Chapter 60
Lily
" R yan!" I swung the door open and it wasn't Ryan, it was Matt, standing in front of the mirror in his wedding suit.
His eyes met mine in the reflection as he was buttoning his cuff and my goodness, what a heartthrob. The sun was blasting into the room, shining off his eyes, making the blue in them shimmer like crystals against his pale blue suit. His short brown hair was messy and he had a bit of a shadow of a beard going on contrary to his usual shaven face. I had forgotten what I'd opened the door for.
"Wow." My mouth went dry and I licked my lips.
Matt smiled and sent my heartbeat skyrocketing. He turned to walk toward me and the 'tha-dunk' of my heart racked my body. He was mine. All mine.
"Isn't it bad luck to see the groom in his suit before the wedding?" He brought his full brows together.
You would have thought that I was sitting front row at the show of the funniest person in the world the way I laughed hard. No, not laugh. Giggle, like a nervous inexperienced forty-year- old virgin, but the woman version. I am not shy. And not at all inexperienced. The fuck? Yet, I reveled in the burst of butterflies fluttering in my stomach.
Flushed, my fingers yearned to reach across the feet of distance between us and pull him in closer. Not to worry, he closed the distance. I reached up and smoothed my hands over the smooth, expensive fabric, not wanting to wrinkle it.
"I think that only applies to the bride." I was breathless in my response.
He pulled me into his embrace, but I needed to capture this moment of perfection before I ended up ruining the suit by climbing up his body like a tree.
"Wait there." I stepped out of his embrace and smoothed the material again.
He grinned and turned on his heels. "What are you doing?"
"Capturing the moment, silly." I grinned back, patting my pockets and remembering Marco. Right, no phone.
Matt was checking himself out in the mirror. As he should. I could barely keep my eyes off him even as I searched through the discarded clothes for his phone.
"Ah, there it is." I picked it up, happy enough to shove the reawakened memory of Marco's attempt to ruin my happiness to the back of my mind.
"Wait, what are you doing?" The low and slow tease of Matt's flirty tone had left the room. I looked up at the alarm in his voice.
Confused, I grinned. "I just told you."
As I tapped open the camera app, he launched forward. "No, it's bad luck!"
"Woah! Take a chill pill!" I laughed, hopping over the opened shoe box and running away with the phone.
He chased me.
"No, Lily. Seriously, give me my phone." He was begging now.
"Relax. I didn't know you took superstitions so seriously. Fine. I'll just google it." I lied, raising the phone to snap the picture of him going super crazy so we could laugh at it later.
But in the game of hopscotch and dodgeball, my finger slipped and opened his previously recorded videos. I saw my handsome man looking distressed. This was filmed a couple of days ago.
"Is this what you didn't want me to see?" I asked, turning the phone around to him. "Are you getting cold feet?" I teased and pressed play.
"Lily, no! Give me back my phone!" He all but wailed.
Opening the balcony door, I stepped outside and locked it, grinning.
I started regretting taking it too far as he tapped on the glass, panic turning his pupils into stony onyx. Damn, I didn't want my man to have a heart attack.
'I know lying to Lily is wrong. The guilt is eating me up.'
Wh-what? I glitched. My eyes left his and locked onto the phone. Heat wrapped itself around me. Tiny sweat beads turned into droplets. Yet, I was frozen, unable to do anything but continue to listen.
The Matt in the video let out a heavy sigh, rubbed at his forehead and brushed his hand over his hair.
' Every day I wrestle with the truth. I force it to the back of my head, pretending it isn't weighing heavily on my chest. But I can't tell her this. I'll lose her forever.'
The phone was weightless against my fingertips, my chest was tight and the lump in my chest swelled to a concerning limit. Tell me what?
' 'Fuck! How can I enter into this marriage, look her in the eyes, promise to love her and not lie to her, when I'm hiding the biggest secret of all...'
I already knew what was coming and I started to shut down, needing him not to say it, needing to keep it buried.
' We killed her father and that asshole who kidnapped her.'
The phone slipped from my hand and crashed to the ground. There was no air left as I raised my head to look up at the glass door, and at the stranger looking back at me. Tears were streaming down his face.
The phone, despite the sharp crack, was still playing.
' Technically, me, Ethan and Eric just stabbed them.'
My knees gave out and I swayed, staring at the devil of a phone. How much more fucking stupid could I have been? Was I that desperate to be loved?
' Fuck, and Ryan. Carrying that burden, being the only one who delivered a deadly blow. Well, him and Tyler. Shit! How could we have been so fucking stupid?! Thank fucking goodness Tyler used his fucking mob ties for good, once in his fucking life, and got this shit covered up.'
'Matt?' My voice broke through his monologue, disorienting me as my mouth fell open.
'Shit!' He swore and the audio ended.
I needed a second. Fuck that, I needed to get out of here and get my head sorted out. What the hell had I just listened to?
Tyler had mob ties?
He and Ryan had killed my rat father and his accomplice.
They had all STABBED them.
ALL OF THEM.
I'd been living with murderers. Sleeping with them in my bed. My mother was all the way out of her mind, and even she had seen it before I did. They had beaten Marco up. Given him an excuse to contact me again.
My head became an over-pumped balloon. I was about to marry four men who were worse than Marco.
I thought I'd healed. But I was still this fucking desperate.
I had believed their lies. Fallen for fucking murderers. How much lower could I get?