Black Wedding by Emma Luna
The morning of the wedding passes by in a blur. I’m surrounded by my brothers and Kellan, and surprisingly we all get on really well, just like we used to do when we were kids. Even Evan loosens up a bit and seems to have a good time. I was shocked he agreed to be a groomsman when I asked him. I wasn’t exactly planning on it, but the more I thought about who I wanted by my side when I got married, it just seemed so obvious to have my brothers here.
We deliberately didn’t invite my father to get ready with us, not needing that kind of stress. Kellan said when he took Hallie for a walk around the castle grounds this morning to try and calm her down, he was sure he saw Bree’s car. That made me chuckle. I knew my little control freak wouldn’t be able to hand over the reins completely. I had seen her mother flying around shouting orders before she fled again, no doubt to help Bree get ready.
My mind wanders as I think about the type of dress she will have chosen. Before she started giving me hints, I would have thought I could guess what she would pick, but after hearing the clues, I have no idea. She was using words like tulle, sweetheart neck, A-line, and she lost me. I could just about keep up with words like sexy, lace, and ballgown, but they all didn’t exactly mesh together. Kellan thinks she has two dresses. I can’t wait to see her.
We get to the Lantern Room early, as I was instructed, and see that the room is all set up for us. We are only having a few close family members or allies that will get pissed if we don’t invite them. There are a couple of people milling about, looking a little bit lost because they have come too early.
“Should we see them to their seats?” Finn asks, and I nod in confirmation. As he walks off, Evan follows after him.
Kellan is holding Hallie, and I can’t help but admire how fucking beautiful she looks. She has started to grow a little bit of blonde hair now, and we have managed to tie bits of it up into two cute little pigtails with little bows. When Kellan started getting her dressed in the outfit Bree picked, it sounded like she was being murdered. She is just slightly over six months old now, and you can see the little character she is becoming.
Not only can she sit up on her own, but she is also starting to try pushing her body up with her hands. It looks like she is doing a press-up almost as she works out how to crawl. I don’t think it will be long. In the meantime, she has discovered a very effective technique for getting around. She basically barrel rolls everywhere. She goes from lying on her back to her front and back again. Over and over until she reaches her destination or vomits from dizziness.
So trying to get her to sit still long enough to get this dress on is a nightmare, and I can hear Kellan getting more stressed. Luckily, Bree has bought a couple of outfits because there is no way this will stay clean. Hallie has started eating proper food now. Well...when I say proper food, I mean anything mashed up, or that shit they put in a pot and stick a baby food label on it. But some of those rice pudding or banana ones she absolutely loves. Although last week Bree made her some mash with mashed up carrots and suede. She vomited that back up very quickly, and I don’t blame her. I would have done too. But when I feed her mash covered in melted cheese, she loves it. I may have to listen to a ten-minute lecture from Kellan and Bree about helping kids be healthy, but I just rolled my eyes. It’s no wonder I am her favourite.
It’s so strange. As I look at Hallie cuddled up to her dad, wearing the most adorable ivory gown with a deep purple sash wrapped around her, she makes me think about the future. What will Bree and my child look like? Will we have children? My brain is whirling with all these possibilities, and my mind is reeling. I do want all those things with Bree. I want to raise a family with her and give her everything she has ever wanted. I guess our future really does start now.
The chairs fill up fast, and it’s not long before the car arrives with the bridesmaids in it. That is my queue to get into the room and wait for my bride. I take a moment to look over my sisters and Mia. They all look stunning. Bree didn’t want to go with a traditional colour, but she also didn’t want it to be completely black. This shade of purple is about one away, and it looks stunning. The black and white calla lily bouquets that they are given really finish the look.
Kellan, looking somewhat reluctant, walks over to Mia. He mutters something that I am guessing is an apology, but she does not look like she is having any of it.
“Look, I have said I am sorry. I don’t know what more to do if you chose not to accept my apology. I just need to know that for the next five minutes while I am behind these closed doors, that I can trust you with the most important thing in my life,” Kellan states whilst looking down at Hallie. She looks as though she is listening and taking in every word.
“You can trust me,” Mia mutters, and I nod my head to tell him to give her a chance.
“We better get inside,” I say quickly as Kellan hands Hallie over to Mia. Surprisingly, she goes without complaint and looks quite happy, instantly grabbing hold of some of Mia’s black hair. I would say hair pulling is a new thing, but she has been doing it practically since birth. She just didn’t always get many chances since Kellan and I were the main people to look after her, and our hair isn’t easy to pull. There are some angles where she can get me, but usually, it’s Bree who has to live with that.
We walk in, closing the door behind us, and I feel my nerves start to grow, and I don’t know why. My heart is racing, my palms are sweating, but at the same time, I am slightly excited. I know I will be more terrified later, having to essentially perform in front of other people, as it’s not my favourite thing to do. I am an assassin for a reason, so I don’t have to work in a sociable job. Plus, the pay is excellent, but that is beside the point. I shouldn’t be getting nervous. This ceremony is just for us, to tell each other how we feel in our own way. Not a performance or a spectacle, just us. But still, something doesn’t feel right.
The longer I stand there waiting, the larger the nerves grow. Kellan and my brothers have both got bored of standing up and have sat on their allocated chairs and are giving me various pep talks to help me calm down. Christ, even my mother is telling me about how she was ten minutes late to marry my father, while he chips in that she shouldn’t have bothered turning up at all.
I try to tune everyone out and think of good scenarios for why she might be late. She might be having lots of photos taken. She might even be stuck in traffic. As I look around, it occurs to me that her parents haven’t arrived here yet either. So that gives weight to the traffic argument.
Even though that seems like the most logical explanation, I can’t help but be overwhelmed by that impending fear of doom that you get at the height of anxiousness. My stomach feels like it’s going to drop from under me, and my heart literally can’t race any quicker. I don’t know how I know, but I just know something terrible is going on here.
“Try ringing Bree, please,” I mutter to Kellan. He tries to argue that there is no need, that she might not answer if she is on her way. Most brides don’t tend to carry their mobile phones. But he knows not to argue with me when I glare at him.
It rings and rings, and nobody answers. He tries the numbers for Vernon and Jimmy’s burner phones he found when scanning their electronic footprint when they came into our house. We didn’t tell Bree about what we were doing because she doesn’t want to suspect her own family, but we do.
I don’t know how, but I know Bree is in danger. Something terrible is happening, and her family are suspiciously the only people missing. However, her grandfather is sitting at the front, looking equally concerned. He, too, is using his phone to try and get through to people, and when he doesn’t, he seems more angry than concerned.
“What’s going on, Paddy? Where is Bree?” I whisper aggressively, wanting him to know how pissed I am, but not wanting the whole room to worry.
I can hear them talking. They think she has left me, decided not to marry me, but they are wrong. She would never do that. Not just because of how important it is to her to become the Family leader, but because of us. She wanted to marry me for real. We spent the last twenty-five days talking about our life together. We went through so much shit to get here. First, listening to her mother and the wedding disasters she just had to avert, and my father insisting we marry in a church. Then dealing with all the seating disasters of who hates who and can’t sit next to one another. We had to deal with all of that on top of investigating and interrogating people about the threats surrounding us. Still, every night when we went to bed, we cuddled up to each other and went to our happy place.
We talked about what rooms would be nurseries and what Hallie would think of our kid. We talked about wanting to get a dog. She told me she wants to have a little pug and to call him Reggie. I told her I always imagined having a little King Charles spaniel named Corky. She laughed. We joked that Reggie would probably need a girlfriend, and we would have to call her Regina because it works so well. As I reminisce about the time we spent together plotting our lives, I feel a pang of sadness. I make a vow right now to make sure when we get this shit hole of a mess sorted, that I will buy her Reggie, Regina, and Corky. She can have them all. Fuck, even if she decides she wants a deaf, mute dog called Peg, she can have whatever she wants.
Picking up the phone, I try ringing her again, and this time the phone is answered. I pull Paddy and Kellan over to the side, and my brothers follow. I put the phone on speaker so they can hear, but nobody else can. I have said hello a couple of times, but no reply. Then, just as someone starts to speak, my father wanders over loudly, asking what’s going on. I shush him, only to get an evil glare back in response. Evan fills him in quickly, and shockingly my father looks murderously angry. At least I can rule him and any of his associates out of this.
“We have your fiancée. Sadly, she won’t be making it to the wedding today, but I will give you the chance to see her again. I want the rights to the London franchise signed over to me, legally,” the distorted voice says. It’s the same robotic voice used to call me in the car. Given my father is standing next to me looking fucking furious, I think I may have been wrong in assuming it was him.
“I want to hear my granddaughter’s voice now!” shouts Paddy down the phone with more venom than we were expecting. If anyone doubted his love for Bree, he just proved it. And looking at the faces of the men surrounding me, I can tell that each one of them, even my father and Evan most surprisingly, seem to be willing to go to war for her.
“Liam...Liam, is-is that you?” Bree cries through the phone, and my heart breaks. She sounds so lost and broken. If they have harmed one hair on her head, I will cut their dicks off personally and feed it to them before I kill them. I am generally not the vindictive one and leave that shit to Desmond. But there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for Bree.
“I’m here, Princess. Are you okay? Have they hurt you?” I ask quickly, only to hear her screams crackle down the phone.
Crack! The sound of skin on skin, like a slap, vibrates through the phone. Followed quickly by Bree’s screams and another voice in the distance. “Fucking, bitch. Bite me again, and I will knock all those pretty teeth out. It will be easier for you to choke on my cock then!” he shouts, and instantly we all become tense.
These guys are not fooling around. They are not just threatening my girl with pain; they are threatening rape. I am sure as fuck not going to stand by and let that happen. I hear the sentence replaying over and over in my head like my brain is trying to tell me something. I don’t want to listen to the words anymore. That’s when it occurs to me; it’s not about the words. We just heard a voice in the background, it wasn’t distorted by a filter.Most voice distorters only work if you press the button to activate it, he must have taken his finger off. I’m sure the voice is one I have heard before, but I can’t place it with all the stress and anxiety going through me right now. I want to talk, to tell him that I will hunt him down and make him eat his own dick, but I just can’t find the words. Luckily, Paddy doesn’t have that problem.
“Who am I legally transferring the rights over to? I won’t be able to do it without the signature of my son, Vernon. Do you have him, too?” he asks calmly. At first, I wonder what the hell he is doing, but when I stop my brain from acting irrationally, I realise he is gathering information.
“Get the paperwork, and I will sign it. Transfer to Vincent Leonardo Marcushio. Do you need me to spell that?” he asks boldly, and I look over at Kellan in confusion. Why would Vinnie use a voice modifier to hide who he is, then offer to literally spell out his name. This makes no sense at all.
“You didn’t answer me about Vernon,” Paddy pushes, and there is silence on the other end of the phone like it has been muted. Whoever is talking is reading from a script practically, and that was a question they never saw coming.
“Yes...we have Mr O’Keenan. We will arrange a time to meet, and you will transfer it over to me. Get the paperwork ready. We will meet in one hour,” the automated voice demands.
“That’s not enough time. My lawyer is in Cork. I need to call him, get the stuff faxed over. An hour is unrealistic,” Paddy stresses, the fear starting to creep in as his voice cracks at the end.
“That’s bullshit. I have done my research, and I know your lawyer is in London. Twister and Lawson’s, if I am not mistaken. So, you better make it work because, for every deadline you miss, I will take it out on your granddaughter,” he says, and I can’t help but pull on my hair in frustration. What the fuck are we going to do? Why is Paddy smiling?
“Okay, I will have the paperwork done, but I will want proof that Bree is unharmed before I do anything,” Paddy states, but the electronic voice just laughs.
“You don’t get to make the rules, old man, I do. Your time has passed. Now, it’s my time,” he states most bizarrely. It’s almost like he has been trying to be in power for years, but Vinnie is a hormonal seventeen-year-old who is running on revenge fumes. This just doesn’t sound like him.
As the phone hangs up, I must voice that thought out loud because everyone is staring at me like I might be going crazy. He did confess with his name, but I don’t believe it. Neither does Paddy. “You are right. This is not Marcushio. They may be being used as scapegoats. They maybe even think they are in charge, but they have no idea they are being played. I think I know who has Bree, and if any of them hurts one hair on her head, I will kill them all,” Paddy states passionately as he puts the phone in his pocket, but Kellan holds his arm out for it. He wants to run tests, see if he can make the voice audible. Paddy reluctantly hands it over.
A chorus of ‘who’ echoes from all around me, and Paddy has the most disappointed, sad look on his face as he answers us all. “Vernon and Jimmy.”
A chorus of swear words is what rings out this time. Everyone has a different yet equally pissed response.
“I believe you, but I want to know how you know? Are you sure?” I ask, and Paddy reluctantly shakes his head.
“When you told me you suspected my son of being the one sending the parcels, I promised I would look into it, but I couldn’t find anything. Things were suspiciously too clean. I also noticed he talked a lot more about how the power would transfer over. He wanted me to transfer mine to him first, then transfer it to Bree and Liam. He thinks he convinced me to sign over the Ireland branch, but the papers are fake. My lawyer really is in Ireland. I suspected Vernon was having me followed, so I made a bullshit appointment with Twister and Lawson, enquiring about their services. Then I drew up the papers to match them. That’s why the kidnapper thinks my lawyer is here in London, and I only told that to one person. He is making his move today because he thinks I finally signed Ireland over to him, and he can keep both.” The more he speaks, the more pissed he gets, and I don’t blame him. I am feeling murderous.
“This might sound like a stupid question, but I don’t really live in your world, so it’s not that dumb. But if you are an illegal operation, why do you need to legally sign things over?” Kellan asks, and it’s a good question, but not one that gets me closer to Bree.
“We need to do it this way as a show of power. We have legal businesses that we use as a front for the illegal, so that’s how the power is distributed,” Paddy adds.
“All I want to know is how the fuck I get my girl back!” I shout.
“We have to wait for the next call. Then when he gives us a location to meet and sign, that’s when we will pounce. I will get Bree back to you, I promise.” Paddy makes it sound like he is going alone, and that thought is laughable. Nothing will keep me from finding her.
“Fuck that. When you know where she is, we all go. I am getting my girl back if I have to kill everyone in sight, including her dad. Are you going to get in my way?” I snarl, and he holds his hands up in what should be a calming gesture, but it isn’t. To me, I just see something I want to punch. Instead, I feel Kellan place a hand on my shoulder, and I relax slightly.
“Don’t you worry. When it comes to my son, I will be the one to deal with him. You can sort Jimmy and get Bree out. But Vernon is my son, therefore my responsibility.”
“Well, it sounds like we have a plan. Shall we get some weapons together? I have a feeling today is going to be a fighting day,” my father sings, and I can’t help but chuckle. Trust him to find peace in the idea of a good fight. Whilst I don’t particularly want to fight, I will do whatever it takes to get to Bree, including cutting down anyone who gets in my way.