Page 3 of Possessive Mafia Vows

“A beautiful memory.” When he speaks, it almost sounds as if he’s singing a lullaby. “Mine would be at the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland.”

That’s where the accent is from. I don’t interrupt him though; it’s haunting to listen to.

“I’ll take you there one day. Legend has it that the Causeway was built across the Irish sea by a giant who was trying to reach a rival giant in Scotland.”

“Do you believe the story?”

“Sure, why not.” He shrugs, flashes an easy smile at me from the driver’s seat. “Everyone needs some legend in their life.”

So, that’s it. We’re talking about giants and sunrises when we both hear the screeching of tires across tarmac.

Blinding lights fill the car. Dazzling. I know that the world is dark outside, save for the street lamps lining the highway, but inside, we’re plunged into the kind of glaring whiteness associated with heaven in the movies.

Then, through the stark light comes something huge and rumbling and terrifying. A beast on huge heavy wheels. The car seems to slide out from under us, moving with a mind of its own.

Someone screams. And then the sound of metal on metal replaces the screams inside my head before the world turns from white to black as if every light on the planet has been switched off.

1

SIENNA

Six YearsLater

Deep breath.

I’m ready. As ready as I’ll ever be.

This gallery is literally a dream come true; it’s no wonder the butterflies in my tummy are having the wing-fight of the century. I never thought it would happen. I mean, I know you’re supposed to tell the universe what you want, visualize it, mood-board it to within an inch of its life, and turn it into reality.

And I did that. Yep. Still have the fading mood boards to prove it.

But opening an art gallery is a big fucking deal. Especially when you’re a wannabe artist scraping by on what you earn from other jobs, just waiting for the day someone picks up a piece of your artwork and declares to the world:This woman is the next Picasso!Or Van Gogh. Or Frida Kahlo.

Whatever.

Let’s just say that kind of epiphany doesn’t happen often. Or ever if we’re being honest. So, would the universe have listened to me if my best friend Victoria hadn’t fallen in love with an Irish billionaire sex-God?

Not a chance in hell.

I glance around the gallery one last time. My eyes linger on my favorite piece, the largest piece I’ve ever painted, and the one that felt like drawing blood from a piece of marble. It’s a self-portrait although no one would ever know. It’s all color, swirls of ethereal garnet-red, cerulean, and tangerine, more like an aura-portrait.

An aura-portrait of the woman I was before…

Even if people don’t recognize me somewhere inside the splashes of bright acrylic, I hope they’ll understand the emotions oozing from the canvas.

I wander through to my office out the back.

My office.

I’ll never get used to these words: my office, my gallery.

I sip water from a glass through a metal straw, careful not to smudge my lipstick, and study my reflection in the mirror on the wall opposite the window.

The dress I’m wearing cost more than I used to earn in six months of teaching art at middle school. Victoria insisted on buying it for me. “Call it a happy-gallery-day gift,” she’d said with a twinkle in her eye.

She ignored my protests of, “But you and Caleb have already done more than I ever expected, V,” and “I don’t know howI’ll ever repay you.” She spotted the moss-green fishtail dress with the Bardot neckline while I was still eyeing up the racks of clothes I’d need a bank loan to afford, and grabbed it before I could even blink. Then she led me, dazed, into a changing cubicle and sat down in a comfy armchair to wait for my transformation.

Now, I smooth the crushed velvet bodice with the palms of my hands and turn my body this way and that, admiring the way it clings to my hips and trails across the floor behind me. It’s giving Morticia Addams vibes, only softer.

---