"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!"

At some point, both my parents had come to stand beside me.

My mother had spent decades running the true business of the Vitale house, decisive and hard-edged, the kind of woman who never let her temper reach her face. But even a saint has a breaking point, and hers had been ground down to it. She said nothing, only took my hand and patted it, quiet reassurance.

The veins stood out at my father's temple. He took the phone from my hand, his eyes rimmed red, and spoke with terrible calm. In this world a Don who raised his voice had already lost, and Lucian Vitale had never once needed to raise his.

"Lorenzo. Adriana is my only daughter. No one gets to treat her like this in front of me."

"You and Adriana were bound to each other seven years before this union was ever spoken of. We wanted this day to go smoothly, all of us, both Families. You see it differently than we do, and we don't hold that against you. I only want one thing from you. Send the bridal artist over now. Show me you actually mean to honor my daughter."

There was a long hesitation on the other end.

"Don Vitale! Let's think of the big picture first. Help me talk Adriana into letting the substitute do her face, and I'll head over for the pickup right away. The made men and the soldiers are all here. Don't let outside Families have a laugh at us."

"After the union, hit me, curse me, I'll come and kiss the ring and beg forgiveness, whatever you want!"

"Don't call me that."

My father hung up, the disappointment plain on his face. He set his cigar down in the ashtray and did not pick it up again.

I took my phone back, lowered my head, and opened the planning group where every honor of this union had been arranged.

"Cancel the morning photographs. Cancel the bride pickup on my end too."

The lead planner replied almost at once.

"And the rest of the day? Should we keep it moving as normal?"

I thought for a moment, then typed.

"Keep filming. We'll settle the rest later."

I lifted my head.

"Papà. Mamma. I don't want to just let it go."

My parents exchanged a glance.

My father stepped forward and gently wiped away my tears. He spoke first.

"Don't be afraid, Adriana."

I'd heard those words for twenty-seven years. With him there, I truly had nothing to fear.

"Your father is going to go call over all a dozen of the Family's men right now."

I'm an only daughter, but my father has brothers. After those brothers had produced a good ten sons between them, I arrived as the only girl in the whole Vitale bloodline. The most doted on. The one the soldiers straightened their backs for.

My mother pulled me into a light hug.

"Whatever you decide to do next, I'm behind you."

Then she called over the artist we'd secured on short notice, a lesser honor bought in an hour when the greater one had been stolen.

"Would you do my daughter's face first? Not a bridal look. Just something that makes her look fresh and put-together."

She turned away and called Ottavia Marchetti, the artist the Vitales had reserved a full year in advance at no small tribute.

"It's all right that you can't come. But you'll touch no one else's face, not one person who isn't ours."

"We'll pay you all the same."

Francesca cursed the cheating dog under her breath, cracking her knuckles one hand at a time, though for once she said nothing more. Bianca rubbed my back, aching for me, and quietly refilled the water glass at my elbow.

The made woman who had been overseeing the bride's send-off, who had watched the whole thing, was seething too.

"I'll go explain to our side of the Family. No one gets away with disrespecting a Vitale like this."

The videographer flashed me an okay, letting me know he'd caught all of it. Every word laid bare for the sit-down that was coming.

Lorenzo called again. I rejected every one.

I peeled off the traditional gown and changed into the white dress I always wear.

I sat down in front of the mirror.

Reading Lorenzo's messages, I let out a scornful laugh.

"Baby, another hour and a half and I can come get you. Be good."

The artist's hands moved over my face, dabbing and blending.

Maybe it was because things had already fallen so far. The anxiety that had gripped me from the moment I learned Ottavia Marchetti had been "handed over" to someone else, strangely, settled into calm. Under the table, I stopped twisting the diamond inward against my palm and set my hand flat on my knee.

The seven years with Lorenzo played through my mind like a film.

We came up together. His Family and mine ran in the same circles, bound by respect and the long peace between us.

He fell for me at first sight and came on strong.

Lorenzo was tall and handsome, easygoing, and he had that heir-apparent glow, a year ahead of me in every room we entered. Falling for him felt like the natural order of things.

We courted, we ran together, we were seen together at every table that mattered, four sweet years.

Until it was time to take our place in the territory. We came back to the old streets to build our standing, and his adopted sister began to appear in ours more and more.