actually tried to do just that, but Dele insisted that Isabella would haunt her from the grave for disrespecting our guests and new family like that.

Now, hours later, after toasts and dinner and dancing, Dele is making rounds to make sure she meets as many members of the family as she can before the night is over leaving me to sit and sip on alcohol with Sabino and some of my new male cousins-in-law. All by marriages from other Italian crime families into the Fantoni family to one of their daughters in some form, fashion, or another.

“Word of advice,” says Lorenzo, dark-haired and, like most people, a couple of inches shorter than me.

“I’m listening.”

He leans into me and points to Dele who is talking to stocky brown-haired man with a bunch of rings on his fingers. Then he says, “Get a handle on your woman.”

“Get a handle on her?” I ask, feigning confusion. I know exactly what he means. But I’m bored and ready to go and letting him dig his grave before I eviscerate him is going to be entertaining.

“You give her too much freedom,” Lorenzo adds.

“Freedom?”

Sabino laughs and says while putting a heavy hand on my shoulder, “I’ll put it in straight words for you. He means she talks too much.”

“Does she?”

He ignores my question as Lorenzo adds, “And she has no sense of humor. I was playing around with her earlier, and she didn’t crack a smile. Then I told her she’s prettier when she smiles and she should smile more, and she walked away.”

“Women. So emotional,” Sabino says in agreement. “Assert your power over her as her husband now or you’re inviting nothing but problems and nagging in the future.”

“Have you ever played chess?” I ask suddenly.

If Sabino is thrown by the seemingly random question, he doesn’t show it. Lorenzo and a couple of the others do.

“Not really.”

“I did. In my youth.”

That is to say, I randomly picked it up at around fifteen and like I did with a lot of things, intensely fixated on it for months at a time. Even got Wyan to take me to a few chess tournaments before my fixation waned and I got bogged down with fighting and killing one gang or another. Every now and then, I’ll still break out a chess board to play it in the rare occasions that I’m bored and have nothing pressing to do but don’t have access to my cars or garage.

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