Page 21 of I am Dressed in Sin (Death by Daybreak MC 2)
If I were to get married of my own free will, I’d wear a white leather jacket. That would be my dress.
The thought goes as quickly as it comes, a fraction of a wish leftover from a life I can never lead, one that I thought I hated. But the more I let myself think about it, as I’m tucked and tied into my dress, I realize that it wasn’t that I hated the life … I just hated being a second-class citizen within it.
I want to ride a bike, I think with a longing that burns. I want that smell of leather and motor oil, of hot pavement and weed, booze and sweat and bullshit.
“I just need to pee.” I slip into the bathroom before I really lose myself, my mind spinning in a million different directions.
I remember that night that seems so long ago, the one where I took four outlaws into myself and said goodbye to the very last scrap of my innocence, and I crave it with a desperation that makes me quiver. The need is so intense that I end up sitting on the bathroom floor with my head in my hands. I didn’t just sleep with four outlaws because I was a broken girl with too much pain.
I slept with them because I was an old soul trapped in the body of a bird with clipped wings. I slept with them because there was something in each of them that I liked. That … if I let myself think too hard about it, that I loved.
I only ever wished for them to love me back.
“Fuck.” I stand up and punch the mirror as hard as I can, breaking the glass, making my knuckles bleed. The red stains the lace at the end of my sleeve, but there isn’t much I can do about it now. When I head back into the bedroom that I’ve been sharing with Grey for the past several months, Giulia gives a tsk-tsking sound as she looks me over.
“You animal,” she says, but even though the insult is light, the derisiveness cuts straight through me. “Take the sleeves up and give her the lace gloves instead.”
I stand there like a statue, refusing to react even when the pins of the seamstress get stuck in my skin. It’s not enough blood to stain, so what does it matter anyway?
The girls finish in record time, and a sea of mafia creeps in tuxedos show up to escort me to the chapel. One of them even has an Uzi hanging around his neck. I ignore it all, falling into myself, and doing my best to remember that I make smart choices—even if they’re difficult ones. Becoming the bride to the heir of the Grey Wolfe Mafia is not a place I thought I’d ever find myself, but it does give me the leverage necessary to punish Cat. To punish the Don. To find the goons he sent to do the deed and punish them, too. That’s the important thing to remember.
I’m doing this for my sisters.
The Don is waiting outside the doors to the chapel, looking dapper in his tailcoat, like he’s on his way to a white tie event. His shoes are as shiny as his hair, but his smile is like a machete, swung with careless ease straight toward my heart.
“Hello, my darling daughter-in-law,” he purrs, watching apathetically as the servant girls connect the flowing train to my dress. It weighs me down, all of those crystals, all of that lace. I can barely stand the feel of it. “Since your father isn’t here to give you away, I thought it might be nice if I took his place.”
As I stare at him, that anger builds into a crescendo inside of me. I’d like nothing more than to kill this man. Instead, I hear myself saying, “that’d be nice, thank you.”
He reaches out and cups the side of my face, but not in a loving way. There’s a careful control to his movements that says he’s used to getting what he wants, that he’s used to submission and obeisance. I let him think that’s what he’s getting as he hooks his arm with mine and we wait for the live orchestra to start playing Canon in D Major.
How is this even my life? I think as the stained-glass doors in front of us are pulled wide, revealing a glittering sea of modern-day criminal courtiers, the upper crust of the underworld. Arguably so much more powerful than those that at least pretend to play by the rules. The only rules here are the ones set by greed and want and power. If you have the latter, you can satisfy the former, have whatever you want. Bleed whoever you want.
Grey is waiting at the front of the room, standing before the priest in a gray suit with wolf-shaped cufflinks at his wrists. He’s unbelievably handsome, with his sandy hair slicked back, his skin tan and smooth, his lower lip full and kissable.
