Dante respected the fuck out of that.
He couldn’t enjoy the revelation, though. Not when she immediately turned around and put Romeo Capparelli’s engagement ring on her finger. The second she signed the contract and kissed him in a church full of their people, she was beyond Dante’s reach.
Yeah, no, that wasn’t going to happen. She was the first romantic partner to surprise him, to challenge him, and he wasn’t ready to let her go, engagement to another man or no.
He picked up his phone and typed out a text.
Get the jet ready. I’ll be coming in hot.
Dante studied the church. He didn’t get why they’d decided to hold the wedding outside of the city, but he had to admit the little building on the hill in the country looked like something out of a picture. It didn’t make sense. This was the kind of place the girl Rose had been pretending to be would want to get married in. Not the furious woman who looked him in the face when she pulled the trigger.
In the three months since she shot him, his girl had been busy wedding planning. Dante didn’t have much experience with weddings beyond showing up for the party, but it seemed like it should have taken longer. From his vantage point, he counted a dozen enforcers around the perimeter of the church, all obvious in their ill-fitting suits and tense stances. Three families of importance would be here today. Four, technically, though it had been a long time since people talked about the Sheridans in Boston without attaching the O’Malleys to their name.
There were so fucking many of them. Rose had six O’Malley aunts and uncles, and most of them had wed and bred. The Capparellis were just as bad, and the Romanovs even worse.
Ivan from Texas was here, still big and healthy-looking despite the fact he had to be in his seventies. Kirill was here with his family, too, so Dante didn’t know what his uncle had been bitching about. Even Sasha from Seattle had shown up, and he never left his territory.
Dante’s hand hovered over the gun holstered at his hip. It was a long shot, but he’d made longer. Removing Kirill Romanov would be satisfying in the extreme. Dante didn’t have the same fervor for family the way most people in this life did, but even he would sleep better with that man six feet under. Kirill was smart and brutal, and Lorenzo was rapidly losing ground to him. The old man just wasn’t good enough. That would change when Matteo took over, but if Dante could take care of the problem for his cousin…
No.
The time wasn’t right.
He had other priorities today.
Dante dropped down from the branch he’d perched on and cut through the copse of trees to the north. There weren’t enough to qualify this as a forest, but it was more than enough to provide cover. The security guards were sticking close to the buildings themselves, especially as night fell.
From the information he’d gathered, Rose would be getting ready in the little cottage-looking thing next to the church. It was like something out of another life with its charming white wooden walls and stained-glass windows. There was even a gravel drive that circled it, the easier to make a quick getaway. The whole thing was a security risk, but apparently tradition superseded security for this event. Good. He typed out a quick text to his man waiting in the car.
Be ready.
Dante switched his phone over to the surveillance device he’d planted in the bridal suite last night. It had taken some time to dodge security, but ultimately he’d done it inside an hour. Pathetic. If he’d wanted to hide in a fucking closet at that point, he could have massacred the entire bridal party this morning in one fell swoop.
Really, he expected better of both Romanov and Capparelli.
His phone gave static for a moment, but it cleared almost immediately into a flurry of women’s voices. He knew the names, knew the faces, but he had only met Rose, so could only guess at the identities of the other speakers.
“Are you sure?” The speaker had a dry tone that was just as empty as Dante’s normally. “It’s not too late for me to put a bullet between Romeo’s eyes.”
“No. I’m going through with it.” There she was. Rose. He smiled a little at how irritated she sounded. “Besides, it would make more sense to kill him after the wedding and make me a widow.”
“Except it wouldn’t make sense at all.” This one sounded sweet and innocent. A feat for a mafia princess. “Mama and Papa negotiated a decent prenup, but if one of you dies mysteriously—or violently—then the consequences are hefty.”
“Thank you, Sasha. I most definitely wouldn’t have realized that on my own.”
They devolved into squabbling, and he turned down the volume and rounded the corner. The twilight gave the area an expectant edge, or maybe that was just his anticipation coloring everything. It was almost time.
“I need a minute.”
He clued back into the conversation with interest. Rose sounded frazzled as fuck. Good. She cursed when her sisters tried to question her. “Just a fucking minute, okay. Just…I’ll be out when it’s time to walk down the aisle. I just need to get my head on straight.”
Dante grinned. Damn, she really was making this easy on him, wasn’t she? He slid behind a tree with direct view of the door in time to see a cluster of women leave. There was Anya, the likeliest owner of the cold voice, and Sasha and Lorelei, women who could have been twins, with their plump bodies and sweet faces. Next came Keira Romanov. He’d seen pictures of her when she was younger, and she used to look nearly identical to Rose with her petite frame, dark hair, and hazel eyes. Time had softened her, thickening her waistline, and smudging her sharp jawline. She was still a beauty, though.
Last came one of Rose’s aunts on her mother’s side, Carrigan O’Malley. She had to be sixty, but she still strode like she was walking on a runway. This was a woman who owned every space she strode into. A woman who was dangerous. She turned a sharp gaze on the trees, and he moved back into the shadows, holding his breath until she turned and headed for the church.
Keira motioned to the enforcer near the corner of the building. “Escort her to the church when she’s ready.” She looped her arm through her sister’s, and they disappeared into the growing darkness.
Dante waited thirty long seconds before he moved. He tossed a rock in the opposite direction. Predictably, the enforcer turned toward the sound. It was the last thing he did. Dante rushed up behind him, pressed his gun to the man’s back, and pulled the trigger twice. The silencer did its work, and the man barely got a gurgle out before he collapsed. Dante eased the body to the ground, took a moment to straighten his cuffs, and typed out a quick text to his driver.
Now.
It was time to go get his girl.
He didn’t bother to knock. He just opened the door and stepped into the suite. It was a fucking mess. Makeup and clothes were scattered across every available surface. It looked like a bomb of girly shit had gone off. And in the middle of the chaos stood Rose herself.
“I said I need—” She looked up and met his gaze in the full-length mirror in front of her. She was wearing the same dress she’d tried on three times at the fancy little shop, the one that hugged her curves and looked like someone had spilled diamonds over her body. Her dark hair was styled up, leaving her long neck exposed. She even had a fucking veil pinned.