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“June, why did you follow me in here?! You’re going to get us caught!” I whisper harshly, my eyes flashing through the bathroom for any possible signs that someone else could be watching or listening. Too many years of doing this bullshit have made me hypervigilant, but I’d never regret being too prepared.
“We need to leave, someone from my old company is here, and I’m afraid that they’ll recognize me. If they see me, our cover is blown,” she replies, out of breath and trembling as her anxiety catches up to her.
Fuck.
That’snotsomething I could have anticipated in a million years.
How does someone from a foreign tech company end up at a wedding riddled with mobsters and killers? I guess the answer is self-explanatory, but I still couldn’t have imagined that such a thing would be a roadblock for me.
“Okay, yeah, we need to get the fuck out of here. To everyone who’s listening right now, it’s time to retreat. Mission accomplished, get out as smoothly as you can without getting caught. We’re almost through.”
I instruct June to leave the bathroom first, meeting me at the entrance to evade suspicion. At the worst, people will assume that we were fucking in the bathroom.
She leaves, and I walk back into the stall where Franco’s body is bleeding profusely onto the sleek white floors. I spit on him, closing the door and barring the lock shut.
The walk through the crowd to meet June is one of the most stressful things I’ve ever experienced. I feel like everyone knows something is wrong, like I’ve shifted the entire atmosphere of the wedding with an act that nobody knows about. I’m convinced that everybody is staring at me, and it takes everything within me to stay calm as I continue casually onward.
June sees me as I approach, and it’s clear she’s got her own demons to battle as we prepare to leave. Could everything have gone this easily? How certain am I that I’m not dreaming?
“Okay, you ready to go?” I ask her, smoothing out my voice to sound collected and casual when I’m ready to sprint ten miles.
“Yeah, that sounds nice,” she replies, equally strained by her impulse to jump out of her skin as the growing tension mounts around us.
Since Charlie has been listening in the entire time, he’s prepared with a blacked-out SUV just around the corner from the wedding venue. It’s far enough from the actual location to not be suspicious but close enough for us to escape within a matter of minutes.
Other than June’s stray coworker, everything went perfectly.
I can’t imagine a better outcome.
Now that the witness is dead, my brother will walk free. The weight on my shoulders has finally been lifted, and I can focus on my new future with June.
I help June into the SUV, and Charlie almost takes off before I have the chance to close the door. Nobody has followed us out of the wedding, so I’m positive that we’re in the clear.
“That was the most stressful thing that I’ve ever done,” June says, breaking the silence a few moments after we pull onto the highway.
“Yeah, no shit. I’m surprised you didn’t scream like hell when I pointed my gun at you. Sorry about that,” I reply, feeling the weight of guilt in my stomach as I remember the look on her face.
“I should have known something was going to happen if I followed you in there. I really should have thought that through better. I didn’t want to go somewhere that you couldn’t see me, but I couldn’t let my coworker catch me either,” she explains, idly playing with the hair from her wig.
Even under the circumstances, she looks so beautiful to me. I want to make sure that I take her on dates now that we’re together, especially to make up for all of the time we’ve been apart. My life would have been so much more fulfilled with her in it for the last five years, and I’m going to make sure she knows it.
When we pull into the port where our plane awaits us, I still feel somewhat on edge about being ambushed. The opposing force that had already been bold enough to shoot me in my own home, and that was mostly unprovoked as far as attacks go.
When June steps out of the vehicle, I feel more protective of her than ever. She takes notice, glancing at me with questioning, curious eyes when I hold her hand to walk her to the plane.
“What’s going on? What are you worried about?” she asks, eyes narrowed as she studies the area around us. “Do you feel like something isn’t right?”
“No, it’s not that. I just want to make sure that you’re alright,” I confess. I’ve never had June out in the world with me before today, and it’s a feeling that’ll take time to get used to.
Our bags were packed prior to us leaving for the wedding, so all we have to do is leave. I’m more than ready to face whatever comes my way in this new life. I’ve been able to find new meaning in a future with June, and I can’t express how excited I am to meet my boys for the first time.
ChapterThirty-Four
JUNE
As we take off to escape to the United States, I gaze out the window at the sunset as it blazes across the autumn sky. Right now, it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. When I think about it, I can’t remember the last sunset that I was able to admire in its entirety. For the past five weeks, I’ve been living in a bedroom.
The setting sun is the first symbol of freedom that I can hold onto after getting out of Italy. It’s the first thing I’ve seen that makes me feel something, at least something that isn’t Marcello.
