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Finally, the minister takes a step back and smiles. “By the power vested in me by this state, I now pronounce you husband and wife. Luka, you may kiss your bride.”
Eve’s hand clings to mine, her fingernails nearly digging into my skin as I take a step towards her. This is the moment I’ve been thinking about all week. The moment when our deal is made official. But I’m not thinking about whether the photographer is in place to get the shot or whether Benedetto Furino is furious or embarrassed or watching at all. I’m not thinking about anyone else in the world except for Eve. She is my focus. Her lips are the only things that matter to me.
I’ve kissed her before, and I’ve been thinking about doing it again every moment since. She is like a drug in my system. One hit, and I’m hooked. This moment was supposed to be my victory over the Furinos, the moment when I show everyone that I am capable of leading after my father is gone, that I can carry on the Volkov name. But now it is intimate, and I can’t help but smile.
I hook an arm around Eve’s waist, bringing her body flush with mine, and my hand cups the back of her neck gently. I tip her head back, her smooth neck extending, her hair slipping back to fall behind her. She is beautiful and fragile in my arms, and I make a silent promise to myself not to break her. Not the way her father encouraged me to. Not the way I bragged I would. Eve is a wild creature, free and fierce, and I plan to earn her trust, not tame her.
I lean forward to press my lips to her and end the aching need in my chest, but the moment my eyes close, a loud crack rings out through the ceremony followed by screams.
We’re under attack.
Instinctively, I pull Eve up and behind me, blocking her from whatever threat has arrived. I look towards where Benedetto was sitting, expecting him or his men to be the source of the noise, but they are scrambling over toppled chairs, fighting to get away from the chaos. Wedding guests are dropping to the grass, hands over their heads. My men are pulling out their weapons, and for a second, I think they are aiming at me and Eve. But then I see the photographer. He is standing in the center of the aisle, but instead of a camera, he is holding a gun. The soldier closest to my father is bleeding on the ground.
Suddenly, the cellist throws his instrument to the side and levels a gun at my father, as well. He shoots, but one of the soldiers knocks my father to the ground before the bullet can find its mark. Volkov men begin firing back at the cellist just as a third shooter rounds the corner of the house with an assault rifle aimed at the assembly. He begins firing at random.
The world is chaos and gunfire and screaming.
Eve is cowering behind me, her fingers digging into my arms, and I shield her with my body and crouch low. The minister is cowering behind a wooden podium. I half-expect him to pull out a gun, as well, but his eyes are wide and terrified, and he is mumbling prayers under his breath.
“Stay here,” I say, pushing Eve to the ground next to the minister. She opens her mouth to argue, but there is no time.
I spin around, knock a lantern hanging from a pole to the ground, and yank the pole free of the ground. The end is sharpened into a stake, and I sprint forward with the point out as if I’m jousting on a horse. The metal finds purchase between the ribs of the photographer. He manages one more shot at a Volkov soldier before the pole runs clean through his chest and the gun falls from his hands. Blood begins to flow down the pole at me, and I almost let go, but then I see the cellist advancing on me. I use the pole to maneuver the photographer in front of me, using him as a shield as the cellist fires shot after shot into him.
I can’t reach the gun the photographer dropped on the ground in front of me, so my only options are to step out from behind my human shield and try to tackle the shooter or hope he runs out of bullets soon. As soon as the thought crosses my mind, the shots stop. I wait a few seconds and then slowly stand up to see Eve standing on the corner of the small stage, holding a folding chair over her head. The cellist is lying on the ground, out cold.
I let the very dead photographer fall to the ground and leap over him to get to Eve. I take the gun from the cellist, grab her hand, and pull her along behind me as I take in the rest of the scene. The third shooter is still alive, though my men have his assault rifle, and he is pinned to the ground with his neck under a soldier’s foot. My father is unharmed and dusting off his clothes to the side of the folding chairs, soldiers circling him like he is the president—which, within our family, he kind of is.
Benedetto is still huddled down behind a row of chairs, his soldiers shielding him with their bodies. Once he realizes the shooting has stopped, he begins to stand up. Eve sighs when she sees him move, relieved, but she stays next to me.
“Who did this?” she asks, looking nervously at her father.
My father has the same thought. He charges across the grass, finger pointed at the vastly outnumbered Furino don. “You dirty son of a bitch. You orchestrated this.”
Benedetto holds up his hands and stumbles backwards. His soldiers stand in front of him, fists raised as if they stand a chance against my father’s armed guards.
“I didn’t do anything!” Benedetto shouts. “You framed me. Made it look like I went back on the deal so you could kill me.”
They are getting closer, and I know once my father reaches Benedetto, his soldiers will fight. People will die. And while I wouldn’t be especially sad to see Benedetto beaten, I know it would ruin Eve’s day.
“Wait!” I call, squeezing Eve’s hand before letting it go and marching down the center aisle. My father and Benedetto turn to watch as I walk towards the last living shooter.
His face is bloody from where he was kicked in the nose, and his cheeks are red and puffy from lack of air. I nod to the soldier, and he removes his foot from the man’s neck and steps aside. The shooter moves like he is going to sit up, but I press a foot into his chest, pinning him back to the ground.
“Who do you work for?”
The man snarls up at me and then spits. Because he is lying down, the bloody spit just lands back on his face and dribbles down his chin.
I press my foot harder into his chest until he rasps for air. “Who do you work for?”
He doesn’t answer, but when he tries to roll out from under my foot, his shirt lifts, and I catch a flash of something across his side. I bend down and lift the hem of his black shirt to reveal a large tattoo. A Celtic Cross.
I rear back and kick the man hard in the side. Ribs crack under my leather heel. “Irish piece of shit.”
“Irish?” my father asks, looking at Benedetto, doubt and suspicion still in his eyes.
“Check the other bodies,” I say. Immediately, Volkov soldiers rush to the bodies of the photographer and the cellist and find the same tattoos inked on their bodies.
“This wasn’t my family or the Furinos,” I say, waving for the soldiers still aiming their weapons at Benedetto to lower them. “It was the Irish. Apparently, they wanted to stop this deal from going through.”
