CHAPTER 5: THE FATHER'S FUNERAL

"Stay behind me."

Lorenzo said it at the front door, his hand already on the small of my back, pushing me slightly behind his shoulder. His other hand had disappeared inside his suit jacket. I knew what was there. I had patched up enough gunshot wounds in the ER shadowing program to know the shape of a holster.

"No," I said.

He looked down at me, surprised. "No?"

"I am not hiding behind you while my father is out there with a gun. He came for me. Or he pretends he came for me."

"Exactly why you should stay behind me," he said, his voice dropping to that low, don't-argue-with-me Don voice. "He did not come to save you, Sofia. Men like your father do not bring guns to family reunions unless they plan to use them."

Outside, beyond the tall iron gates of the villa, I could hear shouting. My father's voice — high, frantic, not his normal accountant voice. And other voices, rougher.

Matteo was at the window by the door, peeking through the shutter, hand on his own gun. "Boss, it's six guys. Moretti plus five. Two of them I know — they work for the Russo family from Naples. Camorra."

Camorra. The rival. The name even Agata whispered.

Lorenzo's jaw tightened. He looked down at me in my red dress, my bare back, my red lips. He looked at the necklace.

Then he did something insane.

He took off his suit jacket. He draped it over my shoulders. It was huge, warm, smelling of him, covering my bare back, covering the dress, covering me.

"What—"

"If they are going to look at my wife, they will not look at her skin," he said, buttoning the jacket in front, his knuckles brushing the black diamond. "You wear my jacket now. Understand?"I nodded, swallowing. The jacket went down to mid-thigh. I looked like a child playing dress-up in her husband's clothes. But I felt... armored.

He opened the door.

The Sicilian sun was brutal at eleven AM. It hit my eyes after the cool darkness of the house. The gravel driveway was white, blinding. The iron gates were closed, but my father was right there on the other side, clutching the bars like a prisoner.

He looked terrible. Unshaven, shirt untucked, eyes red. Not like the neat, cold accountant who used to check my homework with a red pen and tell me I could do better.

And behind him — five men. Not in suits like Lorenzo's men. In leather jackets, jeans, tattoos up their necks. One had a gold tooth. One was holding a shotgun, not even trying to hide it.

"Papa?" My voice came out small.

My father's head snapped up. He saw me. He saw the red dress under the black suit jacket that was clearly not mine. He saw the lipstick. He saw the man standing next to me, whose arm was now around my waist, hand splayed possessively over my stomach, over his jacket.

"Sofia! Sofia, thank God! I told you — I told you he took her!" he shouted to the men behind him, as if they needed proof. "Sofia, come here! Come to Papa! These men —"

"Which men, Franco?" Lorenzo said calmly, his voice carrying across the driveway, pleasant, conversational, like he was greeting guests at a party. "You mean your new friends from Naples? Or do you mean me? Your son-in-law?"

My father flinched at the word son-in-law.

"She is not your wife! That marriage is not valid! She was forced! You forced her!" My father was shaking the gates. "Sofia, tell them! Tell them you didn't want this! The police —"

"The police chief is at lunch with my mother," Lorenzo said, still calm. "He sends his regards. He said to tell you he is very disappointed in you, Franco. Laundering money is one thing. Bringing Camorra to Palermo to a De Luca property? That is... how do you say... bad manners."

One of the Naples men stepped forward, gold tooth glinting. "De Luca. We don't want trouble. Moretti says you have his daughter. And you have two million that belongs to our boss. We are here to collect both."

Lorenzo smiled. That terrible smile.

"Two problems," he said. "One: The daughter is my wife. She took vows yesterday in Santa Maria. In front of God. Ask Father Gianni, he was there. He cried, it was so beautiful."

He pulled me tighter against him. His hand slid up, under the jacket, finding my bare back again, warm skin on skin, in front of my father, in front of everyone.

"Two: The two million," Lorenzo continued, "was never yours. It was mine. Franco stole it from me, not from you. He promised it to your boss in Naples to save his own skin after he stole it from mine. So you have been lied to, my friend. By a very bad accountant."

My father shouted, "That's a lie! I— I was investing! It was an investment!"

"Sofia," Lorenzo whispered in my ear, his lips brushing my temple, for only me. "Do you want to go with him?"

The question shocked me. He was giving me a choice. In front of six armed men, in front of my father.

I looked at my father. At the men he brought. At the shotgun.

Then I looked at the man holding me. At the jacket that smelled like him. At the black diamond at my throat.

"No," I said, loud enough for everyone to hear. "I don't."

My father's face collapsed. "Sofia—"

"I stayed, Papa," I said, my voice shaking but getting stronger. "Chiara ran. You let me put on her dress. You let me walk out that door. You watched him take me and you didn't say no. You didn't say 'take me instead.' You just cried in the pantry."

"Sofia, I—"

"And now you come here with them?" I pointed at the Naples men, my hand shaking, the sleeve of Lorenzo's jacket falling down. "You bring Camorra to my husband's house? To my house? Do you know what they do to wives of Dons who betray them, Papa? Do you? I learned yesterday. They cut off their hands."

Gold Tooth laughed. "Feisty little wife you got, De Luca."

Lorenzo didn't laugh. His hand was still on my back, but I felt his whole body go tense. Like a wire.

"Franco Moretti," he said, his voice now completely flat, no more pleasantries. "You have five seconds to take your hands off my gate and get your Neapolitan dogs off my property. After five seconds, Matteo will open the gate, and we will have a different kind of conversation."

He didn't shout. He didn't need to.

Matteo appeared at his shoulder, gun now openly in his hand, safety off.

My father looked at the gun. He looked at me. He looked at the Naples men, who were shifting, hands going to their jackets.

"Sofia, please," my father whispered, his forehead against the iron bars. "He will kill me. They will kill me if I don't bring the money or you. Please—"

That was it. The truth. He didn't come to save me. He came to trade me again. To a different monster.

Something inside me, something that had been quiet and scared and good for twenty-one years, snapped.

I stepped out from behind Lorenzo. I shrugged off his jacket — just enough to let it fall to my elbows, revealing the red dress, the bare shoulders, the black diamond, the woman I had become in two days.

I walked right up to the gate, until I was inches from my father's face, separated only by iron.

"Then you should have thought of that before you stole from a Don," I said, my voice low, cold, in perfect Italian, using words I had heard Lorenzo use. "Before you offered your daughters like cattle."

My father stared, eyes wide, like he didn't know me.

"And Papa?" I leaned closer. "I am not your daughter anymore. I am Sofia De Luca. And you are trespassing on De Luca land."

I turned my back on him. I walked back to Lorenzo, my red heels crunching on the gravel, my dress flowing, and I slid my arm around his waist, under his suit jacket, claiming him the way he always claimed me.

Lorenzo looked down at me, and his eyes — God, his eyes — were black with something that wasn't just lust. It was pride. Obsession. Worship.

He looked over my head at the men at the gate.

"You heard my wife," he said loudly. "Get off my property. If I see any of you in Palermo again, I will send you back to Naples in boxes. Tell your boss that."

Gold Tooth sneered, but he stepped back. They were outnumbered and outgunned — two more De Luca men had appeared on the roof with rifles while I was talking to my father, I hadn't even noticed.

They dragged my father away. He was shouting my name, "Sofia! Sofia, no! Sofia!"

I didn't turn around. Not until the sound of their car faded down the hill.

Then my knees gave out.

Lorenzo caught me before I hit the gravel. One arm scooped under my knees, the other around my back, lifting me like I weighed nothing, bridal style, the red dress spilling over his arms, the black jacket falling to the ground.

"Matteo, burn that jacket," he said, carrying me toward the house. "It touched the ground."

"Boss—"

"And get me Russo on the phone. Now."

He kicked the front door shut with his foot and carried me through the dark foyer, up the stairs, past Agata who looked at me with wide eyes and then quickly looked away.

He carried me into his black bedroom and kicked that door shut too and laid me on the black bed, gently, like I was made of glass, the red dress fanned around me.

I was shaking. Not crying. Shaking with adrenaline, with rage, with something I couldn't name.

Lorenzo knelt on the floor next to the bed, so we were eye level. He took my shaking hands in his steady ones.

"You were magnificent," he whispered, his voice hoarse. "Do you know what you just did?"

"I— I told my father to leave," I said.

"No," he said, his thumb stroking my knuckles, his eyes burning into mine. "You claimed me. In front of them. In front of your father. You said my husband's house. My house."

I hadn't realized I had said that.

"You said you are Sofia De Luca."

"I am Sofia De Luca," I whispered. "You made sure of that."

"I did," he admitted. "But today, you made sure of it yourself."

He leaned forward, his forehead touching mine, our noses brushing, his breath warm on my red lips.

"May I kiss you now, wife?" he asked, voice ragged, begging, commanding all at once. "Not because I am your husband. Because you just sent your own father away to save our house. May I?"

My hands were still shaking, but I lifted them. I cupped his face, his stubble rough against my palms, his beautiful, terrible face.

I didn't say yes.

I pulled him to me and kissed him.

It was not the kiss in the church. That was a stamp. This was a fire.

His mouth opened against mine, hot, desperate, tasting of espresso and fury and pride. He made a sound low in his throat, like he had been holding his breath for two days, and his hands slid into my hair, into the bare skin of my back, pulling me closer, deeper into the black sheets, into his black bed.

He kissed me like a man starving. Like a man who had just watched his little mouse grow teeth and bite someone else for him.

I kissed him back like a woman who had just learned she liked biting.

When we finally broke apart, breathing hard, foreheads touching, red lipstick smeared on his mouth, he looked at me and said the most hooky thing he had ever said:

"Topolina, if you keep looking at me like that, I am going to have to lock this door and not let you out for a week."

And outside, far down the hill, we heard the faint sound of a car engine dying.

Matteo's voice shouted from downstairs: "BOSS! They came back!"

Lorenzo closed his eyes, rested his forehead against mine, and whispered a curse in Italian that made my toes curl.

"Stay here," he said, and stood, wiping my lipstick off his mouth with the back of his hand, his eyes already turning back to ice, back to the Don.

But before he left, he took the black diamond necklace from my throat, unclasped it, and put it in his pocket.

"So they don't take it if they try to take you," he said.

And he walked out, pulling a gun from under the bed — of cause there was a gun under the bed — leaving me alone in his black bedroom, in my red dress, with my father's name still ringing in my ears and my husband's kiss burning on my mouth.

Outside, a second car had pulled up to the gates. And this time, it wasn't my father.

It was a woman in white.