My Mafia Family Chose Their Adopted Daughter, So I Married the Don They Feared novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Dawn Vows

A priest marries them before sunrise, they set terms in a flat over a fish market, and someone forces the door downstairs.

I stood on the villa steps in a beggar's coat and waited for him to finish.

"Your brother's guards came for me at dusk," Santo said. "They could have dragged me. I walked."

"Why would you walk into that house?"

"I wanted to see it from the inside. I wanted to see who sits at its table."

"And did you?"

"Yes."

He did not say more, and he did not look away while he said it.

My feet hurt, and the music from the ballroom was still going behind us.

"Is that the whole truth?" I asked.

"It's all I can give you tonight."

I thought of the loaves I had put in his hands.

I thought of the laughter, and of Tullio saying, I'll explain after.

"Then it's more than I got at dinner," I said, and went down the steps.

San Domenico was dark, but the side door stood open.

The old priest was already waiting in the vestry in his stole.

I had not phoned ahead.

He looked at Santo, and his hand rose halfway toward his chest before he put it down.

"Father, we need to be married before sunrise," I said.

"I know what happened at the villa. Half of Palermo has watched it by now." He turned to me. "Are you sure, Viola?"

"I'm sure it won't be done to me."

"That is not the same thing."

"It's the only one I have."

He sighed.

Then the door behind us banged, and a stocky man in a white rubber apron came in smelling of the sea, wiping his eyes with a fish-scaled wrist.

"I'm the witness," he announced. "Gaspare Lupo. I sell the swordfish by the harbor. I was told."

"Told by whom?" I asked.

"By the whole Kalsa," Gaspare said. "News is faster than the fish."

He pulled a thin gold band from his apron pocket and pressed it into Santo's palm.

"My wife's. Don't lose it."

The priest married us in nine minutes.

Santo's voice did not shake when he said the vows.

Mine shook once, on the word forever, because I had been ready to say it to Tullio.

The ring slid onto my finger loose and warm.

Santo did not kiss me.

He touched his forehead to the back of my hand, and then it was over.

The flat was over the fish market, up a stairwell that smelled of ice and salt.

It was one room with a gas ring, a table, a window onto the harbor, and a bed made up with sheets that still had the creases from the package.

"Those are new," I said.

"Yes."

"You bought sheets for a beggar's bed."

"I buy sheets when I need them."

He locked the door behind us and put the key on the table between us.

I sat on the edge of the bed and tried to unbuckle my shoes.

My fingers would not work.

I had walked down a villa staircase, across a square and up the church aisle in heels two sizes too small, and my heels had bled through the straps.

Santo crossed the room and knelt.

"Don't," I said.

"Hold still."

He undid the buckles one at a time and slid the shoes off.

Then he took my ankle in his hand and turned my foot toward the lamp.

His palm was warm and rough, and it did not move.

I heard him breathe in and hold it.

It is the cold in this room, I told myself.

"I'll get water," he said, and his voice was not quite level.

He washed my feet in a tin basin, in silence, and wrapped them in strips torn from a clean shirt.

When he was done I said what I had been holding since the church.

"I have terms."

"Say them."

"We sleep apart. You don't touch me unless I say. And I can leave any day I want, and you won't follow."

"Agreed." He sat back on his heels. "I have one."

"Which is?"

"For thirty days you don't ask where I go at night."

"Why?"

"That's the question I just asked you not to ask."

It was almost funny, and I nearly laughed.

"Thirty days," I said.

He took a blanket and a coat and lay down on the floorboards by the door with his back to the wall.

I lay in the beggar's bed with the lamp off and the key a dark shape on the table in the harbor light.

I did not sleep.

Near three in the morning, I heard the street door downstairs crack.

Then it burst inward, and heavy boots started up the stairs.

Santo was already on his feet, and he was not looking at the door.

He was looking at me.

"Stay on the bed," he said.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend