THE KINGMAKER'S MAFIA BRIDE

"Stop touching your tie.”

Paul Whitaker dropped his hand. The tie was crooked anyway. Elena reached up and fixed it with two quick tugs, the way she had every night for eleven months.

“Ninety seconds,” she said. “Thank New Hampshire. Thank your wife. Do not say the word inevitable.”

“We won by nine points. It’s accurate.”

“It’s accurate and it sounds like you already bought the house. Say humbled.”

“I’m not humbled. I’m thrilled.”

“Then say thrilled and humbled. Both. Nobody checks.” She flattened his lapel with her palm. “Go.”

He went. The curtain swallowed him, and a second later the ballroom on the other side of it roared. Elena stayed in the wings with her arms folded and mouthed his opening line along with him. He hit it perfectly. She let out a breath she’d been holding since four o’clock that afternoon.

Her clutch buzzed against her hip.

She ignored it. It buzzed again. By the sixth time, Sofia was at her elbow, holding up her own phone like evidence.

“Harold Kessler has been calling you for twenty minutes,” Sofia whispered. “He called me when you didn’t pick up. He sounds strange.”

“My father’s lawyer sounds strange the way other people sound normal.” But Elena took the phone out and looked at the screen. Seven missed calls. Harold Kessler called once a year, and only when there was paperwork.

“Cover me,” she said.

The service corridor behind the stage smelled like fryer oil and floor cleaner. She pushed the door shut with her shoulder and the crowd noise dropped to a hum. He answered before the first ring finished.

“Elena.”

“Harold. If this is about the trust documents, I told you in March, it can wait until—”

“Your father died tonight.”

She waited for the rest of the sentence. There wasn’t any.

“That’s not funny,” she said.

“I would never. Mrs. Dunn found him in his study around seven. The paramedics think it was his heart. I’m so sorry.”

Elena put her free hand flat against the wall. The cinder blocks were painted a thick beige and they were cold. She counted them. Eight across. She lost count at nine.

“He called me Sunday,” she said. “I let it go to voicemail.”

“Elena—”

“I put it in my calendar. Wednesday, ten a.m., call Dad. I scheduled my own father like he was a donor.” Her voice came out level, and she hated how level it was. “Where is he?”

“Georgetown Hospital. Nothing has to be decided tonight.”

The door opened. Sofia stuck her head in, took one look, and crossed the corridor in two steps. Elena held up a finger.

“Harold, I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Elena, before you hang up, there’s—”

She hung up.

“What happened?” Sofia said.

“My father died.” It sounded like something a stranger would say. “Heart. In his study. Mrs. Dunn found him.”

Sofia’s hand went to her mouth. Then she reached for Elena, and Elena stepped back.

“Don’t. If you touch me, I’ll fall apart, and I have a speech to watch.”

“You’re not going back out there.”

“Paul’s about to hit the exit poll line. He rushes it. He needs me in the wings.”

“Elena. Your father is dead.”

“I know what happened, Sofia.”

“Your hand is shaking.”

She looked down. Her right hand had a tremor she had never seen on it before. She pressed it flat against her thigh until the fabric wrinkled. “Then it’ll shake backstage, where nobody can see it.”

“Let Marcus take Paul to the car. For one night, let somebody else—”

“Marcus doesn’t know where Paul pauses.” She heard how that sounded and kept going anyway. “If I disappear tonight, tomorrow’s headline is about me. The kingmaker vanishes on the biggest night of the campaign. Not Paul’s win. Me. I’m not doing that to him.”

“You mean you’re not doing that to you.”

That landed somewhere under her ribs. Elena grabbed the door handle and kept her jaw tight so nothing else would move. “Get me a glass of water if you want to help.”

Sofia stared at her a second too long. “He was your dad. You’re allowed to be a person tonight.”

“I’m allowed to be a person tomorrow.”

She went back through the door.

Paul was mid-sentence when she got to the wings, both hands up, grinning at a room that loved him. “And to the people of New Hampshire, I am humbled. And thrilled.” Laughter rolled across the floor. He looked for her in the dark and found her. She gave him a thumbs-up with her left hand. The right one was a fist inside her pocket.

He’d have watched this on mute, she thought. In the study, with a yellow pad. Pencil. He wrote “tighter” in the margin of every speech I ever showed him. Every one. Never once wrote “good.”

Her throat closed. She swallowed against it twice and looked at the ceiling lights until her eyes dried.

“I’m never getting another “tighter.”

On stage, Paul reached the exit poll line. He rushed it. She winced, nodded, and did what she always did. She made a small circle with two fingers by her hip, the slow-down sign. He saw it. He slowed. The line landed. The crowd stood.

Twelve more minutes. Handshakes. Photos. Paul’s wife crying into her shoulder and saying “we couldn’t have done it without you”, and Elena saying “you did it yourselves”, because that was the job. A reporter from the ‘Times’ asked if she had any comment on her next move, and Elena said” sleep”, and everyone laughed, and she smiled so hard her cheeks ached.

Her clutch buzzed again.

Harold Kessler. Eight missed calls now.

She turned toward the wall and answered with her back to the room. “Harold, I said tomorrow.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I should have said the other thing when I called the first time.” He sounded like a man reading from a page he didn’t want to hold. “I need you to hear it from me before you hear it from anyone else.”

“Hear what?”

“Your father’s will has a provision. It’s addressed to you, and to your husband.”

Elena laughed. One short, ugly laugh that she hadn’t planned. “I don’t have a husband, Harold.”

Paper moved on the other end of the line. A long pause.

“Elena. You’ve been married for six years.”

She turned all the way around. The ballroom was a blur of gold and flashbulbs and people shaking hands, and none of it made a sound.

“That’s impossible. I’d know.”

“The marriage is registered. It’s legal. He signed. So did you.” Another pause. “Your signature is on the license. I’ve seen it.”

“I have never signed anything like that in my life.”

“The husband is Alexander Moretti.”

The name went through her like cold water. She knew it. Everyone in her business knew it, and nobody said it above a whisper. The Moretti family didn’t show up in her donor files. They showed up in the gaps between them.

“Harold, this is a mistake.”

“I don’t think so.” His voice dropped. “Alexander Moretti called my office tonight, Elena. He asked me to tell you he’ll see you at the funeral.”

“How does he even know my father’s dead? You said Mrs. Dunn found him at seven. You only called me at—”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you.” Kessler’s breath rattled in the phone. “He called at six forty. Twenty minutes before anyone found the body.”