The Wrong Bride

UNDER THE VEIL

The first thing I saw through the veil was the gun.

Not the groom.

Not the priest.

Not the hundred people watching me walk toward the altar beneath a ceiling painted with saints and blood-red roses.

The gun.

It sat beneath Viktor Antonov’s left arm in a shoulder holster, black against the black of his suit, visible only because his jacket had fallen open when he turned toward me.

My father had promised there would be no weapons in the church.

That should have told me everything I needed to know about the marriage before I took another step.

I kept walking.

The veil blurred the faces on either side of the aisle. Moretti men to the left. Antonov men to the right. Italians and Russians who had spent twenty years shooting one another across New York warehouses, Montreal shipping routes, Atlantic City casinos and every dirty little corner where two criminal empires wanted the same dollar.

Today they were pretending to be family.

All because my sister was supposed to marry Viktor Antonov.

Except Valentina was gone.

And I was wearing her dress.

My father’s hand tightened around mine.

“Slow down,” he murmured without moving his mouth.

“I am walking toward a Russian crime boss pretending to be my sister. Forgive me if my bridal pace needs work.”

His smile did not change.

“You know what happens if this fails.”

I did.

Three Moretti businesses in Brooklyn had burned in six weeks. Two Antonov soldiers were dead. One of my cousins had disappeared somewhere outside Newark and been returned in six separate parcels.

The marriage was supposed to stop it.

Valentina Moretti, eldest daughter of Salvatore Moretti, would marry Viktor Antonov, head of the Antonov Bratva in America.

An heir eventually.

Peace immediately.

Then, at two in the morning, I had found Valentina’s room empty.

Her wedding dress remained on the wardrobe door.

Her passport was missing.

So was fifty thousand dollars from the safe behind our father’s study.

There had been no note.

By four, my father had decided the wedding would continue.

By five, he had decided I was the solution.

At twenty-six, I had imagined my wedding might involve flowers I chose, a man I liked and perhaps champagne that didn’t need three armed guards.

Instead my father had strapped my sister’s wedding dress onto me and said, “Keep the veil down until the ceremony is over.”

As plans went, it had weaknesses.

The largest of them waited at the altar.

Viktor Antonov was thirty-four, six foot three, and had the sort of face newspapers described as handsome because newspapers could not print the phrase looks like he might kill you for using the wrong fork.

Dark hair. Hard mouth. Pale grey eyes.

A thin white scar cut from beneath his right ear toward the corner of his jaw.

He did not smile as I approached.

He watched.

That was worse.

I’d met him twice before.

Once at a funeral, when I was nineteen and he barely looked at me.

Once six months ago, during the first negotiations for Valentina’s marriage.

That time, he had looked.

Long enough that I noticed.

Long enough that Valentina noticed too.

She had elbowed me beneath the table afterward and whispered, “Your Russian is staring.”

I had told her he was staring because I had spilled wine down my dress.

She had laughed.

I had not.

Now I reached the altar.

My father kissed my cheek through the veil.

“Do not speak more than necessary,” he whispered.

Then he placed my hand in Viktor’s.

His fingers closed around mine.

Warm.

Large.

Still.

My father stepped away.

The priest began.

I heard none of it.

Viktor was looking at our joined hands.

Valentina wore a diamond ring on her right index finger every day. A gift from our mother before she died.

She never took it off.

I’d remembered everything.

Her perfume.

Her shoes.

The tiny pearl pins in her hair.

I had forgotten the ring.

Viktor’s thumb moved once over the bare place where it should have been.

Then his eyes lifted to mine through the veil.

I knew.

He knew.

The priest kept talking.

Viktor said nothing.

My heartbeat climbed into my throat.

The ceremony was conducted partly in English, partly in Russian, because apparently being terrified in one language wasn’t enough.

When the priest asked Viktor whether he accepted Valentina Moretti as his wife, Viktor did not look at the priest.

He looked directly at me.

“I do.”

My stomach dropped.

He knew.

And he was continuing.

The priest turned to me.

“Valentina Moretti, do you take Viktor Antonov-”

My father sat in the first pew.

His eyes were fixed on me.

Viktor’s hand tightened.

Not painfully.

A warning.

Or encouragement.

I had no idea which was worse.

“I do,” I said.

Viktor’s mouth moved almost imperceptibly.

The priest instructed us to exchange rings.

Viktor slid a platinum band onto my finger.

It fit.

Of course it did.

Valentina and I had almost identical hands.

That small fact had never seemed sinister before.

Then came the kiss.

My father had not discussed the kiss.

Perhaps even Salvatore Moretti possessed limits to his planning.

The priest smiled.

“You may kiss your bride.”

Viktor raised both hands to my veil.

I stopped breathing.

He lifted it.

The entire church saw my face.

A sound moved through the room.

Not a gasp exactly.

Something lower.

Recognition travelling through a hundred people at once.

My father’s face went white.

Viktor did not look surprised.

He looked at me as if he’d been waiting all morning to see whether I would run.

“Sofia,” he said softly.

Only I heard him.

“Hello, Viktor.”

His hand settled at the back of my neck.

“Where is your sister?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be dressed like a cake.”

His eyes changed.

Amusement.

Actual amusement.

At the altar.

While our families silently prepared for a massacre.

“Interesting,” he murmured.

Then Viktor Antonov kissed me.

Not politely.

Not ceremonially.

His mouth covered mine with enough certainty to make the church disappear for one humiliating second.

My fingers tightened around his jacket.

He felt it.

Of course he did.

When he drew back, his thumb rested just beneath my ear.

His gaze remained on my mouth.

Then he turned toward the congregation.

“The marriage is valid,” he said.

My father stood.

“Viktor-”

Viktor’s eyes found him.

Whatever Salvatore Moretti saw there stopped him.

“You offered me a Moretti daughter,” Viktor said. “You gave me one.”

The church stayed silent.

He looked down at me.

“My wife and I will discuss the substitution privately.”

My wife.

The words slid under my skin in a way I deeply resented.

Viktor took my hand.

As we walked back down the aisle, I leaned closer.

“You could have stopped this.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you?”

He kept walking.

“Because your father is afraid.”

“Of you?”

“No.”

That answer chilled me more than anything else had.

At the church doors, Viktor stopped.

Snow blew sideways across the stone steps.

Black cars waited at the curb.

His men opened one of them.

Before we climbed inside, Viktor bent his mouth to my ear.

“Your father isn’t afraid that Valentina ran away, Sofia.”

I turned my head.

His eyes were cold again.

“He’s afraid of what she took with her.”