The Spare

My sister has run away from her arranged marriage, and my mother is fastening me into her wedding dress before the don finds out.

Roman Ashford is waiting at the waterfront chapel. I know because his driver has called twice, and each time my mother says the bride needs another minute.

The dress fits everywhere except the chest. There, it bags in two empty folds that my mother attacks with pins.

“Stand still, Lucia.”

“Tell him.”

“And have him walk away before the loan comes due Monday?”

The pin catches my skin. I flinch. She doesn't.

Downstairs, someone laughs. The house is full of people who have come to see Valeria marry the man whose trucks have been blocking our repair yard for six months. Wedding first. Joint venture signing at the reception. A civil ceremony at City Hall tomorrow, because this afternoon's family vows aren't enough for the state.

Apparently, they aren't enough for my sister either.

On the dressing table, beneath her abandoned earrings, is a photograph from the summer Dad bought our first proper crane. Valeria is holding a ribbon. I'm underneath the machine, pointing out a leak to Bea. My mother keeps a copy in the hall, cropped so you can't see the oil on the ground.

I reach for the little frame. She moves it out of my way.

Her note is inside my shoe. I took it before my mother could tear it up.

I can't do this. Please don't tell them where I went.

She hasn't told me where. For once, my sister has given me a secret I cannot be made to surrender.

“I don't own her shares,” I say. “I can't sign her agreement.”

“You can get us through today.”

That is what my mother calls my job in this family. Through a storm. Through an inspection. Through the month we couldn't pay the welders until I collected three overdue invoices from men who thought a woman with a clipboard could wait.

Get us through today, Lucia. Then go back to the little office beside the parts cage.

My mother pulls the veil across my face.

“You resemble each other. He saw her once, across a dinner table. Just keep your head down.”

Roman's people negotiated with my uncle. Valeria was summoned for dessert, displayed for fifteen minutes, and excused. I remember because I spent that evening outside, helping Bea Ortiz unload a late delivery in the rain.

My mother presses both hands against my shoulders.

“If he thinks she is missing, Enzo will find her before you do.”

There it is. Not the loan. Not our employees.

My uncle has already broken Valeria's phone once, after finding messages from a man who wasn't approved. I saw the pieces on her bedroom floor. I also saw the way she stopped putting her phone down in front of him.

“What happens after today?” I ask.

“We explain. Quietly.”

My mother kisses my forehead, careful of the powder.

I have never believed her less.

*

The chapel belongs to the Ashfords, although I doubt the saints were consulted about the acquisition.

I walk past forty relatives and business associates on my uncle's arm. Enzo's thumb presses into the soft place above my elbow. At the front, Roman turns.

He is thirty-four, broad through the shoulders, with a white line interrupting one eyebrow. My mother described him as handsome when she wanted Valeria to cooperate and dangerous when she didn't. Both descriptions seem lazy now.

He looks tired. He also looks directly at me.

“Late boat?” he murmurs when Enzo hands me over.

It is the sort of joke I might have liked on a different afternoon.

“Something like that.”

His eyes narrow. Behind the veil, I can't tell how much of me he can see.

Roman's great-uncle conducts the family ceremony. He talks about loyalty, continuity, and two families becoming stronger. Nobody mentions the trucks across our gate or the loan due Monday at noon.

My uncle stands close enough that his shoe touches my train.

When I am asked whether I will stand beside Roman Ashford, I look at the side door. Enzo follows my eyes.

For twenty-six years, I have watched people calculate what they can make me do by threatening someone else.

Today, knowing that does not make me brave.

“Yes,” I say.

Roman's hand closes around mine. Warm. Steady. A stranger's hand.

He speaks his promise without looking away.

Then he lifts the veil.

For one second his face is completely still.

“You're not Valeria.”

He says it softly enough that only I hear. Behind him, his great-uncle announces a blessing. The room begins to applaud.

“No.” My mouth barely moves. “Please wait until we're alone.”

Roman glances past me at Enzo. Then he takes my arm away from my uncle's reach and guides me down the aisle.

The guests rise. Somebody throws white petals. A photographer calls for a kiss.

Roman ignores him.

*

The reception is in the old customs house across the courtyard. Roman takes me through a side entrance into a room containing a desk, a coat stand, and one green banker’s lamp.

A man with a shaved head follows us.

“Outside, Tomas.”

“The Grecos?”

“Especially them.”

The door closes. Roman releases my arm.

“Your name.”

“Lucia Greco.”

“Her sister.”

“Yes.”

He looks down at the ring his great-uncle gave him to put on my finger. It is too loose. I've been holding my fingers curled to keep it from slipping.

“Where is she?”

“I don't know.”

He watches me long enough that I hear the reception band find its first note through the wall.

“You understand how this looks.”

“Yes.”

“Then improve it.”

I pull the note from my shoe and lay it on the desk. The paper is warm and damp at one corner. He reads it without touching it.

“Did you help her leave?”

“No. If I had, I'd have packed her better shoes.”

His gaze lifts.

“She's wearing the silver heels she keeps by the door. She can't walk half a mile in them.” My voice catches on that small, stupid fact. “I don't know where she is.”

Someone tries the handle. Tomas says something outside. The handle stops moving.

Roman takes off his ceremonial jacket and hangs it on the coat stand with an exactness that makes me more nervous than shouting would.

“Were you planning to sign her name?”

“No.”

“What was the plan, Lucia?”

Hearing my own name from him is worse than being called the bride.

“Get us through today.”

He exhales through his nose.

“There is a civil license in her name. A joint venture she has to approve. A repayment deadline your uncle has known about for eight weeks. You can't substitute for any of those.”

“I told my mother.”

“And still you came.”

I straighten. “My uncle threatened to find my sister.”

“So you gave him someone else to hand over.”

The words hit because they are accurate. I want him crueler. Easier to hate.

“I made a bad choice. You can be angry without pretending I invented the men who made it seem necessary.”

His jaw shifts. For the first time, he looks away first.

From the ballroom comes a cheer. The guests are drinking to a marriage neither of us intended to make.

“I won't sign anything as Valeria,” I say. “I won't tell you where she is if she calls. And I won't go back to that house with Enzo tonight.”

Roman reaches for the desk phone. I step toward the door before I can stop myself.

He sees.

He puts the receiver down.

“What do you think I'm going to do?”