1
EMMA
I’m beginning my procession down the aisle of St. Patrick’s Cathedral when I see him.
Leonardo “Leo” Santoro.
I know his face from surveillance photos my father keeps locked in his study—that I’ve seen because Dad’s hiding spots are too easy—and from whispered warnings about the Santoro boss who’s cold as ice and twice as deadly.
He’s standing in the back of the church, watching me with dark eyes as I pass by him and walk down the aisle, my steps faltering.
My hand tightens on my father’s arm.
“Keep walking,” Dad murmurs beside me, but his voice has gone tense and his blue eyes narrow as they take in the new threat.
My heart hammers against my ribs as I force myself forward.
The organ music swells, drowning out the whispers starting to ripple through the pews.
Why is Leonardo Santoro at my wedding?
The Santoros weren’t invited.
They’re enemies and have been for five years.
At the altar, Tony Lombardo shifts nervously, sensing something wrong.
Three hundred guests watch me proceed down the aisle in this ridiculous dress made of Italian lace and seed pearls.
I don’t recognize the woman I saw in the mirror an hour ago, all dewy makeup and elaborate updo, looking like some magazine-perfect bride on the happiest day of her life.
“You look absolutely stunning, darling,”my mother had said, adjusting my veil for the twentieth time, her fingers shaking slightly.
Teresa Brennan had been crying on and off since seven this morning, playing the perfect Irish mob matriarch in her champagne silk and pearls.
“It’s every mother’s dream, you know, seeing her daughter get married.”
I wonder if she actually believed that.
If she remembered standing in her own bride’s room twenty-eight years ago, wearing her own expensive dress and feeling just as trapped.
I’m supposed to be Mrs. Tony Lombardo.
Mrs. Antonio Lombardo Jr., to be exact, because even his name feels like a hand-me-down from his father.
The wedding will seal an alliance between the Irish Brennan clan and the New Jersey Lombardo family. Everyone wins.
Except maybe me.
But that’s not how this works.
I’m twenty-four years old and this is my duty.
My father’s word is law.
The Lombardo shipping routes will strengthen our position against the Santoros, and I’m the price of that power.
The bargaining chip.