1
WILLOW
If I were rating this wedding, it would be two stars. It gets an extra star because the church is nice, and the guests are well-presented and on time. But ideally, it needs starting again, with my choice of groom. And dress.
And shoes I can walk in.
Honestly, I’d prefer to put my whole life back on the shelf and try another one, like it was a book. As it turns out, being born into the Maldon mafia is overrated. It says something when my best option is an arranged marriage to Witham, a mafia boss who practically has that creepy-scare music around him.
I control my breathing as the priest drones on about the sanctity of the union, but the panic keeps rising. This is mylife, and I can’t restart it.
I glance to the side. My future husband is about sixty, with a gut and a grubby blond moustache and beady little eyes.
He looks back at me, missing my face altogether and focussing on my breasts. His gaze is a slick of black, gritty oil over my body.
This monster willownme.
Fear seeps in like damp into a paperback book. I’m too old for his tastes, I know that, and I’ve got a plan. But what if it doesn’t work?
It will. It has to.
Out of the corner of my eye I regard my family seated in the church behind me. My three brothers and my mother, and various uncles and aunts. They’re impassive. Uncaring. I’m just a stupid little girl to them, only useful to be traded off.
When I said to my brother Liam about wanting to work in a bookshop, he sneered that Maldons don’t fetch andcarry, so I’ve never told anyone else about my dream. I build the bookshop in my mind, planning my sections and my stock. When everything is bad, it’s my happy place. A warm comfort blanket.
Usually.
Today, it won’t appear. I try to think of rows of my favourite author’s books, but all I can see is the priest, the gold cross and the altar and the marble on the floor, and the sinister, greasy presence of my fiancé.
I have the phone number of the contact memorised, and the internet rumours are that the London Mafia Syndicate are uncompromising towards the sordid trade Witham does. Once I’m married, I can give the tip-off, and escape in the chaos that ensues. Witham won’t be expecting it, not like my family, who remember how I called the police on them when I was twelve, and have viewed me as a traitor ever since.
Me and my big mouth, my mother said when she saw the bruises afterwards.
I didn’t know that my family owned all the police in the area, and my lesson healed into an instinct never to risk being caught in an escape again. But my family doesn’t own the London Mafia Syndicate. They will get bloody revenge for Witham’stastes. Thesame stuff my family turns a blind eye to because they want Witham’s territory.
Even so, an animal fear rises in me. Everywhere I look there’s trouble or judgement, or no way out. The church door is too far away, I’d never make it before my brothers caught me and frogmarched me back.
I’m trapped.
For my plan to work, I need to be married to Witham, but even so, I can’t help but pray to any god that might be listening, or something, anything. I have this rock in my gut. I don’t want this marriage.
“Does anyone here present know of any good reason?—”
I see the door open before the crash of wood against stone hits my ears and draws shrieks from several of my aunts as a man strolls into the church followed by a dozen men with very large guns. All pointing at my family, my fiancé’s family, andme.
“I didn’t get my invitation,” the man drawls, and my heart unexpectedly patters. Not in a fearful way, nope. In a thrilled way. Because the intruder’s voice is like caramel and brandy cream, smooth and dark and utterly decadent, with a dangerous kick.
This man exudes casual power. He’s wearing a blue-black suit, with a tie the colour of a winter ocean. His crisp white shirt is impeccable, as though he really is a guest at a wedding.
“I told you there would be consequences, Witham.” The man paces up the aisle, his hands in his pockets.
He isn’t even armed. Or rather, he doesn’t have his gun drawn. That’s not needed, since he has effortlessly outmanoeuvred my family and the Withams.
As he gets closer, I take him in. He’s tall. Maybe six-foot-six? His hair is the deepest brown, almost black, and he has deliberately careless stubble that makes him even moremasculine, as though his wide shoulders and pronounced Adam’s apple didn’t already.
He comes to a stop and stares at me, pale blue eyes wide like he’s seen a ghost. We regard each other for a long moment, and I know it’s crazy, but there’s recognition unlike anything I’ve ever felt. He seesme. Not a bride, not a Maldon princess. Not a sister or a daughter. Not even just a passably pretty girl who happens to be in his way. He reaches into my body and weighs my soul in his palm.
And it’s the same for me. Objectively, he’s a terrifying and gorgeous man who could kill me and everyone in this room with a flick of his elegant fingers. But I can see a spark of humour in his eyes, a mouth that could be quick to smile, and a gentleness to his power, hidden beneath that sharp suit and arrogant jawline.
