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“Joey,” she breathes out. She closes her eyes. “It wasn’t a nightmare, was it?”
The sooner she understands that, the better. “No.”
“But what about—”
“Don’t worry about any of it,” I tell her, taking her hand again. I’m already addicted to the feel of her hand in mine, skin to skin, and I can’t fucking wait until I get this woman naked. “While we’re gone, my cop’s got this covered.”
“Your cop?”
“He’s on my payroll,” I explain. That should be enough. “He’s going to stay parked out front. Anyone who heard anything and is still up might be curious if they see the cruiser, but he knows how to handle them if they start asking questions. My guys will take care of the trash in your house. As for us,” I add, using her hand to pull her to a standing position again, “we have an appointment.”
“An appointment,” Ava echoes. “Isn’t it like two in the morning?”
It’s a quarter to one, but that doesn’t matter. “Exactly, which is why we shouldn’t keep the judge waiting.”
He will. The entire Springfield court is either in my pocket or Damien’s, and Judge Callihan is one of mine. For the amount that I’ve already lined his with, he’ll stay up all night if I tell him to, and he’ll do it with a smile on his grumpy, old face.
Of course,Avadoesn’t know that—and I’m not about to enlighten my pretty little bride to that fact.
“Judge… I’m sorry. I’m so tired that none of this is making sense to me.”
I know, pet. I know, and while that wasn’t my intention, I’m not going to apologize for it, or not use it to my advantage.
“You can nap in the car. But first…” I grab the dry cleaner bag containing the white dress in Ava’s size that Royce managed to come up with and offer it out to her. “Go get ready. Pack a bag with whatever you think you’ll need for a couple of days, then put this on. We’ll leave when you’re ready.”
“Ready?” she asks. “Ready for what?”
I give her a predatory grin, one I absolutely mean.
“For our wedding.”
SIX
I DO
AVA
The judge’s robes are askew.
The entire time he’s going through the shortened version of a civil marriage ceremony, that’s all I can focus on. His robes are askew, and he’s yawning.
It’s two o’clock in the morning. I’m standing in the small office in Judge Callihan’s mansion in North Springfield. A mousy-looking man in his early fifties, he has the dazed look of a man ripped out of his sleep so that he can marry me to Lincoln Crewes.
Oh, wait. That’s because heis.
Link wastes no time. Proving that he has infinite connections, once I had traded my pajamas for the lacy, white wedding dress—that, somehow, is just my size—and a pair of white flats I found in the back of my closet, I ran a brush through my hair while he made a few phone calls. Twenty minutes after he woke me up from my own sleep, I was in a car driven by a man whose face I never saw, sitting next to Link, fiddling with the floofy skirt on the dress he gave me.
Up until he led me up the walkway to Judge Callihan’s house, I didn’t honestly believe I would be getting married tonight. It was one thing for him to dangle his help and his protection in front of me in exchange for saying I would marry him; it’s another thing entirely for him to expect me to pledge myself to him immediately.
But that’s exactly what he expected. Link even had a simple gold band for the occasion that he slipped on my finger after I—almost in a daze—say ‘I do’. Link’s version is a lot more adamant, so much so that the judge glanced up at him in surprise when he growled it out.
The judge had a print-out waiting for us, too. He laid it out on his desk, and once we exchanged vows, all that was left to make our quickie marriage binding, was the officiant witnessing us signing the license.
Is it legal? Probably not. I always thought you needed a separate witness, but both Link and his judge seem satisfied, and it’s not like I can really question them. Even if I did, what good would it do?
My new husband is the head of an organized crime syndicate. I guess I should be grateful he was pretending to do things by the book at all.
Link took the pen first, writing his legal name on one line. Passing the pen to me, he watched closely as I signed it with a trembling hand, swooping Ava Monroe on the line.
