Page 50 of Black Wedding

“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.

---