Satin Sinner - A Mafia Romance

JESSA

It's my wedding day, and my fiancé is nowhere to be found.

"Jessa, sit down. We're gonna find him, okay?"

My mom is trying to guide me towards a chair in the corner of the room. I can't move, though. My muscles are stiff and unresponsive. My brain is a whirling hurricane of thoughts that don't make sense.

"I can't sit down," I whisper.

"We'll find him, honey," my mom says. "He's probably just... I bet he's getting some air. We'll find him. Sit down."

I shove her hands away and gesture at the white wedding dress I'm wearing. "I can't sit down, Mom. This dress is already about to bust at the seams if I take too big an inhale. It needs to be intact for the pictures."

The pictures that my fiancé, Dane, is over twenty minutes late for.

"Where is he?" I snap. "He was here earlier."

I turn and find myself staring at the photographer. She's looking at me with the kind of expression that people reserve for sick puppies.

"He'll be here soon," I tell her. "He's never been good with time. I'll just... I'll just go find him now."

I brush past everyone and stride out of my dressing room. My mother doesn't stop me. In fact, I can feel her relief as I walk away, even as she starts assigning various caterers and family friends to go check different corners of the venue.

But I know no one else will find Dane.

I know this because I'm going to find Dane.

And then I'm going to kill him.

My fiancé has never been the most serious man, but I always told myself that that is part of his charm. He is easygoing. He doesn't sweat the small stuff. Sometimes, he doesn't even sweat the big stuff.

But I never doubted that he would show up for me when it counted.

On our wedding day, for God's sake.

The yacht club is large enough and the dress restrictive enough that it takes me a full ten minutes to get to the second floor. From every window, the vastness of the ocean stares back at me.

Dane and I are supposed to be sailing out on that very ocean less than two hours from now, officially man and wife.

It's still going to happen, snaps a haughty voice in my head. Everything will go the way you've always dreamed it will.

Maybe it will, another, grimmer voice answers. Or maybe not.

I try door after door. Most of the rooms are empty. In one, I come across a cluster of older club members sipping whiskey and smoking cigars. They all give the panicked bride at their door a strange look.

I avoid their eyes and keep searching.

I reach the third and final floor of the pretentious club that Dane insisted we get married in. That's when I hear a laugh that makes me stop in my tracks.

Because I know that laugh.

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