Brooklyn (Kings of New York #3)

Preface

Wedding Blast

Deja

I stand in the mirror looking at myself in my wedding gown. This is one of three. One for tonight and two for ….

I turn as Tasha places a hand on my forearm. She looks me in my eyes with concern. I already know what she’s thinking.

I’m okay with this.

“I have so much respect for you. You know I love you like a sister, right?” she says as she holds my face between her hands while she presses her forehead to mine as we stand in the bridal suite the girls created for me here at the manor in Dublin.

“I love you too. I’m doing nothing you guys wouldn’t do for me.”

“I thought LaSalle was lying when he told me what you two planned to do. You and Brooklyn were made for each other.

“This is crazy. Balls to the wall doesn’t have to be your preset. We could have handled this a different way. We still can,” she replies, looking me deep in my eyes.

“What fun would that be? Besides, I know a little boy who says this is the way. I get two, one covered in red, the other in white. Irish bells toll for death, wedding bells ring on a Scottish night,” I repeat the words Sammy told me.

Tasha sighs. “But the blue eyes haunt the night as she stands out of sight. Yeah, yeah, the boy was singing the same thing all last night.”

“That bitch is making my ass itch. I can’t wait for Misha to pull a blade across her throat,” Misha’s wife says.

“You and me both,” Tasha mumbles.

“This will bring us closer to the end. Ya wait and see.”

“This should all be over already. Enough is enough. Haven’t we sacrificed enough? This isn’t right,” Pam says.

“Everyone will be safe. The children and our families will be protected. I have done everything to make sure everything happens as I was told,” Sim says.

“I know ya have, love. Breathe, ladies. I know what I’m in for. Ye all are taking the joy out of me wedding day. Please, can we finish getting me ready?”

“Your wedding day,” Tasha snorts. “How are you so calm? I told LaSalle you were crazy.”

She rolls her eyes and snorts. “He laughed at me. Then he told me to think about who your best friend is.”

“Hey, stop trying to act like you don’t live in Crazy Town with the rest of us. You might hide it well, but you live right on our street and have tea parties with us every week,” Val says from behind me as she fixes my veil.

“Shops with me often,” Dean sings as she sits with a huge gift box resting on her lap.

“I know that’s right,” Val says.

“DJ, this is for you. Will you come open it?” Dean says, pointing to the box with a huge smile on her face.

I turn and go to sit next to her in the spot she pats beside her. She helps me slide the box into my lap. With excitement coursing through me, I lift the lid off the gift.

“You didn’t think we would let you do this without the right equipment, now did you?” Dean says.

“But how—”

“I might have let it slip that you asked me for adjustments. Not to Cole, but I was talking to Val and Tasha as they made the same request and ...” Sim trails off and begins to chew on her lip.

“I’m glad she did say something. We all know you ain’t shit with two Glocks in your hands.”

I glare at Val and roll my eyes. I’m not even going to go there with her about this again. Not everyone can be freaking John Wick. I get things done when it counts. We all know this.

“This is your something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue,” Dean says ignoring the rest of them.

“Borrowed? How is it borrowed or blue?”

Dean lifts the rifle with the airholes from the box as if weighing it in her hands. “It’s borrowed because this is one of my favorites. I want it back. It’s new and blue because Lovie modified the trigger. Making it old but with a little something new. It still works like a dream, trust me.”

I take the rifle and examine the matte-blue-finished trigger. Lovie never fails to amaze me. This is a work of art.

“Well, I say yer ready to get married, ya are,” Laoise says.

I look to Dean’s mother-in-law and smile. She gets me. One is enough.

Brooklyn

“Do you, Cole O’Brien, take this woman to forever be the love of your life?” Uncle Joe says.

I grin at the words Deja and I decided to use for this night. They suit us and who we are. As I look down into her brown eyes, my heart fills with so much love for her.

“Aye, I do,” I say.

If there is one thing I know for sure, it’s that I love this woman standing here before me. Her wedding day is meant to be about her. Yet she’s allowed us to make this evening about something else.

She says we didn’t have a choice. I don’t believe that. Everything leading to this day has been a choice. Some choices were right, others were dead wrong.

I’m trusting this is one of the right ones. As long as everything goes according to plan, it will be. We need to give Misha and Uri the window to bring this all to an end.

We’ll catch the fox tonight once and for all. She wants my DJ. The one who got away. Someone was taken from her, and she wants to take from us.

While The Alliance is established, it’s the little bullshit like this we’re still cleaning up. The pieces Phoebe Romaine warned us about and the parts her grandson is still filling in. We will reign supreme.

Everything has its time and place. I have to remind myself of this constantly. One minute, we’re all ready to move forward with our lives, the next, something is trying to pull us back into our past.

I never wanted our wedding to be in this place. The thought of doing this in Ireland makes my skin crawl. This manor would probably jinx us if this were the wedding we have planned for Scotland.

After all, if these walls could talk, they would tell a tale of a madman. Aye, it was me. No need to whisper or speculate about it. I, “Brooklyn” Cole Patrick O’Brien, killed Oland O’Brien’s sorry ass. He deserved it.

I didn’t care who agreed with it; I only wanted him dead. When I want something, I make it happen. I could tell from the look in his eyes he understood that with his final breath.

“And do you, Deja Walsh, take this man to forever be the love of your life?” Uncle Joe says, pulling me from my thoughts.

“Aye, I’ll take him,” she says with a smile.

Everyone laughs and my smile grows wider. I love her smart ass. We’ve been bantering back and forth for years.

From those days when she wore bangs and pigtails while in a softball uniform, giving me shit about how Americanized I had become. I looked forward to every summer I would get to come back. Her smart mouth was something I longed for.

“The time is now. Two minutes.”

The words are spoken into my ear by the boy we’re all banking everything on. I reach beneath my tux jacket and pull the two Glocks from my holsters. At the same time, I step on the pedal beside my foot.

Smoke fills the air, giving my guys time to get into position and pull their weapons.

I look around to make sure things are going to plan.

At first glance, it seems to have worked like a charm; all guests who aren’t meant to be above ground vanish.

All except my bride and her bridesmaids.

Instead of falling to safety, they all pull guns of their own.

I don’t have time to process what’s happening as my bride pulls a semi-auto rifle of her own from beneath her dress and all hell breaks loose as the smoke settles. A bullet whizzes by my head and an explosion goes off, causing me to snap back into focus.

Uncle Joe has already moved into action with my cousins and brothers. This is happening whether I want it or not. All the arguing was for nothing.

I should have known better. This woman will go to death’s door standing right beside me, time and time again. As I glance out the corner of my eye, I have one thought.

These motherfuckers are getting more than the Alliance tonight; they have awoken the Bellas. Shit move.

“Ya will get over it, but I won’t get over losing ya. Focus, Cole. I told ya, this is my world too,” DJ calls at me.