04

It’s that I was in this beautiful wedding lace-sleeved silk dress that I didn’t want to be in. I held a bouquet of flowers that I hated. I hated roses. Pamila had tamed my wild curls, forcing them into a textured low updo.

My makeup was simple and neutral colors, and the more I looked in the mirror, the more I didn’t recognize myself. It all happened so fast. Enzo linked my hand with his, the bridal chorus echoing the church, and Enzo all but dragged me to the altar.

I bit back tears the entire walk there. He handed me to the man I was going to marry, and I didn’t even know his name or what he looked like. The veil was trussed over my face, and I don’t think I held in my reaction well.

He was old. Very, very old. Maybe in his sixties or seventies. I didn’t even know how he was standing at the altar. He was shorter than me, in an expensive suit, and wore too many gold jewelry pieces. This man was my grandma’s age, yet I was supposed to marry him. I knew I sounded shallow and ageist, but I was twenty-four.

I didn’t have anything against couples that dated way above their age, but the thought of being this man’s wife had bile forming in my throat. I was shaking so hard, and I couldn’t hold back the tears if you had a gun to my head. He didn’t seem phased by my outburst ; he was too busy ogling my breasts from where they peeked out of my dress.

I felt sick in my stomach as I figured out that he’d probably force me into bed with him, and the thought had my already broken heart cracking all over again. The priest was speaking in the background, but I wasn’t paying him any mind.

I couldn’t believe this was what my life would be like. That Enzo would really force me to be with a man our nonna’s age, a man that would probably abuse and rape me, and that he could do it all without blinking an eye.

« If anyone here has any objections, speak now or forever hold your peace. » The priest’s voice came through, and I blinked away from the ground and prayed.

Please, someone, save me. Please. Anyone. God, do you hear me ?

A shot sliced through the air so quickly, so silent, that if you blinked, you would have missed it. It hit the man I was supposed to marry between the eyes, and his body fell to the ground with a loud thud. I didn’t scream, didn’t react. I didn’t have a chance to.

The doors to the church were ripped open, and an army of men swarmed inside like ants. The sound of guns ricocheting and firing through the church had everyone screaming and yelling.

Glass shattered, wood splintered, and crashes echoed, and so did the sounds of crying and bullets piercing through the air and hitting too many bodies to count. I couldn’t even see who was on our side and who was the one shooting.

I wasn’t screaming or crying. I didn’t care if I died right here. I could see Enzo’s men pulling our family to safety, and then Marcelo ran toward me.

« Elena, hey ! » He shouted and reached for my shoulders. « We have to go ! »

More gunshots exploded like fireworks behind us, and all you could hear were bodies hitting the floors and commands in different languages. I could see Enzo with his gun and knife as he sliced and cut through the army invading us.

« Elena ! » Marcelo shook my shoulders, and I blinked my eyes back at him. « I have to take you to safety ! »

The men had the element of surprise, and there were too many to count. Enzo was struggling to fight against them, and they overpowered him. Marcelo swore in Italian and ran to save him, only to be cuffed and tied to the ground next to each other. Everyone else had died. So much blood. So many bodies.

The priest next to me was shaking and praying, and it was like watching a scene from a movie come to life. The army of men parted like the Red Sea, and a man stepped through clad in an expensive suit holding a bouquet of flowers.

The men exploded in cheers and laughs as they spoke in a Native language. They clapped, and as if war didn’t erupt in church, they all went and took their seats. Blood painted their faces and clothes, and some cleaned their guns and weapons as if nothing had happened.

The man that split the sea felt like death, not a god or a prophet. A shrewd of darkness wrapped around him painlessly, and despite his overdramatic and murderous entrance, he was irrationally attractive.

My thoughts were immediately and insanely bombarded by how striking this man looked. It was his walk and the way his boisterous confidence seeped out of him with every step he took. It felt like the underground opened up, and Lucifer himself was walking toward me.

We were in a holy place, a church, yet it didn’t make a difference to the bodies that spread out and were spewed all over the floors. I never knew so much blood could be ripped out of someone before. The walls and grounds were sprayed with it, and it felt like such an omen to what was happening.

He was cloaked in a three-piece suit tailored to his fit, build, and strength. The only visible aspect of this man was his hands and neck, which were incredulously riddled with various tattoos. The closer he got to me, the more I could see his facial features.

I don’t know why I was so curious to see the man who shot up all of my brother’s men, but something odd nagged and tugged at the back of my mind. I had sent out a prayer, and God gave me this man as an answer, or maybe it was a punishment.

I held my breath as he approached the altar, and my breath came out sharp when I saw just how handsome he looked. He had a rugged diamond-shaped face with thick stubble over his face. His dark brown, almost black, hair was in disarray, and I could see some silver streaks running through it, and he didn’t bother to style it in any way, leaving it messy.

Yet, even messy looking, there was some style and slickness to those reckless locks. His eyes were an outrageous blue-green color. It was like God didn’t know what color to give him, so he offered him a mixture of both. They shined magnificently, and his entire face lit up as he handed me the flowers.

I was shaken and terrified when I realized they were my favorite flowers ; bi-color carnations. How the fuck did he know what my favorite flowers were ? My eyes darted to his hands, and they almost bulged out of my goddamn skull when I saw my name across his knuckles in big black letters.

There was another name on his other hand, but I didn’t get a chance to make out the letters. Either way, it was outrageous for my name to be there, as if I meant something to him, as if he knew me.

I took the flowers out of his hand and had the sudden temptation to whack him across the face with them. I didn’t want to get married, that was a known fact, but I still couldn’t wrap my head around everything that was happening.

What the actual fuck was going on ?

He looked down, and I followed the movement to where the dead body of my supposed husband was. He kicked his body to the side as if it was a trashbag and stood where he stood. He folded his arms over his chest, and without a word or glance, a man approached the altar. The sound of a gun cocking had me looking to see the gun aimed at the priest’s head.

« As you were saying, Father ? » His deep, raspy voice spoke, and I whipped my head up at him.

His voice resembled dark nights, monsters hiding in the closet, and unpredictable tsunamis.

The priest stammered and stumbled over his words, and the man holding the gun laughed. « You were saying speak now or forever hold your peace. We spoke. »

The man in front of me laughed hard, and everyone in the church laughed along with him.

« Y-yes. W-what is y-your n-name ? » The priest shook as he rapidly opened up his Bible.

« Oisín. Oisín Callahan. »

Oisín Callahan, as in head of the Irish mob, Oisín Callahan. My face was wide with disbelief, and I stared up at this man with shock-filled eyes. My heart dropped to my feet, and I felt sick to my stomach. I think I wanted to throw up.

No, I think I wanted to run away and hide under a rock. I didn’t know what to do or feel, but fear was unyielding as it rooted me to the ground. No one knew a single fact about Oisín, and now here he was, right in front of me in a fitted and tailored suit.