Deceit

Vienna

They say a girl’s wedding day is supposed to be the happiest day of her life.

The day all her dreams come true, the day she glows and shines like the world is at her feet.

Well apparently that didn’t apply to me because my wedding day was the worst day of my life.

I glowed and shone, but inside, I was a bag of rotten broccolis, curled and soaked with the dirty wave of despair.

***

*A day ago*

My wedding to Rafael Conti had been scheduled three weeks after he asked me to be his wife. I was ridden with the joy that comes with getting married to the person you love.

When you’re twenty-three and getting married, it may seem like the best thing happening to you.

Everyone was excited, including my father – Danielo Mahonnas – which was an unnatural thing, considering how strict and hardened the man is. But Rafael is a Conti, the son to my father’s second-in-command and in the Mafia society my family belonged to – The Vices – it is always smiled upon when there is a marriage between the children of the mafia lords.

So we all prepared for the wedding that was supposed to be the biggest in Newark this year. The Mahonnas and The Contis, a match made in the mafia heaven, a combination of the two most powerful families in The Vices.

The only dent in the plans was that Alberto – my brother – would miss the wedding because he was still away in the army and he couldn’t get a leave to attend.

But asides from that, everything was perfect. Every plan, every design, every outfit.

However, when the day finally came, Rafael never showed.

I should have known something was wrong when my father came into my dressing room to say goodbye to me with tears in his eyes.

My father never cries. Even when Grandfather died five years ago, he didn’t shed a single tear, so I was alarmed when I saw tears well in father’s eyes but I attributed it to the fact that he was emotional and let it slide even when his hands gripped mine in a death grip while he led me down the aisle to the altar.

I stood there, in front of the priest, waiting for Raphael to show up like the legendary Penelope waiting for her Odysseus. Even when the guests began their murmuring and the priest got tired and had to sit, I stood there, waiting, praying, hoping, that Rafael would show up any moment with a conceivable explanation as to why he was late.

So minutes passed, then hours, and soon the sun was beginning to set and the winds changed course.

That’s when we heard the screeches of the cars outside.

It was more than six hours late but he was finally here and my heart started doing this little thumps of excitement as we waited for the doors to open and for Rafael to walk down the aisle.

But when the doors opened, it was not Rafael Conti that stood in the way.

It was a man I didn’t recognize.

A man whose face I couldn’t place. Handsome no doubt – and judging by the looks on the guests’ faces I am not the only one that thought that either – but unrecognizable.

He marched in with an entourage behind him, tall and imposing and the men were all dressed in black except him.

No, he was dressed in an impeccable white suit with a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a silver gun in the other hand.

It struck me as odd, seeing this man barge into my wedding with a gun in his hand like he owned the damn place and the gasps of the audience said they felt the same way.

However, although it was odd, I was born into a Mafia family and unlike the other guests, seeing a man with a gun in public wasn’t really off-putting for me. I figured he was probably a distant friend of Rafael’s so I expected the strange man to sit down as a guest while Rafael made his entrance.

But this man marched straight to the altar, his gaze unflinching, his steps unfaltering as he made his way to me.

There was a collective gasp of shock and surprise as he opened his mouth and in a deep tortuous baritone, ordered the priest, “Begin the ceremony.”

My eyes swept the crowd, shocked, taken aback.

Everyone in the crowd mirrored my expression.

Everyone except my father.

He was looking at me with that deep guilt spread out on his face, that look that said his conscience was not going to let him live this one up.

I stepped back, away from the mysterious man standing on the altar beside me, “Where is Rafael?” I ask, to no one in particular.

When I make to step down, the man’s hand shoots out to grab my arm, and without looking at me he said, “Don’t keep the priest waiting.”

“I’m not getting married to you,” I told him, “my fiancé . . . there’s something wrong with my—”

“Rafael Conti is safe,” the man said, then he looked at me and pierced me with a set of deep dark eyes, “for now.”

I shivered. “What do you mean?”

He pulled me closer to his side and I felt the weight of the gun press against my side as he snarled his next words, “It means your life, and the life of Rafael Conti, depends on whatever you decide to do now.”

My body froze.

I became only aware of that gun pressing by my side and the man that was not afraid to press a gun by my side in public and on my own wedding day.

My eyes found my father’s again, sitting beside my weepy mother and he gave me the tiniest nod that made everything fall apart.

That nod felt like the biggest betrayal in my life. It told me what I already suspected, he was in on it. He agreed for this, agreed for me to be humiliated on my wedding day, threatened, blackmailed, forced to marry a cold, brutal man.

The man’s voice spoke above the roar of noise, “The ceremony,” his words were directed at the priest but the hall quiets down immediately, “go on with it.”

Stuttering, the priest began, “Do you—”

“No, please don’t,” I pleaded, “don’t take this away from me!”

Those eyes pin me again, “Don’t tempt me, lady, or I won’t give you the choice of keeping him alive. Go on.”

“Do you—” the priest lowers his voice, “what’s your name mister?”

“Marco,” the man replied, “Marco Rossellini.”

Marco Rossellini?!

I don’t have time to register the name before the man replies a firm, “Yes I do.”

And then it was my turn.

“Do you, Vienna Mahonnas, take Marco Rossellini as your lawfully wedded husband, to love and obey him, forsaking all others and holding only unto him till death do you part?”

The gun pressed to my ribs so hard I’m sure it’ll leave indentations in my lace gown later.

I hear a dark whisper, taunting, “Remember what’s at stake…”

My brain conjures up a picture of Rafael on a cold, dirty floor of some dark basement, blood gushing from the side of his face drenching his wedding suit, his hands tied behind his back, his mouth gagged.

“Y-yes,” I whispered. I think of my father’s tiny nod. “Yes I do,” I announced.

I hear a tiny ‘good’ from the man but the gun doesn’t leave my side.

“Hence, by the power vested in me,” the priest continued, “I now pronounce you Rossellini and you Mahonnas, as husband and wife.”

The names stuck to my mind. Rossellini and Mahonnas.

The Rossellinis are to the Mahonnas what the Montagues are to the Capulets, sworn enemies bound by years of feud that fuels hatred and bitter rivalry. In summary, the man that was standing beside me, the man whose gun was pressed to my side, the man who I just married is my father’s archenemy.

What then was the play here? What did he take away from my father, what did he hang above his head to make him step aside from ego and give me away like some lamb to the slaughter?

The priest voice boomed again, “You may kiss the bride.”

Marco Rossellini spared one glance at my father and I catch the smug lift of his lips, the victory in his eyes, the dark glee that tells me who has the upper hand before he grabs my shoulders in one swift move and crashed his mouth into mine, sealing my fate.

I felt my body move with a heat I can’t explain as his mouth moved over mine. I hate to admit it but the kiss Marco Rossellini gave me on my wedding day was the first time I felt a kiss spread through my whole body, his hand fitting against the small of my back like it was always meant to be there.

He pulled back first, putting me off balance and sending a smug smirk my way.

And just like that, I was married to the man who was as cruel and cold as burning ice.

The man that was detested by the Mahonnas.

The man I was sure will break every part of me till there was nothing left to return to.

Just like that I was married to Marco Rossellini.