Chapter 20
Scarlett
“Do you have butterflies?” Treasure asks me, doing my nails as Bastian helps me keep an eye on my messages. There’s a lot going on today to get ready for this wedding. We’re driving a classic car motorcade over to the church, me and all my girls. Me and my…grooms.
“Butterflies? The fuck is that?” I ask with a husky laugh, like I don’t give a single shit that I’m having some big mob wedding today.
This isn’t just a piece of paper and an expensive party, this is me publicly declaring that I’m now associated with an underground crime syndicate.
Burt better have a contract in hand by the time I’m done with this.
I’m thinking, seven figures to start. I’m worth seven figures easy as a lead. “Bats, maybe.”
“I have butterflies,” Alexei admits, weirdly open about his feelings.
It’s all born out of confidence. He genuinely doesn’t give a fuck about that stuff.
He has the power to be open without his own feelings being used against him.
It’s hot as shit. Making love last night was crazy.
We had such a moment. My stomach explodes with bubbles, and I take a sip of my spiked morning coffee to get through it.
Adrenaline. See, I’m Scarlett Force. I can’t even have a wedding without violence in the air.
“Can I get you anything else?” Ash asks Gram, trying his best to smile at her. He’s on edge though, anticipating seeing his father in the audience. Ash has a right to be wary, but I won’t let him down. There’s nothing Jonas can do to separate us. I’ve created a safety net for the men I love.
Every single person in this marriage is vital to our survival.
Patricia pushes her empty plate back, having finished the breakfast that Ash made for her.
“No, thank you.” She picks up her coffee, focusing on me instead. “I haven’t even seen your dress.”
We’ve barely spoken in weeks. That’s what I want to say. I look up at her, past Treasure’s exquisite touch-ups. Orgies can also be rough on a manicure. Oops.
“You’re going to hate it,” I admit with a tiny little shrug of one shoulder. Bohnes leans down to whisper in my ear, the scent of juniper and burnt sugar clinging to his trench coat. He hasn’t put his tux on just yet.
“I’ve finished kitting out all our cars, just in case. We all have gear, if we need it. Ropes, tarps, industrial cleaning compounds.” He presses a kiss to my cheek as Patricia stares at the pair of us with clear confusion in her gaze.
I tried to explain my relationship with the men this morning over coffee, just her and me standing in the kitchen. It’s the longest conversation we’ve had since Alexis died, and it didn’t go over particularly well.
Gram is trying, but it’s hard. She did everything she could to keep me away from this Prescott shit and instead, I did her one better and tied in with the mob.
Add on the whole ‘I’ve lost my mind and collected several murderous psychopaths to marry’ bit and it’s just all sorts of misunderstanding on both our parts.
Patricia even yelled at me about sex and birth control, despite knowing it’s far too late for that.
“Nothing is going to keep me from walking with you down that aisle,” I promise Bohnes, and he nods, standing up straight and reaching out a hand to caress my cheek with his pale fingers.
“They’d have to kill me first, but even then, at least we could be buried together. I just need my bones beside yours.”
A mug slams down on the table, interrupting our love affair.
“You have a marriage license but not a high school diploma,” Gram breathes, and I sigh, lifting up a hand to pat Bohnes on the cheek.
Good monster. Sweet monster. I’m weirdly stressed about him in particular.
Widow seems like an easier target for Jonas—underage, violating his parole, blood on his hands—but I feel like that’s me thinking too basic.
If I were Jonas, and I wanted to unravel everything, I would target Bohnes.
I’m getting paranoid about it. I asked him to move no more than five feet away from me today and he agreed, no arguments there.
Only exception will be when we’re driving.
The more cars the better, each of us in our own.
That makes it harder for Jonas to know who to target.
Also, if we swap cars a bunch, he won’t know who’s driving what.
“I’ll have a diploma,” I assure her, having already made the decision to blackmail Principal Vaughn.
Frankly, if I hadn’t promised myself not to randomly murder every scumbag in town (I’d have to kill a good half of the population to do right by Prescott), I’d end that guy.
Why not put Vaughn at knifepoint and use the evidence I have against him in order to get me and my crew graduated?
Snow Day, that’s when I’ll do it.
Widow walks into the room, freshly groomed by Jack.
Perfect hair. Smooth face. The eyes of a wild animal.
In his hand, he’s holding a book. He found out there was a library in this massive fucking house and nearly had a fit this morning trying to come to terms with the fact that he lives here now.
He took a random classic with him when he stormed out, angrily reading it while getting his hair done in the room next door.
Alexei almost gagged at the sight of hair on his pristine floor, but Jack is a professional. He’ll clean it all up.
“You guys ready to put your tuxes on?” Adrian asks, giving me a look. I think Widow’s finally coming around to the idea that this is his wedding, too. His ceremony. Our ceremony.
I figured out exactly how to do that in front of everyone—including Jonas. How clever am I?
“Ready.” I answer for the other boys, accepting my hand back from Treasure and checking my nails. Perfection.
Gram purses her lips. Sips her coffee. I had my girls pick her up a very nice dress and she accepted it, begrudgingly.
I sigh as I continue through the kitchen and up the stairs, wearing a robe and house slippers.
I got up early and spent an entire hour soaking in the bathhouse, my limbs loose and floppy despite this momentous occasion in my life.
You know those spaghetti intersections in big cities? Those spots where like fifty highways cross over each other, underpasses and overpasses, cement and gravity, and a million fucking possibilities under your tires?
I am right fucking there.
Once in the room, I stare at the four identical tuxes laid across the (freshly made, heh) bed.
My cheeks are hot. I’m honestly and truly disgusted by my own behavior. That half-human part of me is fucking determined to show itself in the presence of my lovers.
“Don’t tell me who’s wearing which mask.” I pick up one of the wooden masks that they wore during our sex ritual the other night and put it up to my face. It’s the demon this time, the one Bohnes was wearing. I peer at him through the eye holes.
The game is this: matching gloves on their hands to hide the tattoos, black balaclavas, oni masks.
Nobody will know which guy is which. Killing Alexei will trigger the full force of the entire mob, not just the small group of men that’s in town currently.
It’ll pit the head of the family directly against Jonas and Chet.
We’ll say this is for the groom’s security, to keep him safe. But we’ll be lying. This is more for the safety of the other three than it is for Alexei. Works great either way.
We’ll all be up on the dais at the front of the church together.
I’ll be wearing a slutty dress in a place with fifty-foot-tall cathedral ceilings and stained glass.
Walking down a red carpet runner like we’re at a premiere while hundreds of guests, including my crew and my grandma, watch the show from pews on either side.
Afterwards, a raging Prescott afterparty in a multimillion-dollar mansion.
It’s just how we roll.
“Cars should be random picks today. We go nowhere without a motorcade.” I move away from the bed, pausing next to the rolling rack with my dress on it. The hat and veil are absolutely ridiculous. I’ll need my girls to help me with them when we arrive at the venue, not beforehand.
“I’m still going to drive the Chevelle,” Bohnes tells me, like he’s already forgotten that I’m the boss.
He holds up a hand when I turn a glare over my shoulder.
The boys are getting dressed here, obviously.
Keeping the mystery of their identities is important.
Also, I want to cause a scene, so I’m getting my dress on here, too.
“Before you argue with me, hear me out.”
Alexei is stripping already, making his way into the shower.
I don’t say a word, not even if it’s his fifth shower today.
He slept almost thirty minutes last night before waking up and running to the bathroom.
The fact that he still came back to that dirty bed afterward is a testament to his inner strength.
It was covered in the feminine red rage of my triumphant blood.
See? I could totally be a witch. If last night wasn’t a blood ritual, then what was it?
“I’m listening.” I turn back to the dress, realizing that Ash is standing right beside me.
“Can I help you put it on?” he asks, this dizzying eagerness in his words. I’m slowly coaxing him out of his melancholy malaise. This is progress, and it’s sensitive, tender. I want to be gentle with Ash, so that he’ll fully relax with me.
He looks fully relaxed right now.
“I, uh, yeah.” I shrug, like it’s not a big deal when it’s the biggest deal of all.
Today is more than the mob and the mayor, it’s the five of us, existing in another space even while all of this shit is going on. That’s what being in love is like, as if we’re the core of the entire universe.