To make me the most beautiful bride in every Family's memory, my mother pulled strings a full year in advance and paid a hundred thousand in tribute to secure Ottavia Marchetti, the bridal artist so sought after that even the daughters of the great houses waited seasons for her.

But on the day of the alliance union, the artist still hadn't shown, so my mother made the call herself to chase her down.

Ottavia sounded completely innocent.

"I arrived early. The groom sent a car and took me to his sister's place first. He told me the bride had already agreed to let me do the sister's face before hers."

I called Lorenzo, and he was breezy about the whole thing.

"Oh, that. Girls her age like to look pretty, you know how it is. You're the sister-in-law of the house now, just let it slide. The moment I'm finished with her I'll have a soldier drive the artist straight to you. Five minutes, cara. No trouble at all."

I could hardly believe what I was hearing.

"So on the day two Families bind their blood, behind my back, you took the artist my mother spent a hundred thousand to secure, and sent her to paint your sister's face first?"

His patience thinned.

"It's a joyful day. Do you have to turn everything into a sit-down? There's plenty of time anyway."

I checked my watch. Three hours until the bride was to be brought out before the assembled houses.

I swallowed the irritation and explained to him patiently.

"There isn't plenty of time. Bridal work is slow and delicate, and after that I still have the morning-robe portraits to sit for. It's tight as it is, and my mother and my two closest friends, my attendants, all need their faces done too."

"So what? You can all make do and manage it yourselves."

"Baby, even bare-faced you're the most beautiful woman in any territory to me."

Beep, beep, beep. He hung up.

I gripped the phone, my chest going tight,

and suddenly seven years of love felt like nothing at all. Was there even any point in going through with this union?

——

My two closest friends, who had heard the whole call, exchanged a look.

Francesca Bruno, the fierce one, dropped the ceremony script she'd rehearsed all night and blew up first. She cracked the knuckles of one hand, slow and deliberate.

"What is wrong with this Lorenzo Caruso? Doesn't he know the bride comes before everyone on the day her blood is bound?"

"Handing the artist your mother secured for a hundred thousand to that girl first? Who does she think she is?"

"That doesn't sound like a sister to me. Sounds more like a little something kept on the side."

Bianca, the gentle one, tugged at her sleeve, then quietly moved the untouched glass of water closer to my hand.

"Ease up. Right now what matters is fixing this."

My mother's smile, held in place all morning, faded, but she took my hand and spoke without a moment's hesitation.

"Don't worry, Adriana. I'll call the artist myself and tell her to come now."

"As long as she reaches you in time to do your face, it's fine. We can arrange the rest."

I looked out at the pitch-black sky and gave a numb nod.

But inside I was thinking, no wonder Lorenzo, who had never lifted a finger for any of this, had suddenly asked me yesterday for the artist's contact, and whether a woman favored by the great houses was truly so much better than an ordinary hand.

I'd thought he was asking after every small detail because he cared, and I'd even bragged to him, pleased.

"Of course she's better. She's beyond price, wanted in every territory. Without the right connections you couldn't secure her no matter how much tribute you threw down. Just wait. Tomorrow I'll leave every Family breathless."

What a joke, that this had been his plan all along, to take her from me and set his sister under her hands first.

The line rang a long while before anyone answered,

and then Gemma Rizzo's mother's careless voice came through the receiver, her chin all but audible in the lift of it.

"The artist? She's doing my Gemma's face right now. No time for calls."

My mother pressed down her anger and kept her voice as steady as she could.

"That is the artist I paid tribute to secure especially for my daughter. If she does not come now, it ruins the union. The young ones don't know better, but the elders should be reminding them, shouldn't they?"

"Oh, don't fret, we're practically one house already. Lorenzo and my Gemma have been close since they were small, there's nothing to be done, she absolutely insisted on going first. Says a hand this fine is one most people never get the chance to sit under."

My mother hung up, her face gone cold, and said,

"They have no intention of sending the artist."

My aunt, come to see the bride off, stared wide and swore under her breath.

"What kind of insult is this? I've stood in the back of a hundred alliance unions and I've never once seen a family steal the bride's own artist out from under her. Have they no shame before the Families?"

The clock on the wall of the Vitale estate ticked on, each beat too loud in a room gone tense. Two and a half hours until the Caruso party came to fetch me.

The videographer hovered at the edge of it all, weighing his words the way a man weighs them near people who could end him.

"We really need to get the makeup started, Miss Vitale, or there won't be time for the morning-robe photos."

The photographer spoke up too, careful and quiet, the way men grow quiet in this house.

"Do we keep filming?"

I was so furious I almost laughed. My nails bit into my palm.

"Film. Film me. I'm calling Lorenzo Caruso again right now."

He picked up, and it all came out of me in one breath, hurt and rage.

"Lorenzo, my mother paid a hundred thousand in tribute for Ottavia Marchetti. She called in every favor the Vitale name is owed and reserved that honor a full year ahead."

"This is my alliance union. The most important day of my life. Today, the most beautiful woman standing before both Families has to be me. You know what this union means to me."

"Do you know your precious little Gemma has her locked up, refusing to let her come? Tell them to send her over right now, and the union can still go ahead."

For this day, my mother and I had begun a year and a half in advance. My gown was a custom piece a designer had spent six months making by hand. We'd secured an entire photography team to record it. I'd even gone through ten sets of favors, one by one, until they were right.

Lorenzo soothed, slow and easy. Down the line I could almost hear him rub the back of his neck, that soft laugh already forming.

"Okay, okay, baby, don't get worked up. I'll go tell Gemma to hurry, all right?"

My voice cracked.

"No. I said now. The artist has to come now. Do you understand me? Not one more minute."

Lorenzo let out a sigh.

"Baby, be reasonable. She's almost done over here. I'll be quick, all right?"

Something went slack in me, the helpless feeling of a fist that can't punch through a phone.

I hung up. Tears fell in fat drops onto the back of my hand, and I twisted the diamond on my right hand inward, hard, its edge biting my palm.

Gemma was the adopted daughter who had to be indulged, so Lorenzo always made me give way. At Sunday dinner I had to let her be served first. When the cars pulled out, she rode first. And now, at the one union I would ever have, I was supposed to surrender the artist too.

Seven years bound to him, a man I had chosen for myself, and on the most important day of my life, before my closest friends and every made man of my father's house, he was tearing the dignity off my face and grinding it into the floor.

I finally broke and sobbed into Bianca's shoulder. Without a word she reached over and pressed a fresh cup of coffee into my hands.

Francesca and Bianca started crying too, but they held me and comforted me, telling me a bride mustn't cry on the day her Family's honor is on display.

My father, Don Vitale, who had stayed up all night without sleep, heard me and set down the double-happiness cutout he'd been pasting to the door. The whole room seemed to still as he moved.

He came in and calmed me himself.

"Don't cry, tesoro. Your father is here. No one bullies a daughter of mine."

Just then my mother's phone rang.

Ottavia Marchetti's voice came through, a little bewildered.

"So, the thing is, I've finished the girl's face, but they won't let me leave."

"They say since I'm already here, I should do the mother of the house too."

"You're the one who reserved me, signora. The honor you secured covers only one matron's look. Do you want me on hers?"

"No." My mother said it before she'd even thought.

"Ottavia, please. Come to the address I gave you for the Vitale house, and hurry. You owe no work to anyone outside this Family."

"Understood." Ottavia gave the short reply, but she didn't hang up. She left the line open.

There was a stir on the other end, and Gemma's soft voice came through. I could picture the hand pressed flat to her chest, the tears arriving a half-second too soon.

"Lorenzo, I'm fine, really. Ottavia can go do Adriana's first."

"But your mother watched me grow up, and she cares so much about this union. She only wanted her face done so she'd look worthy standing before both Families."

She must have been on the line with Lorenzo.

Before I could say a single word, the artist's line went dead.

The word that the bridal artist was on her way lifted the whole room.

My mother smoothed the creases in her deep red gown, drew herself up with the poise of a Don's wife, and began reworking the arrangements.

"Adriana waits for Ottavia. Francesca, Bianca, bear with me a little. I'll have two others brought in right now to see to the rest of us."

Francesca stepped in at once.

"Don't trouble yourself, Valentina. We're easy. It's Adriana's day. We'll keep it looking the way it should."

Bianca gave my shoulder a quiet, comforting squeeze.

My father said nothing. He only closed his fists and looked at me with such pain that the tears started spilling down my face again.

He'd named me Adriana, held me like something precious for twenty-seven years, and never once let me so much as bend to pick up a fallen glass.

When the old capos teased him, a man of the Vitale name giving his only daughter such a soft, unguarded name in a world that ran on fear, he only smiled.

"What do any of you know. I want every man at every table to hear the name and understand at once: my daughter is my most treasured girl, my little principessa."

But the little principessa he'd cherished for twenty-seven years, who had never once been wronged, was wronged to the fullest on her alliance day, at the hands of the man who was meant to become her husband.

And for the sake of his daughter's honor before the Families, he could not tear it all down in this moment and make the disgrace worse. He could only grind his jaw and hold his silence.

The clock on the mantel ticked on, each stroke loud in a room that had learned to hold its breath. Another dozen-odd minutes slid past, and the black night began to pale at its edges.

My mother pulled every string in the territory and rushed in two artists to begin on the others.

The frozen air in the room finally began to loosen.

Lorenzo called again.

One of the older women there to see the bride off teased,

"Answer it, quick. He's calling to make amends. Maybe Ottavia's near."

"You two, be sweet with each other. It's a joyful day. Settle it kindly."

I twisted my mouth, and yet I still picked up with a flicker of hope.

"Tesoro, don't be angry, just hear me out. There's truly no way Ottavia can reach you in time now, so why not let her do Gemma's mother while she's close by? It lends our union a little class too."

"I've already reached out to another artist near your place to head over. That's faster. Let's not hold up the union."

It was a bucket of cold water straight over my head. My ears rang, and I nearly missed what he'd said.

The talk in the room cut off in an instant. Every hand stopped mid-motion. Even the soldier at the door went still.

Francesca and Bianca stepped in at once, one on each side, steadying my back.

My voice came out hoarse.

"Lorenzo, do you even want to marry me?"

He pressed his impatience down.

"Tesoro, of course I do. It's only an artist, anyone can do the work. Be reasonable. I only want this settled fast."

I raised my voice.

"Even now, you still think this is about an artist?"

"This is my honor! They're grinding me into the dirt! My own union, the artist my family secured a full year ahead at our own tribute, and instead of touching the bride she's sent by you to some nobody adopted daughter and that adopted daughter's mother! Who exactly are you marrying?"

"Seven years together. Everything you asked me to give up, I gave up. But my own union. Do you want me to hand that over to someone else too?"

Hearing me scream it out like something torn from my chest,

for a moment Lorenzo wavered.

Then he remembered what his mother had put in his ear.

"A marriage is the east wind bearing down on the west or the west bearing down on the east! The Vitale name is old and rich. If you don't get a grip on her early, you're the one who'll bleed for it down the line!"

He hardened his heart.

"There's less than two hours until the bride is called for! You don't want our union turning into a joke before every Family, do you?"

"Stop making a scene. Just make do and get yourself ready. Once the union's done, whatever you want in repayment, I'll agree to it!"