“I warned you,” I tell him as he coughs and puts a hand to his throat, his eyes steely as he watches us walk down the hall. The only reassurance I get that he isn’t going to do anything stupid is the faintest hint of a smirk before we pass through the living room and into the second hall.
The door to Beast’s room is on the right.
He pauses behind me, but he doesn’t touch me.
“Your wedding dress is in the bag on the dresser,” he tells me, and I blink in surprise, glancing back to look at him. But he’s staring down the hall in the direction of the living room instead. “Put it on.”
He takes off as I exhale and open the door, slamming it closed behind me and putting my back to it.
Oh my god. Holy fuck. Holy fucking fuck.
I rub at my face with both hands.
“What have I gotten myself into?” I whisper, pushing away from the door and stumbling over to the dresser on shaky legs. I unzip the duffel and find my dress—Nellie’s dress—stuffed haphazardly inside.
How many days ago was the wedding? I’m so disoriented. I unzip one of the jacket pockets and slide my phone out. Two days.
“It’s only been two fucking days?!” I choke, starting to put the phone down and then realizing that I never checked the message that came in earlier. I feel a frown pull at my lips when I see that it’s an automatic alert.
Lane County Emergency System - this is an automated message. Your area has been upgraded to a Level 1 - Be Ready - Alert. Please be aware that fire danger exists in your location. Make preparations, perform precautionary relocation for those with special needs, pets, and livestock.
“Fuck.”
The year my sisters died, there was ash on the wind. Now, it’s back, and I can taste it every time I step foot outside the goddamn door. I’m not someone who generally believes in omens, but nobody could argue that this is good news in any way, shape, or form.
The club and the mafia are both powerful entities, but even they can’t stop a literal firestorm.
Still, it’s only a level one alert for now. The club won’t move any of its people for anything less than level three—and even then, it’s questionable. We have hoses, water tanks, and other firefighting equipment on the compound.
With a sigh, I chuck the phone aside. One nice thing about throwing in with four outlaws of questionable motives, all of whom are nursing alpha male complexes, is that this isn’t my problem. Let them worry about and talk over the fire danger.
If it’s time to move, we’ll move.
Part of me wonders if it wouldn’t be nice for this whole damn city to burn to the fucking ground, but then I remember that the sorts of grudges held between the club and the mafia are the kind that taint the very earth with blood, all the way down to its liquid, molten core.
I snatch the dress up and take it with me into the bathroom, starting the shower and stripping down to nothing. Like I did in the mafia’s hideout the morning before my wedding to Grey, I lean over the sink and stare into the mirror.
My face is still swollen, yes, but it’s substantially better already.
I managed to escape that entire mess with minimal injuries.
My dark eyes look accusatory, even though it’s only myself that I’m staring at. My makeup is expertly applied, but it looks almost desperate in this light, covering up those bruises, that swelling. It almost makes me look younger, as opposed to older.
Next time, I won’t cake it on quite so heavily.
The mirror begins to fog up and I push away, staring down at the white dress draped over the closed lid of the toilet.
When Nellie put that dress on for the first time, did she have any idea of what a shit show her life would turn out to be? Would she have cared? Would her love for Cat still have spurred her to do what she did anyway?
Her son is now dead. She isn’t, but only because she was on her best behavior the night of the reception. In that, she didn’t need any of the antidote from Grey or Reba because she’d been true to her word and hadn’t touched the kegs or cocaine.
If I have a baby, will he just end up like Gaz? Rotten to the core, head blown open by his own father? Or what if it’s a girl?
A shiver takes over me, and I shake my head again.
I shower, dry off, and then spend a stupid amount of time braiding my dark hair so that it doesn’t frizz all over the place. A bit of light foundation, a very light dusting of eyeshadow, and some gloss to help disguise a bit of the damage.
