Surrender To Me

CORINA

“Stop doing that.” I turn my gaze away from the scenic view of the Italian fields through the car window to Dante. He’s looking down at my fingers tapping the seat. I clench my hand and place it on my lap. “I’m nervous.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Why? You’re not the one who’s getting married.”

“Yeah, but I’ve never been to a Mafia wedding.”

He rolls his eyes. “Don’t worry, we won’t be bathing the bride in the blood of her enemies as part of the ceremony.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Are you talking about the twenty-one-gun salute we would do for the bridegroom?”

Images of men in tuxedos shooting at the sky filled my mind, followed by Dante with an ostentatious, gold-plated semi-auto in his hand, spraying his own barrage of bullets. “Will you be taking part in it?”

He laughs. “No! Mafia weddings, as you like to call them, are just like any other weddings. Boring and full of relatives you’d rather avoid.”

“I don’t know if your brother would appreciate calling his wedding boring.”

“I doubt he minds.”

“Gio is the one who’s getting married, right?”

“That’s right.”

I think back to the meeting. He seemed more like a calmer, more inquisitive version of Dante. He was less talkative than the others, but I couldn’t glean much more from such a short time of knowing him. “He must love Tuscany if he’s getting married here,” I say absent-mindedly. I still can’t get over the gorgeous scenery.

“He’s getting married here, because it’s our ancestral home.”

“You have an ancestral home?” “Why? Is it such an odd thing?”

“No. But I’ve always pictured you as someone who’s more modern. Less obsessed with, I don’t know, roots.”

“You’re right. I don’t really care about the house that much. We keep it up in memory of our father.” This is the first time in a week he’s mentioned his family. Ever since the night of the punch, Dante who had opened up had closed back up and shuttered himself from me. Just when I wanted to learn more about his family. His father and his sister and this thing with Saccone. I want to know more, so I tread carefully, hoping he’ll share. “You must have loved your father.”

His face goes blank, and he looks away. Fuck. I blew it. He ignores my statement and says, “We’re here.”

I look out the window. The car is approaching a large terracotta villa on top of a hill. The corrugated iron gates open immediately after Colin gives them Dante’s name over the intercom. As the car drives up to the house, I look in awe at the beautiful landscape and the marble statues that are in the vast well-made gardens, blooming with flowers and carefully manicured shrubs. The villa itself is beautiful. It has an understated quality to it. Like it’s been there for centuries as the world around it changed.

“Wow.”

“Glad you like it.”

I’m embarrassed I said it out loud. “You never told me you were Tuscan royalty?”

He chuckles. “Nowhere near. My father took it from an enemy of his in the eighties.”

“But I thought…”Property belongs to Nôvel(D)r/ama.Org.

“He earned it, according to him anyway, and it was Italian, so it became the ancestral home.”

“That’s it?” I don’t know why I was expecting some story about how his family is old Italian royalty going all the way back to the renaissance period, but this story somehow suits him more. “Pretty much,” he says as the car comes to a stop.

We arrive on the day of the wedding, and some guests are already here. As soon as we get out, we’re are greeted by two valets, one who asks to take our bags but is blocked by Rob, and another who offers us flutes of champagne. The valet leads us to the back of the villa, where the wedding is to take place. It looks almost like a fairytale.

“I wish I could have been there for the engagement party,” I blurt out.

“There wasn’t one.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not exactly what I would call a love match. Both the bride and the groom want to be over with it as soon as possible.”

I frown. Just as I’m about to ask why, Nico and Rico approach us. They look dapper and almost indistinguishable in their wedding clothes. They don’t look as festive as I thought they would be. Like Dante, there’s a cloud of uncertainty about them. Do none of them not want the wedding?

After the brothers greet each other, Dante takes them to the side and says something to them. I can’t hear what it is. They’re too far away for me to eavesdrop in, but occasionally, each brother glances at me. Whatever they’re talking about, I’m a topic of the conversation. He leaves them walking away while the twins make their way to me. “Where is he going?” I ask them as we take our seats, just as everyone is taking theirs. “To the groom,” Nico replies, his gaze squarely on me. Both keep glaring at me in a way that makes me feel like I’m under a microscope. Being sandwiched between the two of them also doesn’t help matters.

It takes five more minutes of scrutiny for me to say, “Do I have something on my face?”

They don’t respond for a moment. They both have identical grins that I want to wipe off with a fist. Nico is the first to speak. “You know, there’s something about her face that is similar to him, right?”

Rico responds, “There’s something there.”

I swerve my head between the two of them. “What are you talking about?”

“Do you like my brother?” I turn to Rico. I can’t tell if he’s seriously asking, or he’s just playing with me. I shrug. “I like him.”

Nico leans forward, twisting his body towards me. Rico does the same. “We mean like him, like him,” he says. They both want to intimidate me into telling them the truth. “Why do you want to know?” I say.

“He’s our brother, I think we deserve to know,” Nico says.

“We don’t want him to get hurt,” Rico adds.

I can’t stop the laughter that bursts out of me.

The idea of Dante being affected in any way by our relationship is ludicrous. He has a higher chance of hurting me than me hurting him. “I doubt I have that much power.” When this thing ends, he might miss having a woman in his bed all the time, but I doubt he will miss me in particular.

They both exchange a look. “She has no clue,” they say at the same time. “What?”

Nico is the first to speak. “Dante has had a thing for you.

An obsession. For years.”

“No way.”

“Way,” Rico says. “He’s mentioned you to us before, but never by name. We had to deduce it ourselves.”

“And you came to the wrong conclusion.”

“Nah.” Nico shakes his head. “Otherwise what are you doing here?”

“Did you know, he’s never brought a woman to a family gathering?” Rico adds.

“Never.” Says Nico.

“You reading too much into this,” I say. “I’m just a prisoner of his until I pay back his dead.”

It’s their turn to laugh. “Take care of him, will you,” Rico says, “I never thought I would say this, but Dante’s is a better person when you’re around.”

I frown. I want to ask him what he means by that, but before I can utter a word, I see Dante striding toward us. He instructs Rico to take the seat next to his brother. Rico obliges, but not before winking at me. The second Dante sits beside me, my entire body changes. It always does that, I notice. He doesn’t turn to face me but looks straight ahead, program in hand as he says to me, “What were you three talking about? You seemed animated.”

“You.”

He whips his head at me. “I hope they weren’t filling your head with lies. Believe nothing they say.”

Rico and Nico chuckle. “Don’t worry,” Rico says, “we couldn’t find the time to tell him all the nasty things you did as a kid. But we will in time, won’t we?”

“Oh, yes. We have so much to tell you.”

Dante gives them a look that shuts them up. Satisfied with his dominance, he turns his attention back to the front, where the groom is already standing. Gio looked handsome in a black and white suit. Soon the here-comes-the-bride song started playing and everyone stands up. The bride, being led by a middle-aged man, whom I deduced as her father, looks beautiful in an elegant gown. As she passes us, I can tell from beneath her veil that she looks sad. Or is it angry? Whatever the emotion, it was not happiness. I turn to the groom. He, too, has a look of apprehension.

I lean into Dante and whisper, “Why do they both look like they don’t want to do this?”

“That’s because they don’t.” It’s not Dante who answers, but Nico.

“Why?”

“Marriage of convenience. They have to. We need allies.”

My eyes widen and look back at the couple. A lot of things start to make sense. The abruptness of the wedding. The lack of bridesmaids, the low number of people in attendance, and the general mood, which was far from happy. It isn’t somber; it isn’t jovial either. There’s a tension in the air that I can’t explain, but it’s present.

“Why are you forcing them to get married?” I ask Nico.

He shrugs. “They both agreed to it.” He nods at the father. “He wanted her to marry any one of us. The bride didn’t like the idea at first. She only agreed after Gio said he would take his brother’s place.”

“Who is she?”

“In a few minutes, my sister-in-law.”

I mean what her name is and what she means to the family, but before I can even say anything more, Dante tells us to be quiet. I observe the rest of the ceremony in silence. It goes on without a hitch. I also notice that the priest doesn’t ask the groom to kiss the bride. I lean over to Nico

again, “is that normal in this part of town?”

He smiles. “No.”

Dante glares at us again, and I sit back. The more I learn about this family, the weirder things I discover. For what it’s worth, the newly wedded couple do seem like a fit. There’s something between them, like a connection that they both share, that wouldn’t be apparent if you weren’t paying attention.

After the ceremony is over and the bride and groom leave,

Dante says, “Don’t you ever stay quiet.”

“Our voices were low. I doubt anyone heard us.”

As people begin to leave, he takes my hand and begins making his way out of the pews. “Still, can’t you sit still for longer than two seconds?”

“What’s your issue? I was just asking questions you didn’t want to provide, but Nico was more than ready to.”

“Asking questions, huh? Is that why you were almost kissing his neck?”

“I was not-” I’m about to launch into a defense of my conduct until I realize the meaning behind what he’s saying. “Is there anything wrong with talking to your brothers? Where are we going, anyway?” I notice for the first time that we’re making our way away from the garden and the wedding party.

“You’ll find out. And no, there’s nothing wrong, but it’s the way you were talking to them.”

There it is. “And what way is that?”

“You know what I mean.”

“You can’t be jealous, can you?”

He halts, and I almost bump into him. “I’m not jealous.”

“No?”

“No.”

“So, you don’t mind my becoming Nico’s girlfriend after I pay your debts? That’s what he was asking me.”

His voice sounds strained with anger when he says, “He and Rico like to share. I’m not sure you can handle that.” We are far away from the wedding party now and seemed to have entered some sort of hedge maze that looks so old it might have been built during the Renaissance and has been maintained since then. “Two cocks to please can be difficult, but I can take it.”