Chapter 1 - The Woman Outside the Wedding Car
Jonathan Moretti had spent half his life learning how not to react.
Men had pointed guns at him.
Politicians had lied to his face.
Friends had become enemies over money.
Enemies had become friends because the alternative was burial.
Through all of it, Jonathan had perfected stillness.
That was why nobody inside the black limousine understood what happened to him when he looked through the rain-streaked window on Broad Street.
His body did not move.
His face barely changed.
But his entire life stopped.
Forty minutes remained before his wedding.
Four hundred guests were waiting inside the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul.
Boston's Bianke family occupied one side.
Providence's Moretti family occupied the other.
At the end of the aisle waited priests, lawyers, politicians and enough powerful men to turn a marriage into a peace treaty.
Beside Jonathan sat his future wife.
Vivien Bianke wore a white silk gown beneath a long wool coat. She was beautiful in the controlled, expensive way magazine covers liked—dark hair pinned perfectly, pearl earrings, posture straight even inside a moving vehicle.
She was explaining which councilman needed to be greeted before which union leader.
Jonathan heard none of it.
Because on the sidewalk, beneath the gray October sky, stood Meline Donnelly.
Alive.
Pregnant.
Poor.
Selling flowers.
For eight months, Jonathan had believed she was somewhere far from Rhode Island.
Marco Vitali had told him she had taken the forty thousand dollars Jonathan provided and disappeared south.
Florida, perhaps.
Georgia.
Somewhere warm.
Somewhere safe.
Jonathan had never asked.
That had been his punishment and his mercy at the same time.
Meline had betrayed him.
At least that was what he had believed.
He had ordered everyone in his organization to cut contact with her, then paid enough money for her to begin again.
He told himself a crueler man would have done worse.
Now Meline stood twelve feet from his wedding limousine wearing an oversized brown coat.
Rain had darkened the shoulders.
Her hair was twisted into a messy knot.
One hand rested protectively beneath the unmistakable curve of her stomach.
The other held a bunch of white chrysanthemums toward passing cars.
Jonathan's lungs forgot how to work.
The light turned green.
"Enzo."
The driver immediately slowed.
"Boss?"
Jonathan didn't remove his eyes from the window.
"Stop."
Vivien lowered her phone.
"We're blocking traffic."
"Stop."
Enzo pulled toward the curb.
A horn sounded behind them.
Then another.
Jonathan didn't care.
Meline had looked toward the limousine.
For one impossible second, their eyes met through the glass.
Her face changed.
Not love.
Not relief.
Fear.
She dropped the flowers.
Jonathan opened the door.
Vivien caught his sleeve.
"Jonathan."
He looked at her hand.
Then at her.
She followed his gaze through the window.
Her expression sharpened when she saw the pregnant woman outside.
"Who is she?"
Jonathan stepped into the rain.
"Meline!"
She turned away.
That hurt more than seeing her.
She began walking quickly toward the corner, one hand supporting her stomach.
Jonathan followed.
"Meline!"
People on the sidewalk moved around him.
Nobody recognized Providence's most feared man immediately because nobody expected to see him running through rain in a wedding suit.
Meline reached the intersection.
Jonathan caught up.
"Stop."
She did.
Slowly.
Her shoulders rose with each breath.
Jonathan stood six feet behind her.
Eight months.
He had imagined this woman in a hundred places.
A beach town.
A small apartment.
Another man's house.
He had imagined her happy.
He had imagined her ashamed.
He had trained himself not to imagine her at all.
He had never imagined this.
"Meline."
She turned.
Rain ran down her face.
Her eyes were the same green-gray color that had once made him forget meetings.
But the woman looking at him now seemed older than twenty-seven.
Harder.
"You shouldn't be here," Jonathan said.
Her lips parted.
Then something almost like disbelief crossed her face.
"I shouldn't be here?"
"I was told you left."
"I tried."
His eyes moved to her stomach.
Meline immediately covered it with both hands.
Jonathan's voice became quieter.
"How far along are you?"
She looked at the wedding boutonniere pinned to his lapel.
A white rose.
Then she looked toward the limousine.
Through the open rear door, Vivien was visible in white.
Meline understood everything.
Her face emptied.
"Congratulations."
She turned away.
Jonathan grabbed her wrist.
Not hard.
But she flinched so violently that he released her immediately.
His stomach tightened.
"Who did that?"
"What?"
"Why did you react like that?"
She laughed once.
It contained no humor.
"You're worried someone hurt me?"
"Answer me."
"You don't get to give orders anymore."
Jonathan stared at her.
A year earlier she would have smiled when she said something like that.
Now she sounded exhausted.
"Meline, where is the money?"
"What money?"
"The forty thousand."
Her confusion looked real.
Too real.
Jonathan felt the first crack beneath his feet.
"The money Marco gave you."
Meline slowly shook her head.
"Marco never gave me money."
The city noise disappeared.
Jonathan heard only rain.
"What?"
"He gave me a bus ticket."
Jonathan stared at her.
"To where?"
"New York."
"Forty thousand dollars."
"I never saw forty dollars."
His jaw tightened.
Meline looked at him with something worse than anger.
Pity.
"You really didn't know."
Jonathan turned slightly toward the limousine.
Vivien had stepped out now.
Enzo stood beside the car with an umbrella.
Neither approached.
Jonathan looked back at Meline.
"What happened in New York?"
"I came back."
"Why?"
"Because I had nowhere else to go."
"You had family."
"My aunt died."
"I would have—"
"You declared me dead."
The words landed quietly.
Jonathan said nothing.
Meline continued.
"Remember?"
"I told my people not to contact you."
"You told people I didn't exist."
"I thought you betrayed me."
"And I told you someone was setting me up."
"The photographs—"
"Were real."
"The phone?"
"Mine."
"The bank account?"
"Mine."
"The federal building?"
"I went there."
Jonathan's expression hardened.
"Then what exactly was false?"
"The reason."
She stepped closer.
"I wasn't informing on you."
"Then why were federal agents meeting you?"
"Because someone gave them my name."
"Who?"
"I tried to tell you."
"Marco."
"Yes."
Jonathan looked away.
For eight months, he had refused to revisit that night.
Meline had accused Marco.
Jonathan had chosen Marco.
Marco had been with him since his twenties.
Marco had warned him about betrayals before.
Marco had helped bury Jonathan's brother.
Marco had taken the money.
The forty thousand dollars.
Jonathan looked back.
"And the baby?"
Meline's face closed instantly.
He already knew.
He knew from the timing.
He knew from the way she protected her stomach.
He knew because the last night they had spent together had been nine months ago.
Still, he needed to hear it.
"Is the baby mine?"
Meline's eyes filled.
Then she smiled sadly.
"You had a chance to ask me that eight months ago."
"Meline."
"No."
She stepped back.
"You don't get to stand in a wedding suit and ask me questions like I'm one of your men."
His voice dropped.
"Is that my child?"
Her chin trembled.
Before she could answer, a black SUV turned the corner.
Meline saw it.
All color vanished from her face.
She grabbed Jonathan's arm.
Not lovingly.
Desperately.
"We need to move."
Jonathan looked toward the SUV.
It slowed.
Tinted windows.
No front plate.
"Do you know that car?"
Meline whispered, "They found me."
"Who?"
She pulled him toward a florist awning.
"Jonathan, please."
The SUV stopped.
A rear window lowered two inches.
Enzo immediately moved.
His hand disappeared inside his coat.
Jonathan raised one finger.
No weapons.
Not on a crowded street.
Not with Meline pregnant.
The SUV suddenly accelerated and disappeared through the intersection.
Jonathan memorized the final four digits of the temporary plate.
He turned.
Meline was shaking.
"Who found you?"
She didn't answer.
"Meline."
Her knees buckled.
Jonathan caught her before she reached the pavement.
A wet bouquet scattered beneath them.
"Meline!"
She gasped and grabbed her stomach.
"No."
"What?"
Her fingers tightened around his sleeve.
"Not now."
Jonathan looked down.
Water spread across the pavement beneath her.
For the first time in twenty-two years, Jonathan Moretti panicked.
"Enzo!"
Vivien was already moving toward them.
She lifted her wedding dress and crossed the sidewalk without hesitation.
"What happened?"
Meline cried out.
Vivien took one look.
"Her water broke."
Jonathan stared at her.
"The baby's early."
Meline gripped his hand.
"Thirty-five weeks."
Vivien turned toward Enzo.
"Closest hospital?"
"Women & Infants."
"Then why are we standing here?"
Jonathan lifted Meline.
She protested weakly.
"Put me down."
"No."
"Jonathan—"
"Argue with me when you're not having my child on Broad Street."
Vivien froze.
Enzo looked away.
Meline stopped fighting.
Jonathan carried her toward the limousine.
Behind them, church bells began ringing.
The wedding bells.
Four hundred people were waiting.
Salvatore Bianke was waiting.
The peace treaty was waiting.
Vivien stood beside the open car door.
Jonathan looked at her.
He expected anger.
Instead she asked one question.
"Is that baby really yours?"
Meline answered before he could.
"Yes."
Vivien closed her eyes for one second.
Then she removed her veil.
She placed it carefully across the limousine seat.
"Drive."
Jonathan stared at her.
"Vivien—"
"Drive her to the hospital."
"My wedding—"
"Our wedding," Vivien corrected.
Then she looked toward the cathedral towers several blocks away.
"If you walk into that church while the woman carrying your child is being rushed to a hospital, Jonathan, I won't marry you anyway."
For the first time that day, he saw the woman beneath the alliance.
Vivien looked at Meline.
Then at him.
"Go."
Jonathan got inside.
The limousine pulled away.
May you like
Behind them, cathedral bells continued ringing for a groom who was no longer coming.
And across Providence, four hundred powerful guests were about to learn that one pregnant flower seller had just stopped a Mafia wedding.
