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None of this was right. The price was too high.
“It’s your fault as much as anybody’s.,” I said, cradling my dad close.
A crowd gathered, getting too close in their efforts to see what was going on. I felt boots shove me, hands grab me and then the pinch of something sharp on the back of my neck.
“Ow.” I yelped, looking up to see what had stuck me but I was surrounded by so many people, I wasn’t sure what had happened.
A handful of my cousins stepped in to move everyone aside, most of whom I remembered as hardly more than scrawny young boys, but who had now grown into strapping, strong young men. With the crowd cleared, they scooped up my father between them, carrying him out in their arms, rushing him down the aisle. They looked like his pallbearers more than his rescuers as they hurried out the door.
I heard my aunt’s voice, speaking to my mother about a surgeon, one town over. And hurry. We must hurry. Hurry, Valeria. Hurry.
Vasile and I stood there at the altar, him holding me by my shoulders.
“You’re not thinking clearly,” he said to me, gripping me tight. “I’m not the enemy. I love you. I would never let anything happen to you.”
You’re not thinking clearly. Lies. All lies.
This was the first time, since the first second I’d laid eyes on him, that I wasn’t looking at the world through the bleary mist of passion. My thinking was crystal clear and I knew exactly what I had to do. I shook off his grip and pushed him away, throwing my bouquet at Petre’s limp body on the floor. I shook my head and raised my hand to stop him from saying anything else.
“You’re wrong! For the first time since this all began I am thinking clearly. I wish my family had never had the misfortune of meeting any of you. I wish the damned Greengallows had never existed! And you, Vasile, you’re the worst of the whole God-damned lot, because somehow you made me care about you, and I’ll never forgive you for that.”
The look in his eyes—the rejection, the surprise, the sadness—made me feel sick to my stomach with grief. But I kept my head high and my resolve firm. I pulled his ring out from its hiding place and tossed it aside. It tinkled and clattered on the stone, coming to a stop right below a gruesome portrait of Saint John the Baptist, with his ghoulish decapitated head on a platter.
Vasile was on the brink of taking me in his arms to plead with me, but I knew that if he touched me, my resolve would weaken. I could not let that happen, and so I turned on my heel, and fled alone from the cathedral, chasing my father and mother without another word.
Gathering up my dress in my hand, I joined my waiting family in what was intended to be my wedding carriage, and we set off as fast as the four horses could carry us, rushing against time to try to save my father’s life.Chapter 22VasileValeria’s friend, Natasha, tried to go after her, but Daniel stepped in. Anyone could see from the look in Natasha’s eyes that she wasn’t herself, and I had no doubt that the culprit was none other than my own brother.
“Let her go,” Daniel said, his deep voice calming her. “Let’s get you to somewhere safe, away from here. Vasile?”
I nodded. “Go. Take her to my father’s estate. Get her any help she needs.”
Petre lay unconscious on the cathedral floor. With the drama seemingly over, the chaos calmed as the remaining guests were now filing out the main doors, and the priest had long since darted for the side chapel, so that now my brother and I were alone by the altar.
I was aware of the power of the place, and the irony of Petre’s blood trickling into the sacred stones. Religion had never had any power over me; I found no comfort in prayer, no strength in worship. But I knew that my brother and I were like something out of the Bible itself: good and evil, locked in an endless fucking battle.
For all our lives, he and I had dealt in the currency of vengeance. Of hatred and anger.
But now, standing there, looking down at him, I thought about something bigger—mercy, for him and for the rest of us.
What a mercy it would be to kill him, and put him out of his misery like the rabid fucking animal that he was.
Taking a step toward him, I cracked my neck, side to side, aware—but only barely—of the pain from the gunshot wound inflicted by one of his hounds just before Daniel had arrived. It had grazed my upper shoulder. I slid my hand into my pocket, grabbing hold of my switchblade. The sound of it flicking open echoed around the church.
