7. Chapter Seven #2
“You love your brother,” I continue. “Try to deny it all you want but it’s true.”
He stops the car so fast, I jerk forward. The only thing that protects me is my seatbelt. He turns his dark eyes onto me and whips out his gun, placing it to the underside of my jaw. “Never talk about my brother with me ever again. You understand?”
I’ve never seen Finn act like this before. There’s hate there, anger yes, but also vulnerability. His brother is a nerve for him.
I like knowing something personal about Finn. It reminds me that he’s just a man when all is said and done.
“I understand.” I try to swallow but the gun makes it hard.
Finn holds his gun there and glares at me for a long moment before he sits back in his seat. “Now, let’s go get married.”
The church Finn chooses is a simple one. Nothing grand like I had planned for my own wedding.
“Won’t we need the church’s permission to marry us?” I ask.
He holds up his gun. “This will grant us permission.”
Finn’s hold on my arm is a tight vise that I know I will not be able to escape from as we head up the church’s front steps. People walking by shout out their congratulations and I have to push down the urge to scream at them to shut up.
Finn is taking everything from me. My agency. My ability to find a good match. Taking love from me. I will never have it with him. He’s robbing me of my life.
We enter the church and Finn saunters in like he owns the place, ignoring the people in the pews praying. A priest stands at the end of the aisle, reading from the bible.
“We’d like to get married,” Finn says, his voice echoing in the large chamber.
The priest frowns and looks up. “I’m right in the middle of a sermon.”
“You see, Father, I don’t give a fuck. You’re going to marry me to this girl right now. As you can see, she’s all dressed in her finest to get married. You will grant us this.”
“Normally I discuss plans to marry someone in my church before the wedding day. We go over a schedule. I need to make sure that you’re catholic.”
“We’re catholic. Now marry us.” He says it so dismissively. I want to crawl under one of these pews and hide from Finn forever.
“That’s not how this works.”
“Ok then.” Finn pulls out his gun, making people in the church scream and run for the exit. “Will this make you marry us? I will shoot you, Father, if you don’t.”
“I’m, I’m calling the police,” he stutters, running towards a room at the back but Finn fires his gun into the air, making everyone drop to their stomachs.
“You won’t be calling anyone, Father. Get back on your feet and marry me and my fiancée and we’ll be out of your hair. No one has to get hurt. Simple as that.”
“This isn’t right.”
Finn scoffs. “Do I look like a man who does the right thing? Now get up.” He grabs the priest by his robes and jerks him to his feet. “Marry us. Everyone else is free to leave. For once, I’m not in the mood to go on a killing spree.”
Everyone else in the church runs away without hesitation, leaving behind me, Finn, and the priest. It feels like the start of a bad joke but this is my real life.
Finn nods at the priest. “Marry us.”
With trembling fingers, he grabs his bible. “Uh, all right. But you should know that this is not allowed under the eyes of the Lord. He will punish you for this. Your marriage will not be seen as real.”
“Father, I have done things that I know will make me end up in jail. And I suspect the same of you. Diddle any choirboys lately, Father?”
He gasps. “How dare you accuse me of such things.”
I don’t say a word. I’m hoping someone is calling the police right now and they’ll show up and kill Finn and I won’t have to actually marry him.
I just hope I won’t end up in jail myself. Dante will be able to get me out. Dante can do anything.
“Just marry us,” Finn growls.
The priest finally starts to recite the typical marriage vows I’ve heard from the countless weddings I’ve attended over the years. When you’re a part of the Mafia, you’ve been to a lot of weddings. So many arranged marriages. So many political alliances.
I just never thought my own wedding day would look like this.
When we get to the vows, Finn grabs my hands and forces me to look at him.
“Do you…” The priest hesitates. “What is your name?”
“Finn Murphy.”
“And the girl?”
“Aria Romano,” Finn answers for me. I’m not sure I can speak even if I wanted to. None of this is romantic. None of this is what I deserve. This feels like a cheap back door wedding that happens when you end up pregnant.
“Do you, Finn Murphy, take Aria Romano, to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
“I do,” Finn says with so much smugness, it almost makes me slap him.
“And do you, Aria Romano, take Finn Murphy, to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
“He’s forcing me into this,” I blurt out. “I don’t want this.”
Finn tightens his hands on my own. “Aria. You will do this.”
“Or what? What will you do to me? You need me to hurt Dante.”
“Or I could kill your father.” He says it so easily, like it’s nothing more than just breathing to him to talk about killing another human being.
I know Finn is right. He almost killed my dad last night. I cannot let that happen.
“Fine,” I spit out. “I’ll marry you. I do. I’ll marry him.”
The priest looks uncertain but when Finn flashes his gun again, the priest quickly finishes up the ceremony.
And it’s at that very moment that the church doors burst open and Dante, Matteo, and Aiden walk on in.
“Stop this fucking madness,” Dante growls, raising his gun.
“How did you find us?” Finn asks.
“You weren’t making it a secret, going around town, buying a wedding dress and wedding rings. We tracked your car, Finn. We found you here.”
“Mmm. Well, that’s a problem isn’t it? So, if you’re going to kill me, then kill me.” His eyes land on his brother. “But if you didn’t have the balls to once before, you won’t have them now.”
“He doesn’t need to do it,” Dante says. “I do.”
Finn grabs my arms and pulls me in front of him. “If you shoot, you’ll be shooting her too.”
“Seriously?” I ask. “You’re using me as a shield? How much of a coward can you be?”
“Dante won’t shoot you,” he murmurs into my ear. “This is the only way I’m making it out of here alive. It’s not cowardice.”
“Looks like it to me.”
Finn smirks. “So, Dante, want to shoot now?”
Dante hesitates, then lowers his gun. “Let her go, Finn.”
“Or what? You’ll kill me? We’ve seemed to establish that you suck at killing me. So, why don’t you quit posturing. I just married Aria. She’s mine now and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Why are you doing this?” Aiden asks. “Are you that hurt that I fell in love and married Elena?”
“I’ve got a woman of my own now.”
“Finn,” Matteo says. “We used to be friends. Just let Aria go and we can be friends again.”
“Bullshit. You’ll kill me.”
“You don’t think you deserve it?” Dante asks. “After all the shit you’ve pulled? Why are you trying to hurt me now, Finn?”
“I’ve been trying to hurt you for a long time. When I worked with Viktor. When I killed Ivan Romanov just to fuck over your peace deal with Erik. We were friends, Dante, but you sided with the fucking Russians and I just couldn’t have that.”
“If you had just agreed to work with me, then none of this would have happened. You wouldn’t be fighting so hard for your life right now and you know it. Just let Aria go and we can try again.”
“No. You’ll kill me. And I want you to suffer knowing I have Aria. I want you to feel pain every fucking day.” Finn fires off his gun towards Dante but misses as Dante dodges behind a pew.
Finn takes my arm and drags me towards the back of the church. I can hear the other men running after us. I try to drag my feet into the ground to keep Finn from leaving but he only scoops me up bridal style and hightails it out of the church.
Since we leave out the back, Finn has to run back around to the front to get to his car. Dante and the rest of them are right behind us. I know they’re not shooting so as to not hurt me but I wish they would just shoot Finn. Just kill him and set me free.
Finn practically throws me into the car and dives in himself. We take off down the road before Dante can reach us.
“We need to change cars,” he mutters.
“This is crazy. You should have just let me go. Maybe you could have reasoned with Dante.”
He shoots me a look like I’m the crazy one. “You know Dante is going to kill me the first chance he gets.”
He finds a parking garage and picks a car hidden behind a beam to steal.
“This is wrong,” I say.
“No offense, princess, but I don’t give a fuck.” He works on picking the lock.
“Hey!” Someone shouts. A man, running towards us. “That’s my car!”
With a growl, Finn shoots the man right in the head. I scream as the man’s blood splatters onto my beautiful white wedding gown.
“Why did you do that?”
“Because he would have called the cops on us and we need a new car now.”
“What about security cameras?”
“That’s why we’re hidden behind this beam.” Finn manages to unlock the car and picks up the man’s body and shoves it into the back seat. “See? None the wiser. Now get in.”
I stare at the man’s dead body. “No.”
“Aria, get in.”
“I do not want to go to jail because of you.”
For just a second, his eyes soften. “You won’t. Now, get in.”
With no other option, I get into the car. Finn digs through the man’s pockets, searching for the keys but it takes a while. Every second that passes, I become more aware of the dead body in the backseat. What if someone else heard the gunshot and finds us?
I wouldn’t survive in prison. I’m used to luxury too much to give it up.
Finn finally finds the keys and gets the car started and we drive away from the parking garage. “I’ll need to get rid of the body and the car before the police come looking.”
We drive for a while, leaving the city behind, before Finn finds a woodsy area. “I have a house around here.” He keeps driving through the woods until we reach a clearing with a large lake in the middle. “Perfect.” He shuts the car off. “Do you know how to dispose of a body?”
“Do I look like I know how?”
“Well, you’re going to help me.” He gets out of the car and motions for me to do the same. I don’t object. The less time I can spend around the dead man, the better.
Finn puts the man in the front seat and shoves his gun into the man’s hand after wiping his prints off of it. “Now, you’re going to help me push this car into the lake.”
“No.”
“Aria.
“No.”
He grabs my face and forces me to look at him. “You’re a part of this now, whether you like it or not.”
“You forced me to be here when you kidnapped me.”
“Well, you’re here now. Might as well get used to it.
You’re my wife now, which means you’re mine.
” He growls the word and it sends a shiver straight to my toes.
“So, you are going to help me push this car into that lake and we’re going to walk to my house.
Then we’re going to have our wedding night. ”
“You said you wouldn’t rape me.”
“And I meant it. But it’s still our wedding night. Might as well celebrate. Now, let’s start by getting rid of this body.”