Chapter 24: The House That Asked

The onyx signet sat in my bag all morning with the black-edged card, and Massimo was still in Silvio's hands.

The Corvi docks had never held a wedding.

Someone had strung white lamps from crane to crane over the water.

Someone else had set two hundred chairs along the pier in a long curved row.

The Santoro captains sat on the left, and the Corvi men sat on the right.

Nobody had told them where to sit.

They had gone to their own sides, and then they had looked at each other across the aisle.

I stood at the head of the pier in an ivory dress that had been sewn in six days.

My hands were steady.

I had held a man's femoral artery closed in my bare fingers, and a bouquet was not going to shake them.

Ettore stood at my elbow in a black suit, leaning on his stick.

"Your father would have hated this," he said.

"I know."

"He'd also have been proud of you, which is worse for a man like him. He couldn't stand being proud of anyone."

I laughed, and my eyes stung.

"Ready?" he asked.

"No."

"Good. A bride who is ready has not thought about it."

He gave me his arm, and we began to walk.

Two hundred men stood as we passed.

I heard them rise, row on row.

A Santoro captain who had voted against me bowed his head as I went by.

Another, who had held a rifle on Adriano at the gate, crossed himself.

Adriano waited at the end of the pier.

He wore a dark suit with no tie, as he had at the gate.

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