Betrayed at the Altar, I Married a Powerful Rival novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: The Old Man's Bed
Gianna marries Federico Orsini beside his dying grandfather's bed and signs his terms of a one-year marriage, and the old man whispers that she has her father's hands.
Two of Federico Orsini's men walked me into the house, one on each arm, because my legs wouldn't hold.
They put me in a leather chair in a study full of ledgers and left.
Federico stayed standing.
He poured a glass of water, set it on the desk where I could reach it, and did not hand it to me.
"I'm not drinking anything you give me," I said.
"Then it stays on the desk."
He sat down across from me and folded his hands.
"You drank something. How much?"
"All of it."
"The Ruggeris told us the bride would arrive awake and willing."
"Teresa Sabatini made me a glass of orange juice and watched me finish it." My tongue felt thick, but the words came out clean. "I knew what was in it."
His grey eyes didn't move. "You knew, and you drank it."
"I stood outside Dario's door last night and heard him plan it."
"Why not run?"
"The house was full of Ruggeri soldiers. And if I ran, he would have found another way to hand me over."
I looked at the water.
"You were the only house in this city the boss is afraid of. I'd rather walk in here than be dragged somewhere I couldn't pick."
Federico said nothing for a while.
A phone buzzed on his desk. He turned it over, read it, and slid it across to me.
The message was from a number saved as Ruggeri.
It said: Bride delivered. Debt stands cleared when the marriage is entered in the records.
"He sent me a stranger and wants it called paid," Federico said.
"I'm not a stranger. I'm the one who drew the plan his daughter took credit for."
"I heard you at the gate."
"Then you know she can't answer a single question about it."
He didn't ask me to spell my name, or what it was, or who my father had been.
He just looked at me a long moment, then picked up the phone and made a call in a low voice.
"Bring the priest," he said. "And the two capos who owe me a favor. We'll do it at my grandfather's bed."
"You're going to marry me?"
"My grandfather is ninety and hasn't gotten out of bed in two years. All he has asked for is to see me married before he dies."
"That's what Dario told his friend."
"For once, the Sabatini boy and I agree on something."
He stood and came around the desk, and for a second I thought he would lift me.
He held out his hand instead, palm up, and waited.
I put mine in it.
His hand was warm and dry, and the grip didn't loosen until I was standing.
"Before we go up, I'll give you the terms," Federico said. "They're short."
"I didn't ask for terms."
"Everyone gets terms. One year. Separate rooms. Nobody in this house touches you, and that includes me."
"And after the year?"
"You choose where you go, and the Ruggeris never find out where."
"And what do you get?"
"A wedding my grandfather can watch," he said. "And the Orsini name on the woman who drew the port plan."
"That's all?"
"That's all."
I couldn't think of a reason to say no.
Nobody else in the world had offered me a door that locked from the inside.
"I'll sign," I said.
He nodded once and opened the study door.
My legs held, mostly, as he guided me up the staircase with one arm under my elbow.
The old man's room smelled of camphor and clean sheets.
A white-haired priest stood by the window.
Two capos in dark suits waited at the foot of the bed with their hands clasped, looking at the floor.
And the man in the bed was small, with a shaved head and thick veined hands on the blanket.
His eyes were the sharpest thing in the room.
They moved over my wedding dress, over the canvas sneakers, and then up to my face.
"Nonno," Federico said. "This is my bride."
"Ruggeri's girl," said the old man. His voice was a rasp.
"No."
The old man waited.
"Gianna Ferrante," I said. I had to lean on Federico to say it.
Something changed in the old man's face.
He didn't gasp or lift a hand.
He only stopped breathing for a moment, and then started again.
"Say it again."
"Gianna Ferrante."
The priest read the vows in English, short, and I repeated every word.
Federico's hand held mine steady through the ring.
It was a plain gold band that fit my finger exactly.
I noticed that and then decided it was a lucky guess.
"Kiss her," said one of the capos, and then went red, remembering whose bed he stood beside.
Federico bent and pressed his mouth to my forehead, once, and stepped back.
The two capos signed the book.
The old man lifted one finger.
"Closer," he said to me.
I leaned over the bed.
His fingers were so cold that they hurt when he took my wrist and turned my hand over in the lamplight.
He looked at my palm, at the calluses from drafting pencils and tape measures.
"Ferrante's girl," he whispered. "You have your father's hands."
I had given him my name, and nothing about what my father did for a living.
I looked up at Federico.
He was already looking at the door.
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