Page 4 of Lorenzo

Dante settles into the leather chair across from me. “We dispose of the body quietly and let the Petrovs wonder what happened to their man. Reacting loudly now fucks up the chess game in my head. I need them blind, not agitated.”

I lean back, the leather creaking under my weight. Sometimes my brother’s Godfather Part 1 restraint feels like a slow chokehold. I prefer an immediate strike, but Dante sees the whole board.

“Now on to a more pleasant topic,” he says, pulling out his phone and sliding it across the polished desk. The screen illuminates the dark wood.

“Take a gander.”

The girl in the photo is young. Her pale skin’s enlivened by a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose.

“What the hell is this, Dante? A candid photo of some NYU social studies major?”

I take a closer look.

In the photo, the girl’s prim, white blouse is buttoned so taut against her throat it threatens to strangle her.

Her pink lips are pressed together in a hard, uncompromising line.

Oddly, her thickly-lashed eyes seem to catch my own. As if she’s irritated that she can somehow see me looking at her …

…and hates that she can’t do anything about it.

Yet even in the photo, her hair captures my interest.

It’s that hard-to-name color some call auburn, and others describe as brick red.

The way it’s caught in a high ponytail, combined with the challenge in her jade green eyes intrigues me.

“Who the fuck is this?”

“Your bride.”

Dante had briefly mentioned the need for a temporary wife to solve our political gridlock.

I hadn’t given this temporary wife any thought, knowing it would be a transitory arrangement of just a few weeks.

But now the girl has a face and form.

And not one I welcome.

“Like hell. I’m not marrying that.” I gesture to the phone. “She looks like she’s collecting donations for injured pigeons.”

“Too late. It’s wrapped and the wedding is this Friday.”

“I agreed in a general way, Dante. Not a getting-married-on-Friday kind of way. And did you see that sardonic twist on her lips? If anyone’s going to wear a smirk in my family, it’s me. And look at her grooming, her hair, her clothes. It’s like she’s in training to be a nun.”

“Emily’s uncle sits on the State Liquor Authority,” Dante says, his voice flat and unyielding.

“He is the swing vote we need to keep Inferno legal and clear the Petrov block.”

I’m about to speak, but he cuts me off.

“You’re the price of his cooperation, Lorenzo. With you married to his niece, he can recuse himself from the vote based on a family conflict. It gives him a legal shield to step off the board. The Russians can’t force his hand if the city’s own ethics rules bar him from casting a ballot.”

Rage flares hot in my throat, but I shut my mouth.

Dante knows how I feel about my independence, but family always comes before personal comfort.

“Don’t worry, Lorenzo. As soon as the liquor authority renews our license, the marriage can end.”