Chapter Twenty-Five
In which all of the guests arrive for the wedding, and bring gifts even though Fee and Alec forgot to register.
An improvised landing strip in County Mayo …
The Bonadonna Family and the few members of the Lee Ville Industries security force that would be part of the mission traveled separately. They would start from their two points from opposite directions, meeting at the Cassidy Farm at roughly an hour before sunset.
If James Elkins had his way, the whole matter would have been left to the Bondonnas, his presence would be simply to confirm the Davies kill and to make certain that no one was left to talk about it after the fact.
Actually, if he’d had his way the kill would have happened quietly the night before the wedding, but Enzo Bonadonna, the patriarch of the Bonadonna family, was adamant that they make an example of the Davies’ and their friends and allies. There were several members of at least one other prominent crime family that were scheduled to attend, so this would be a way for the Bonas to write a warning to their other enemies in blood.
Signore Bonadonna and Mr. Ville hit it off immediately. Mr. Ville was delighted to finally have a proper in with a real, Sicilian mafiosi and Signore Bonadonna was more calmly pleased that he had a connection to a major American corporation that had factories in need of employees all around the globe.
None of that was James’ business or interest. Until, Signore Bonadonna started waxing nostalgic about when he was a younger man, when he was healthy and hale like Mr. Ville. “Back then, even five years ago, I would go and kill this maledetto bastardo, Davies myself. While my men took out all of those weak, tea-drinking soldiers of his, I would force him to his knees, meet the coward’s eyes, and blow his brains out all over the merda di pollo on that farm. But now, alas,” he gestured to the oxygen tank he was connected to, “I live only long enough to see this enemy dead on a fucking iPhone video.”
Which gave Mr. Ville an idea. One that James could not dissuade him from.
“Lot of empty land in this country,” Mr. Ville said, descending the steps of the small, luxurious jet that had brought them to within twenty miles of the Cassidy farm.
He wasn’t wearing spurs on his cowboy boots currently, a subtlety that James was grateful for. “Yes, sir.” His suit was expensive, yet somehow looked cheap on him, as if no fine wool, no designer styling, no number of fittings could make Mr. Ville look anything other than shady and venal.
“I bet land around here is real cheap. Real cheap. Keep it in mind for later,” he said to his assistant, a young man who very much wanted to be anywhere but where he was. Smart boy.
“Can’t believe how chilly it is here,” Mr. Ville said, “wouldn’t think it was summer. You have my pistola , Elkins?” His accent slid from Boston right down the eastern seaboard, cut west, and landed in the middle of Texas. Or rather, a Hollywood approximation of Texas.
“Yes, sir.” James’ success when he was in the trade hinged as much on acting as ruthlessness and skill with firearms and knives. Mr. Ville had no idea of the level of disdain he held him in as he handed him the case containing the Desert Eagle that he had insisted he had to have.
Nothing but the most offensively vulgar gun possible would suit Mr. Ville when it came to executing Mr. Davies.
Mr. Ville opened the case, gave the gun an unsettlingly horny smile and called out, “Let’s mount up boys, wouldn’t want to keep the bride waiting. Say,” he hit James on the upper arm in a friendly way that James found highly offensive, “don’t you think it would be romantic for me to take the bride out, too? Young lovers, slain by the same assassin. Nice, right?”
James nodded once, and started mentally punching up his resume.
Fiadh …
I was not too proud to admit I was up to 90, my nerves were that bad as the day went on and the wedding grew closer. It didn’t help that I was getting all of my information about the preparations second hand, as Sorcha and Meghan Emily ran up and down the stairs of the house relaying messages and running errands.
The whole floor had been handed over for bride stuff and for the mad techies, Terrence and Lucy to set up a command center. The only other men allowed up there were Charles and Grandad, who had stopped making his own nervous little visits to check on me once Sorcha’s impossibly elegant mother, the Lady Elspeth, had arrived leading what looked to be an army of haircare and make-up professionals.
He was quite taken with her, especially since Preet was working.
That she had brought her husband, Cormac Sr. was an unwelcome surprise to Alec, which infuriated me since there was fuck all I could do about it, stuck upstairs playing dress up. Apparently the man was wise enough to stay near the bar that had been set up next to the outdoor dance floor that covered what had until the day before been a patch of dirt that had been a dovecote years before until a freak storm took it and the doves out.
I had chosen the simplest dress I could find in the masses of fabric that had been deposited in my life. Ivory silk, a-line, ankle length so I could run in it, with straps instead of sleeves and a v-neck and a slightly low back.
I stood before the old oval full-length mirror that had been my Grandma’s and turned. It didn’t look half bad, and I planned toget it dyed black and shortened for later wear.
“Er, you can see all of your tattoos in that rig, Fee,” Sorcha had said. “Ma will be havin’ kittens.”
“I paid good money for these, and the artists who created them are some of the finest in the world. What better jewelry could I have?”
“But one of them is a snake,” she said, pointing to where my favorite tattoo coiled about my upper arm.
“A poor, badly endangered fella, he is. And I think he’s pretty,” I added, stroking where the snake’s head rested on my shoulder.
“Kittens, she’ll be havin’ kittens,” she muttered, wandering out of the room to get dressed herself. “Litters of them.”
There had been a massive ta-do about the shoes as well, but eventually Sorcha and the stylist, Georgia, that had been sent to help get me ready agreed that in this one case a flat-heel made logistical sense. I wondered if the cream leather would take a dye as well, as they were more comfortable than I could have hoped.
Georgia then started opening a large number of cases. Makeup that cost more than some folks spent on a week of dinners, in a massive range of colors with idiot names like “ink whisper” and “doll dream” and “gear shift.”
Haircare products from Korea and Paris, along with custom-made brushes and combs and picks and the like.
She turned to me with a stern expression that said, “I’ve sorted out worse than you before. ”
No, she hadn’t.
“Illamasqua Beyond Foundation LG1. MAC Relentlessly Red lipstick. Black eyeliner and mascara, your choice, no smoky eye. And if you touch my hair you’ll have to learn to apply primer with your toes.”
Her gulp was heard in heaven.
After she left, having done a fine job despite a bit of shaking, I sat on the trunk at the end of my bed fiddling with my bouquet.Half yellow Irish primroses, half Scottish purple ones. It was pretty and thoughtful.
Alec had picked it out, because I’d forgotten to say what I wanted for them. I took one of each and pressed them in my retrieved copy of The Monkey Wrench Gang .
Looking out the window at where the last guests were being seated, I had to admit the farm looked fine. Armsful of indigenous flowers and vines decorated everything, long swags of them forming the border of the dance floor, and an arch of them stood where the priest would be soon.
Rather than the usual white folding chairs that caterers used, seats of woven willow stood in rows, and the tables for the meal that no one would get to eat were decorated with living plants and pillars of soy candles in hurricane lamps.
Despite my threats, the groom and his men - Alastair, a flustered Charles, and an older man whose only name seemed to be Jones - Grandad and Da were dressed in designer, black tie tuxes, as were the MacTavishi, the whole, entire fuck tonne of them.Honestly, with the size of the attending fellas there was probably a serge wool shortage in Europe.
Everyone was dressed gorgeously, getting their nice shoes dirty and not seeming to mind, having a glass or two of pre-wedding champagne, or ginger ale in champagne glasses if they would be shooting later, whilst the band played a soft version of “Galway Girl.”
And it didn’t rain a drop.
For a moment I wondered if I should have invited Ma after all, but enough people I loved were in danger today as it was. And I did love her. Liking was a different thing entirely. Anyway, having her there would have been a step too close to a real wedding, which was a thing I’d never seriously considered.
Even now.
What Alec and I had was wild and wonderful, but it couldn’t last. My values, my people, they meant too much to me. They made me who I was and the same was true for him. One day, probably very soon, it would end and if my heart was broken from it, I’d not gotten into a war for the earth without thinking I’d take a few injuries.
Maybe even one that would kill me slowly.
At that maudlin moment, a soft knock came at the bedroom door, “Are you decent, girl?” Grandad had pulled himself away from the Lady Elspeth, or maybe one of the daggers her husband was looking at him had found its mark.
“No more than I usually am. Come on in.”
He had two glasses of champagne. The real ones. “One won’t hurt either of us, eh?” he said, handing me a coup, sitting next to me on the chest. “It’s good stuff, if you don’t have a bottle of Teelings.”
I took a sip. It tasted like nothing and bubbles to me. The nerves, I supposed, or the weird knot of sadness.
“If this were an actual wedding I’d tell you the truck was around the side of the house, filled with petrol and the keys in the ignition. And based on the look on your face I bet you’d take it.”
I leaned against him as I hadn’t since I was a girl. He was still strong as an oak, but his arm was thinner than it used to be, his shoulder bonier. “What a mess. I’m sorry, I should never have brought him here and caused this trouble.”
“Eh, I like a bit of trouble. Keeps me young.”
“But the far-”
“Fee, I love this farm. I’ve loved it since I was born here, in this house. There isn’t a day, even a bad one, that I haven’t felt my good fortune to have always had the life I wanted. Even when my Fiadh died, getting up to work the fields and look after the animals kept me going until my heart started up again.And I tell you now, I would burn every acre, every out building, this house that my great-grandfather built, to the fucking ground if it spared you one moment of sorrow. Now get the rest of that drink into you, we have a fake wedding to get going.”
“You know,” I said, careful not to sniffle, to keep from turning into a panda, “Da’s gonna be awfully sad when he finds out the truth. He’s that fond of Alec. Maybe we should have told him.”
“I love my boy, he’s better than all the rest of us balled up, but he has the sense of a turnip. Best to do as we’ve done.”
Alec…
When Fee walked down the flower-strewn path from the farmhouse to me, she was everything I never could have imagined I wanted. Beautiful, incandescent in that dress and yet, still very much Fee with that sly look in her hazel eyes.
Alastair stood beside me, no nudges or jokes, knowing the seriousness of this mission yet still caught in the moment with me. I wanted this to be real. I very much wanted the woman walking toward me to be my wife, and once a hugely grinning Martin gave her a hug and proudly presented her to me, I kissed her hands.
“You are everything I don’t deserve,” I whispered.
“Well, I know that,” she whispered back.
Father Barclay, a tall, stooped man who looked like an angular crow, cleared his throat with a weary expression on his weathered face, as if he’d been in this position many times before and wasn’t looking forward to it. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here together…”
There were forty people witnessing the ceremony, every one of us battle-hardened, even Fee’s cohorts, and grimly prepared to kill everyone Lee Ville threw at us. In that moment though, everyone sighed as we spoke our vows, chuckling when Fee dropped my ring and there was a bit of a scramble to find it so she could slide it on my finger.
What was happening to me? When she said, “I do,” a huge grin spread across my face and I nearly kissed her then, impatiently inserting “I do,” almost before Father Barclay could ask for it. Another bit of laughter wafted through the audience of crime lords and eco-warriors.
“In the sight of God and these witnesses, I now pronounce you husband and wife,” he said, slapping the Bible shut with a poorly concealed sigh of relief and added, “You may-”
A flower arrangement by the front gate shattered, yellow and white petals spraying like a blizzard as the clear sound of a bullet rang out in the quiet across the clearing.
For just an instant before my brain switched into single-focus battle mode, there was fury that Lee Ville and those Sicilian fucks didn’t have the common decency to let me kiss my bride first.
Then a burst of gunfire shattered the moment and it was on. I yanked my jacket off and forced it over Fee’s arms.
“What-”
“The jacket is bulletproof; I have a Kevlar vest on. Grab the priest please. ”
Fee seized a sputtering Father Barclay and nimbly rolled him under the raised dais, also reinforced against bullets. Alastair shoved one of Dmytro’s remodified Kalasnikovs in my hands.
“They’re closing in from the east and west,” he shouted over the gunfire, “they’re trying to trap us between the river and the road.”
“Got it.” I seized his arm, squeezing hard and hoping he understood.
A quick grin split his grim expression, “I hope there’s a cake left to cut. It looks fucking delicious.” And he was off.
Our men in Gilly suits flew up from their foxholes on the outer perimeter of the farm, most too far away for me to spot but the sound of their bullets cracked through the clearing like thunder. The percussive wave of returning gunfire was just as loud.
I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, a drone, massive and hovering over the wedding party. The MacTavish aerial surveillance drones were small and unobtrusive. This giant fucker had to belong to Lee Ville, the man I looked forward to killing only slightly less than my wanting to kiss Fee. I didn’t even bother to fix the sight on the rifle, just spraying bullets in the drone’s general direction and watching it disintegrate spectacularly into minute bits of metal and plastic.
Charles took the Lady Elspeth's arm, or she took his, it was hard to tell who was leading who but they raced to the farmhouse. Fee’s girl Meghan Emily had my mother’s hand as they ran, keeping their heads low. Sorcha tried to grab Martin, who was turning in little circles by the overturned flower arch wailing, “What’s happening? This isn’t right! Did one of the cows get loose?”
I groaned when a spurt of blood tore through his tuxedo jacket and he stumbled. Sorcha threw his arm over her shoulder and muscled him through the front door of the farmhouse.
Fee would never fucking forgive me if her father died… I would never forgive myself either. Gentle, kind Martin deserved better than this.
Furious, I fired toward the little grove of trees hiding the Sicilians. I could recognize the particular staccato blare of the Beretta ARX-160s they were so fond of using. Branches tore apart into splinters and revealed four men, all very dead in a matter of seconds, though I could feel the high whine of a bullet passing my shoulder and a grunt.
“Cameron!”
He was on his side, his leg streaming blood but his wife Mala was already covering him, angrily firing off her Mossberg and decimating what was left of the little grove.
The barn doors flew open and a monstrously large piece of farm equipment came rumbling out, Fintan steering the thing with one knee as he fired his ancient shotgun. The razor-sharp wiring of the front of the machine must have been meant to do something with hay, but instead, it mowed down a shocked clump of Lee Ville’s hired help, raining blood and body parts on the grass and stones.
A body flew past me - likely one of the Sicilians based on the cursing - as the ram guarding Noreen charged another soldier, hitting him so hard from behind that he flew toward the well, landing badly with his head hanging over the cobblestone edge.
Raul raced over, grabbing his ankles and about to upend him down into the well until Fintan roared, “Don’t you fuckin’ dare, lad! I drink from that!”
Based on the angle of the man’s neck, I believe the ram had broken it, so no need for the well, anyway. Noreen had another soldier’s arm between her teeth, propitiously, the arm holding his gun, which fell in the mud as he screamed.
Sight. Fire. Repeat .
I did my job, trying to keep count of how many bodies fell and praying that none of them were ours.
Keeping low, Kyle and I ran for a weak spot near the south pasture where someone with an excellent knowledge of explosives and how to use them was breaking through our perimeter defense.
In the haze of smoke and hay flying like confetti, I could see a slender Black man in a dark suit, calmly firing off grenades from an RPG-40 held to his shoulder. The recoil on a gun like that was vicious, but he barely twitched as he pulled the trigger.
“The Ghost, I presume,” I said, ducking as a clot of rocks and mud flew past us.
Kyle tilted his head, listening to the chatter on his headset. “Preet and one of Fee’s people, Raul, I think? They’ve taken out the oldest Bonadonna son Edoardo and his security unit. That should kill the old Don even if your assassin doesn’t.”
The next explosion was far too close for comfort. “We have to take this fucker out,” I said. “I’ll circle left, you circle right.”
“Sir,” Kyle’s blood-sprayed face was grim. “My first responsibility is to you, always, I don’t think we should separate.”
“Go!” I shouted in his face and with a groan, he obeyed.
My Kevlar vest was doing the Lord’s work, keeping bullets off me, but my useless tuxedo trousers ripped under the rough, shorn stalks of broom and cut my knees up quite well. Fintan should be pleased , I thought.
The Ghost was still calmly, methodically firing, six of his men lying dead around him. He was moving every few seconds, making a headshot difficult. There was no question that he was wearing a bulletproof vest, so my shot had to be…
“Kyle,” I whispered into my headset, “fire into that bush to his left.”
The bullets rang out and when the Ghost whirled in that direction, I took my shot. His head exploded in a red mist.
“Fuck…” Kyle grunted.
“Did he get you?”
“No, there’s a rock face back here, I just slipped down it,” he said, voice harsh with pain. He must have done more than just slip.
And then I did the most foolish thing, a rookie’s mistake. I was out of bullets. And I stood up.
“Hey, motherfucker. Ya’lls been a real thorn in my side.”
Lee Ville in all his false Texan finery had a Desert Eagle aimed at my head, the gigantic gun making his hand look like a child’s. A chuckle bubbled up before I could stop it.
“What the fuck are you laughing at?” he shouted angrily. “I’m about to blow a hole in your chest that I could drive an 18-wheeler through!” Still ranting, he stepped over his headless man, getting closer. “This was going to be so easy! You being my entry into UK construction projects! Then you get all pissy? Those guys I sent to the farm didn’t even kill you and you mess with my business? This is what happens when I outsource critical operations. My gun here is going to cut you right in half, you stupid motherf-”
The tip of his big cowboy boot caught in the stubbled roots in the field and he tripped, falling to his knees. I clubbed him over the head with my rifle, grabbed his ridiculous pistol, and I shot him.
No need for a long goodbye. He was an asshole.