CHAPTER 2: THE CHURCH WITH NO GUESTS

The church of Santa Maria della Catena smelled like old incense and wet stone.

It was empty.

Not empty like a church is empty on a Tuesday afternoon. Empty like it had been emptied for us. No tourists, no old women lighting candles. The massive wooden doors were shut, and the light coming through the stained glass painted the floor in blue and blood-red.

There was only one priest standing near the altar, old, his face pale, his hands clasped too tight around a bible. He would not look at me.

And there was no one in the pews. No family. No friends. No witness. No music.

"Where is everyone?" I whispered. My voice echoed.

Lorenzo's hand was still on my wrist. He hadn't let go since the car. His grip wasn't painful. It was absolute. Like a handcuff made of skin.

"Who did you want to invite, topolina?" he said, his mouth close to my ear. Topolina(Little mouse). "Your father who sold you? Your mother who dressed you? Your sister who left you in her dress?"

Topolina. I hated it. I hated how my stomach flipped when he said it.

"This isn't a wedding," I said. "This is kidnapping with a cross on the wall."

He laughed. A short, quiet sound.

"No. Kidnapping is fast. This," he gestured with his free hand to the priest, to the church "this is paperwork. So God cannot say I didn't ask."

We walked down the aisle. My white heels clicked too loudly on the marble. The dress rustled. The ring, his family's ring kept sliding around my finger. I kept having to push it back up.

The priest cleared his throat when we stopped in front of him.

"Signor De Luca," he said, his voice trembling. "Are you… are you sure"

"Start," Lorenzo said. One word.

The priest started. In Italian, fast, Latin mixed in. I didn't hear most of it. I was looking at Lorenzo's profile.

In the colored light, he looked like a saint from a dark painting. Sharp nose, sharp jaw, eyelashes too long for a man who could order a man's hands cut off. That little silver cross against his throat caught the light.

He wasn't looking at the priest either. He was looking at me.

"I need your full name, child," the priest said to me.

"Sofia… Sofia Elena Moretti."

"And do you, Sofia Elena Moretti, take Lorenzo…"

"Yes," I said quickly. Too quickly. I wanted it over. "Yes."

The priest blinked, surprised by my eagerness to end it.

"And do you, Lorenzo Salvatore De Luca, take…"

"Yes," he said. He didn't look away from me. "I take her."

It should have felt like a vow. It felt like a sentence.

"Where are the rings?" the priest asked.

Lorenzo didn't answer. He just took my left hand — the one with the too-big black stone and slid it forward to show the priest. "She has mine."

The priest swallowed. "You… you may now kiss—" Lorenzo moved before he finished.

He didn't kiss me like a groom kisses a bride on the cheek. He cupped my face with one large, warm hand — his palm rough, calloused — and tilted my chin up. He stared at my mouth for one second, two seconds, making me feel it. Making me wait.

Then he kissed me. It was not soft. It was closed-mouth, hard, possessive. A stamp. A seal. He kissed me like he was claiming territory, his thumb digging slightly into my cheek, holding me in place. I tasted mint and something bitter — coffee and I felt the cold of his ring against my skin. My knees did something embarrassing. They weakened.

He pulled back an inch. His eyes dropped to my lips, which were now slightly open, breathing hard.

"Again," he whispered, only for me.

And he kissed me again, softer this time, just once, on the corner of my mouth.

The priest made the sign of the cross very quickly, like he wanted to cleanse the air.

"By the power vested in me... I now pronounce you husband and wife. What God has joined—"

"What God has joined, let no man separate," Lorenzo finished for him, his voice low and final. He wasn't looking at God. He was looking at me.

It was done.

I was Sofia De Luca.

—

The Maserati didn't take us back to Mondello. It took us up.

Up into the hills above Palermo, where the rich people live behind gates and cypress trees, where the air is cooler and you can see the whole sea. Where the Mafia kings have built villas that look like fortresses.

His house — our house now, God help me — was not a house. It was a palazzo. Pale yellow stone, three stories, shutters black, ivy crawling up one side. A heavy iron gate that opened automatically. Two men with guns at the entrance who nodded at Lorenzo.

I clutched my elbows. I was cold, despite the Sicilian heat.

"You live here alone?" I asked.

"I live here," he said. "Now we live here."

Matteo opened my door. I didn't take his hand. I got out myself. My heel caught on the cobblestone and I stumbled.

Lorenzo caught me. One arm around my waist, firm. He didn't let go immediately. His hand spread over the exposed skin of my lower back where the dress dipped. His fingers were hot.

"Careful, Mrs. De Luca. You fall a lot for a doctor."

"I'm not a doctor yet," I snapped, trying to pull away. "And don't call me that."

"Which part? Mrs. De Luca or doctor?" His hand was still on my back.

"Both."

He finally let go, but slowly, his fingertips dragging slightly as he did it. "No."

Inside, the house was cold. Marble floors, dark wood, paintings of stern-looking men in old suits — his ancestors, I guessed. No photos. No warmth. It smelled like lemon cleaner and expensive leather.

A woman appeared — middle-aged, black dress, hair in a tight bun. Her eyes widened when she saw me, then she quickly lowered them.

"This is Agata," Lorenzo said. "She runs the house. Agata, this is Sofia."

Agata nodded at me. "Signora."

Signora. The word made me feel forty.

"Take her to the room," Lorenzo told Agata. "The dress is to be burned."

"Burned?" I said. "It's my sister's—"

"It's yours now, and I don't like it," he said simply. "It smells like fear and cheap perfume. Take it off."

My face went hot. "Excuse me?"

"Agata will help you." He was already walking away, pulling his phone from his pocket. Dismissing me. Like I was a delivery that had been received and now needed to be unpacked by staff. "Dinner is at eight. Wear something Agata gives you."

"Where are you going?" I called after him.

"To work," he said without turning. "I just got married. My men will want to congratulate me."

And he disappeared down a dark hallway, leaving me standing in the foyer in a too-big white wedding dress, with a too-big ring, in a house that wasn't mine, married to a man who kissed like a punishment.

---

Agata's room was on the second floor. No, not Agata's room. MY room.

It was bigger than my entire apartment at university. A huge bed with a black headboard, crisp white sheets. A balcony that looked over the sea. A walk-in closet already full of clothes. New clothes. Tags still on. All in my size. All black, cream, deep red, emerald. Silk. Wool. Dresses I would never have dared to try on in a shop.

Someone had been preparing for me. For weeks, maybe.

"Don De Luca had them ordered when the contract was made," Agata said quietly, as if reading my mind. She unzipped the back of my dress. "He has good taste."

The dress fell to the floor in a pool of white lace. I stood in my plain nude underwear and bra, shivering, feeling more naked than naked because of all the expensive things around me.

Agata didn't stare. She picked up the dress like it was contaminated and left the room with it. I heard her go down the hall. I stood there.

In the mirror across the room, I saw myself. Hair half-fallen from the pins, makeup smudged, shoulders red from the scratchy lace, that ugly-beautiful black stone on my finger.

I looked like a ghost bride.

I opened the closet. I grabbed the first simple thing I saw — a black silk slip dress, modest, long — and pulled it on. It fit perfectly. Of course it did. The man who owned this house didn't do things imperfectly.

There was a bathroom bigger than my room at home. I washed my face. I took out all the pins from my hair. I let my dark brown hair fall.

I tried the door handle. Locked. From the outside. I wasn't surprised. A cold, calm feeling started to settle in my chest, replacing the panic. I went to the balcony door. Also locked. I was a wife. I was a prisoner with a better wardrobe.

I sat on the edge of the huge bed and looked at the sea. The sun was starting to set, turning the water orange. Somewhere down there, in Mondello, my mother was probably making pasta like nothing happened. My father was probably drinking. My sister was probably on a ferry to Naples, free.

I took the ring off. I tried. It wouldn't come off — my fingers had swollen in the heat. I twisted and pulled until my skin was red. It stayed.

A knock came at the door.

"Signora? Dinner." It was Agata.

The door was unlocked from the outside. I hadn't even heard it.

I followed her downstairs. My bare feet silent on the cold marble. No shoes had been left for me. Another small control.

The dining room was long, with a table that could seat twenty. Only two places were set, opposite each other, far apart.

Lorenzo was already there. He had changed. Black sweater, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, revealing strong forearms, veins, a black tattoo of a rosary winding around his left arm. He looked younger, more dangerous without the suit jacket.

He looked up when I entered. His eyes did that slow drag again. From my bare feet, up my legs, up the silk clinging to my body, to my wet hair, to my face without makeup. Something flickered in his expression. Approval.

"You look better in black," he said. "Sit." I sat. Far away from him. The distance between us was an ocean.

Agata served — simple, perfect food. Grilled fish, lemon potatoes, greens. Wine. I didn't eat. I watched him. He ate like a man who enjoys food but never rushes. Precise. He cut his fish perfectly.

"Why did you really marry me?" I finally asked. My voice sounded small in the big room. "You knew I wasn't Chiara. Chiara is blonde, taller, everyone knows her. You could have said no. You could have taken my father's hands like you said."

He chewed, swallowed, took a sip of wine.

"Chiara is beautiful," he said. "But weak. She ran. Do you know what a woman who runs does? She runs again. I don't need a wife who runs. I need a wife who stays."

"So you settled for me."

"I chose you," he corrected. His eyes were sharp now. "At your graduation party three years ago, you were in the hallway, reading a book while everyone else was dancing. A pathology textbook. You were hiding behind a curtain so your mother wouldn't make you talk to boys."

My blood ran cold. He remembered that. In detail. "You looked at me over the book," he continued. "You didn't blush. You frowned. Like I was interrupting your studying. I decided then."

"Decided what?"

"That if I ever had to take a Moretti daughter, I would take the one with the brain. The one who frowns. Not the one who smiles for everyone."

He leaned forward slightly.

"Eat your fish, Sofia. You are too thin. And tomorrow, you will meet my family. They will be very interested to meet the girl who replaced Chiara Moretti. Some of them will try to be kind. Don't believe them."

"And some will try to be cruel?"

"Yes," he said. "And you will look at them the way you looked at me over that book. Like they are interrupting something more important."

He stood. He came around the table. I tensed. He stopped behind my chair. I could feel his heat. He placed both hands on the back of my chair, caging me in, leaning down, his mouth right next to my ear.

"And one more thing, topolina," he whispered, his voice dropping to that dark velvet that gave me goosebump. "This house has many rooms. But you will sleep in my room. Tonight."

My heart stopped.

"What?"

"My wife sleeps in my bed. That is tradition."

"I… I don't… we don't even… "

"I know what you are thinking," he said, and there was amusement in his whisper now. "I am not going to touch you tonight, Sofia. Not until you ask me to."

He let go of the chair.

"I just want you to get used to breathing the same air as me while you sleep."

He walked away, leaving me shaking in that too-perfect black dress, the black stone burning on my finger.

And outside, the Sicilian sun finally sank into the sea, and the house with no guests became very, very dark.