DanteI stretch my sore knuckles on the little stage that holds the altar at St. Michael’s, a church I haven’t set foot inside since Mom died. As Dad used to say, church is for people who confess their sins, and Saints aren’t that goddamn stupid.But it seems like I am. Father Stefan’s gaze follows the movement of my hands and snags on my split, bruised knuckles. He frowns. I thank God they built this church with the organ so close to the front that he couldn’t nag me about them if he wanted to. He’d probably start with how many masses I’ve missed anyway.God hasn’t struck me with lighting yet, but Fyodor seems well on his way to trying, so I’ll take my chances.The doors open, and I jerk my head up, hoping for El. Fuck, I’ve missed her.No dice. Tony and Gianna enter, arm in arm. Tony wears the same deep purple suit I do, with the same sprig of greenish flowers pinned to his lapel, but he manages to look a little less uncomfortable. Gianna looks like death warmed over in a floor-leng
EleniI twist the ribbon around my deep purple bouquet and look out over the reception. The wives rented a massive ballroom in a hotel close enough to the church that we all walked over when the ceremony ended, and if you’d asked me to guess what Nicky thought a wedding reception should look like, I would’ve described exactly this. There’s nowhere in this place I can look without being confronted by something that sparkles or bears the exact “eggplant” and “pine forest” that are apparently our colors.Above every table, something that looks like a baby mobile made out of twinkle lights and strings of crystals hang. On the purple and green tablecloths sit the most ridiculous place settings I’ve ever seen. The gilt-edged china sports crossed flowers, a dusty green spring of something that looks more like leaves to me but which she said grow around the Acropolis and a sprig of Italian lilac, both also lined in gold. Apparently, they symbolize the joining of our houses. But what really ma
EleniI slam my hands down on my desk on the second floor of the Staten Island house, the long sleeves of my wedding dress dulling the thud. “What the fuck do you mean, you don’t know?”Amando, the man I’ve begun considering my capo, loosens his purple tie and shrugs. “Nobody knows who the fuck they are. I’ve got a couple reports they were at the church. The guard at the door said he never saw them come in. They’re feds, obviously, but did you see the names on the badges?”“No, I fucking didn’t, because I was in the process of having my husband arrested at my wedding!” I suck in a deep breath and run my hands through my hair. I took it down sometime on the ride from the ballroom to here, but a few pins still plink onto the floor around my feet.I’m losing it. The house is a swarm of activity—wives, trying to get everybody fed; capos, trying to figure this out; guests, just trying to figure out how a wedding went so wrong—and they need a goddamn leader. They need me.No, they need the
DanteMy wrists burn from twisting them against the zip cuffs, my ankles chafe from the same treatment around the legs of the chair, my shoulders ache from how far my arms have been pulled back, my faces throbs from how many times these goddamn bruisers have hit me, but all I can think about is El.I should be home in bed with her right now, fighting with whatever fiddly little fixtures they put on her wedding dress. She should be screaming my name. I should be screaming hers.Instead, I’m sitting in a musty-ass basement, bound to a metal chair under one flickering light like these assholes got their set-up right out of an ‘80s mafia movie. I spit blood on the concrete floor and look up at the man who “arrested” me in the middle of my goddamn wedding.“So tell me,” I say, “how do you go from Coppola to the Russians?”That, of course, earns me another punch to the face. I grit my teeth and take it.“Cuteness isn’t going to get you far,” Jace growls. “I’m here to get answers, and I’m ha
EleniI sit in the passenger seat of a black, bulletproof sedan, watching the blinking dot of the tracker on my phone. “Left here.”Tony turns smoothly. The engine is nearly silent, which seems almost pointless in the noisy, New York City night, but I’m not giving up any advantage here. It took me embarrassingly long to remember the tracker—or, more accurately, to hope the feds hadn’t bothered to take it off of him. I was halfway through hacking the city’s FBI base when I looked down at my own hand and the rings caught the light.“And…that’s the last precinct turnoff I know of,” Mikey says from the back seat, where he’s sliding together piece after piece of a sniper rifle, just in case. “Bronx cops don’t bother with spots this far out.”“Me either,” Tony says. “Maybe they took him to one of those fucking black sites.”Distantly, I note a chill of worry would touch me at those words, if I weren’t already frozen.“You’re sure you don’t remember the names on any of the badges?” I ask. “T
EleniTony hits the ground running in front of me, already yanking his gun out of his holster. Mikey fumbles with the door a second, but he’s out immediately after that, the carefully laid plan of the sniper rifle abandoned behind him. I slam down the pavement, thankful I abandoned my usual heels in favor of a pair of sneakers Gianna offered me silently before we left. Different windows of the apartment block light in bright bursts. Muzzle flashes, I know. The attendant pop of the gunfire follows on their heels, like thunder after lighting. People scatter out of our way. I grip my gun at my side. No sweat makes it slip. The leather warms in my palm as I run through scenarios.If they’re keeping Dante at the top, we’ll have to fight our way up. But that also means they’re vulnerable to attacks from above, if we had the time to set that up. I told someone to call in all the allies we have, but that doesn’t make a difference. It’s not like Cal or the triads are about to loan us a helicop
DanteJace is glaring at me sullenly from the other side of the room they’re keeping me in when the first gunshots ring out.“What the fuck?” he says.I grin. El’s here. Hopefully with the cavalry in tow. I scrape the stone in my ring over the plastic faster and faster. I’m almost through, and now, I have nothing to lose in Jace seeing me.“Wait, what the fuck are you doing?” He leaps to his feet.Out of time. Better hope I sawed enough. I tense my arms and yank.One of the cuffs snaps just as Jace throws himself at me, his baton raised for another strike. Idiot. I use the momentum of the cuffs breaking to swing my right fist forward, directly into his cheek. The blow knocks him off balance just enough that I can drive my elbow into the meat of his bicep—not impressive-looking, but it makes him whimper—and that exposes his right side. Where the fucking moron still has his service weapon holstered. I snatch it out and fire two shots point-blank into his chest.Before he even hits the f
EleniI close my eyes on the floor in Dante’s arms and open them again somewhere warm and tan and lonely. Distantly, I can hear voices. My stomach aches.My stomach! I shoot up, yank up the “I Heart NYC” shirt covering my abdomen for some reason, and probe the skin there. I was shot. Someone—Fyodor, judging by how much nicer his suit was—shot me in the stomach, like he knew exactly who I was. But there’s no gaping bullet hole, not even a careful line of black stitches.Because I wore the stupid bulletproof vest, I’ve got a welt, a bruise so dark it’s almost black, and a hell of a headache from the bullet knocking me on my ass, and nothing more.The voices raise slightly, and a door I hadn’t noticed yet opens. Dante steps in wearing a matching T-shirt with his arm in a sling. Behind him, Dr. Domino frowns.“You’re up,” Dante says breathlessly.Everything hits me at once. He’s here. I’m here. We’re both alive. And I don’t think he’d be looking at me with that sunrise light in his eyes i