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“You need to stall Zedd from getting to his truck for about ten minutes,” I whisper as my maid listens wide-eyed, nodding earnestly. “Tell him Father wants to see him, that Zedd should wait inside the mansion until Carlo comes to get him. Then ten minutes later send one of the guards to tell Zedd he can leave, there’s no meeting after all.”
My maid gulps, is about to run off, but I grab her arm, lean close and give her the rest of my orders. “Then come back to my bridal chamber, come inside, just you alone. I’ll be gone by then, but you can’t tell anyone. Just lock the door and send word that I am not to be disturbed for the next twenty-four hours, that I want to be alone, that I will see nobody else but you. Understand?”
My maid’s face is stricken. She’s about to protest, but I silence her with a look that draws from the mafia princess inside me, from the dangerous blood that flows in my veins, from the fire of love that burns in my eyes.
Love that won’t let me just sit here and wait for our fate.
Love that wants me to fight for our forever.
Because if I can’t stop Zedd from riding into battle, I’m going to ride out with him, face our fate by his side, live or die with my man.
I push my maid out and close the door, my heart pounding as my gaze fixes on that window leading to the private garden. There’s no time to change out of my wedding dress, but I manage to kick off my heels and pull on my trusty tennis shoes before gathering up my skirts and clambering out the window like a runaway bride.
The private garden is empty. Creeping to the main lawn I see the buffet table still laden with untouched goodies. There’s nobody in sight. The place looks like a scene out of the Twilight Zone, where all the people just disappeared, leaving uneaten food on the tables.
Quickly I grab two sealed plastic bottles of water. Scanning the buffet table, I look for something dry and non-messy to sustain me for the next twenty-four hours.
And I see my wedding cake.
Six soft layers of sweet moistness covered in virgin-white Italian cream frosting.
Beside the cake are dozens of cute little cardboard boxes for guests to carry a piece home with them. There’s a gleaming silver cake-knife with a white ribbon around the handle, but something wild and childish in me just reaches out and claws at the perfect pyramid of soft wedding cake. Giggling like a lunatic I grab a fistful of cake and shove it into a box, then suck my sticky fingers and wipe them on my wedding dress.
Then with my bottles of water and little cake box, I scamper across the deserted lawn in my tennis shoes and wedding dress. Circling around the back of the mansion, I make it to the east side service lot and see Zedd’s big black Ford F-150 pickup truck.
It’s got a flatbed the size of Switzerland, neatly covered with a thick leather tarpaulin, buttoned down along the frames with big silver studs. I creep to the truck, unbutton one side of the tarp, flip it open, peer inside.
The space is dark and cavernous, but clean like a new whistle, with a warm aroma of genuine leather and genuine man.
My man.
My man who isn’t going anywhere without his woman.
My knight who’s going to have a passenger in his saddlebag.
My pirate who’s going to have a stowaway on his ship.
The last button snaps into place, sealing me into my dark cozy hiding place when I hear Zedd’s footsteps approach. I hold my breath, clutching my water bottles and cake-box against my wedding dress.
“In sickness and in health,” I whisper with dreadful excitement as the engine starts and my body vibrates and my heart thrums. “Till death do us part.”
14
EIGHTEEN HOURS LATER.
ZEDD
Death is not an option.
The dark thoughts kept me up all night, tossing and turning in my sweat-soaked bed. The prospect of death never bothered me before. I’ve taken so many lives that I greet death with a shrug. It comes for all of us eventually.
Except suddenly I have something to live for.
Fuck, I haveeverythingto live for.
My truck picks up speed as I rumble past a sign that says ATLANTA EXITS and thunder up Highway 41 that passes through Georgia all the way to the Florida Keys. It’s been a long drive, but traffic was light and the weather was perfect. Quick glance at the dashboard clock tells me there’s plenty of time, that in fact I’m a bit early. The Romero funerals don’t get done for another three hours, which means it’ll be close to four hours before Ralph Romero gets back to the mansion.
Easing my foot off the accelerator, I try to relax, to bring my mind into that zone where this is just another hit, just another job, just another contract.
