CHAPTER 17
Luna
“I wish I knew what to say.” Ellie looks worried behind me in the mirror.
Mia next to her looks as defeated as I feel.
We all look ridiculous in our normal clothes and remaining circus make up.
I managed to drag out the reception for hours, as long as I could, but it’s over now. The limo is waiting.
“Congratulations. To. Me.”
I nod, “I will, but it’ll all be much harder now. Annulments, divorces, they’re just not done in our world.”
“True,” Ellie says. “I did try, I begged Mark to pull all his strings, look for other partnership options, he has contacts in Boston, and New York. We actually got in a huge fight over it,” she sniffs and I give her a small smile in the mirror.
I watched like a hawk today, carefully noting all the people who came up and greeted my new husband.
The senator was not among them. He even avoided the receiving line, sending Ellie to congratulate us by herself.
He is not like Ellie’s dad and uncle, who pretend to be businessmen in their communities.
Quinn does zero pretending. So it figures a prominent US Senator can’t be seen with a known killer.
She goes on, “He made some calls, but the crux of it is that no one wants anywhere near Skulls Quinn.”
I laugh, “I understand the feeling.”
Mia touches my arm, “At least he’s not hideous in person. Today with his face clean shaven he looked almost…normal?”
Hot.
He looked hot. Not in a cover model way.
And the hot pink pants and suspenders over his crisp white shirt looked all wrong.
But there’s an underlying current in him and around him.
It’s scary. In fact, I should probably get myself checked out with a shrink because would anyone in their right mind be drawn to that?
I am. He’s hot in a I’m-the-most-powerful-man-in-any-room-at-any-time kind of way.
And what the hell was that kiss?
I prepared for something weird or bad. I mean, he’s a madman who decapitates people. I thought at worst he might do some licking or biting. At best, I was expecting his kiss to be quick, formal, and cold.
But everything about that kiss was warm.
I swear I even heard him groan at the end.
Like, he liked it? Does that mean he likes me?
Not possible. The fake me I’ve shown him is unbearable.
I suppose there is the packaging. Just like I’m sitting here almost blushing about his hotness on the outside, maybe he’s been imagining me naked with duct tape over my whiny mouth.
I gulp.
“Damn it, guys, what if he wants bloody sheets? Our fathers have both made jokes about it but Quinn doesn’t react, he just ignores them,” they both just grimace at me. “Right. My odds are not great.”
Ellie treads lightly, “You’ve actually talked to him, we haven’t. Does he seem like the type to…”
“Rape you?” Mia rips the bandaid right off the conversation.
“Ugh! I don’t know! I mean, my virginity is legend at this point. And he is a mafia don, he’s going to want to stake his claim. He honestly hasn’t seemed interested enough to force me. He hasn’t copped any feels or stared at my cleavage or anything.”
“Good! Then just keep wearing weird clothes and keep yourself covered and maybe he won’t go there,” Mia helps me slip on my jacket as Ellie zips up the last of my carry on bags.
I just don’t know. There’s so much I don’t know about the man, his family, the house, the dogs, the beheading. It’s too much.
My throat is scratchy and tears well up, “Remember when I was griping about marrying Bosco and having boring, slow missionary sex the rest of my life?”
“Hey,” my best friend puts her hands on my shoulders and stretches to her full height.
“Listen, whatever happens tonight, you can get through it. You will get through it. You are way too strong and have worked way too hard and too long to get spooked now.” I start to sigh but she grips me harder and leans down a tiny bit so we’re eye to eye.
“If he gets mean, use your hours of training and kick him in the balls. Use knives, hide a gun up your skirt. Hell, actually shoot him if you need to! All the things I’d be too terrified to do because I have never prepared like you have.
Because you trained to be a don, Luna. You may not be the boss here but you are a boss. No more crying.”
“You’re right,” I say but I don’t believe it. She glares at me. “You’re right.” My confidence builds as I keep nodding. “I can. I can do this.”
“You can do this!” Mia agrees.
She looks me up and down. I’m wearing a horrible bright yellow suit that makes me look like a low-budget airline flight attendant.
“Grab your weird dog and your weird little hat and scarf and go annoy the shit out of your new husband. By the end of the flight he’ll insist you have your own wing of the house. ”
“I did call him Pooh Bear,” I admit. We laugh. We hug. We stifle our tears. We’re used to living far apart already but this all feels so different. So final.
In a dreamlike state, I grab Marlon and walk him on his leash out to the limo, as two of Quinn’s men, not Papa’s, grab my bags and follow me out.
I put on my show, walking like I have something stuck up my ass, smirking under huge sunglasses.
I pause to let my new pet pee on the little square cut out in the concrete and look at the limo a few feet away.
The sight of it grips something in my chest. With the garish circus balloons and ribbons covering the bumper and “Just married” scrawled on the back window, it makes me feel…
Sad.
I’m really damn sad.
And I don’t get sad. I get angry. I get irritated. I get misty eyed sometimes, but that’s from frustration or overwhelm. This, this is much deeper.
Because that was it.
That was my wedding.
There was no glamour, no grace, no romance. I didn’t feel special or pretty or even, at the very least, powerful and in control, like I imagined I would feel marrying Bosco. It was all just…wrong, ugly, and sad.
Whatever, it’s over.
It was a necessary risk. It didn’t work but it might have. Everyone hated everything about that ceremony and reception—the live animals especially. There were a couple times I saw Quinn’s second, Mac, give his boss a worried expression. I caught Quinn grimacing and sighing a few times.
So, it was a calculated choice that didn’t pay off. Isn’t my first, won’t be my last. Time to move on.
I grab Marlon and head toward the limo. The driver opens the door for me, revealing a spread out Quinn talking on his flip phone. It looks like a toy in his massive hand. So stupid.
I decide to place Marlon right on his lap as I shuffle in and put my oversized purse at my feet. Before he looks at the dog, the giant Irishman does a double take at me in my almost-neon-yellow suit and hat. Then he looks down at his lap where I’ve placed my tiny, nervous animal.
Bite his crotch! I try to tell Marlon via ESP. Instead, he seems to actually calm down and get comfortable. No killer instincts, that one.
Quinn isn’t disgusted like I’d hoped, but he does scoop the pup in one hand and set him on the leather seat in between us. Marlon wobbles as the limo moves, looking pitiful. So I let out an exaggerated huff at my new husband and put the little guy on my lap instead.
He ignores both of us, giving one word answers to whoever is on the other end of his phone call.
“Baaaabe,” I whine, “You can’t spend our honeymoon on your phone.”
He gives me a side eye but then looks away as if I never spoke. I start some dramatic pouting, which I have to continue for the rest of the short drive. I’m nothing if not committed to my character.
We turn into the small airport and take a few turns before pulling into a hangar. There’s a fancy jet waiting, just like Papa’s. But the men in leather jackets, mostly beefy red heads, they’re definitely not Papa’s men.
My nerves twist in my abdomen. This is it. I’m leaving my city, leaving my world, my kingdom, my dreams and goals. I start comforting Marlon in disgusting baby talk, telling him not to be nervous, how we’ll love our new home, basically a bunch of garbage I need to hear myself.
Then before I can blink we’re shuffled into the plane, bags are loaded, the door is shut and we’re off.
Quinn went to the cockpit for the start of the flight, then came out and chose to sit in the back with a couple of his men.
Real me is relieved for the space. Fake me needs to make a fuss about that choice.
I prance back to him, dog in hand, and stop at the group of plush leather captains chairs that are facing each other.
“Pooh Bear, you can’t leave me and Marlon up there all alone, we’ll miss you too much.”
Quinn sighs a heavy sigh that sounds a lot like victory to me. Like I’m finally getting to him.
Yes, Luna! Keep up the crazy!
“Leave us,” he says to his men. They stifle smiles as they walk away.
I take a seat next to him and turn to say something ridiculous, but Quinn holds up a hand.
“Enough, Luna. How long are you going to keep this up?”
I start to feel the blood drain from my face as I ask, “What do—”
“I admire your persistence. But you can stop pretending to be a crazy…cartoon woman. It won’t deter me and surely you’re tired of it.”
I pretend to be offended. “I don’t know what you mean, sweetie.”
“Stop.” His eyes are so intense it’s painful to hold his stare, but I do.
I can’t look away. “You’re a Purple Belt in Jiu-Jitsu.
Your knife collection is bigger than my own.
” What…no. No no no no. “You can probably outshoot half my men with a pistol and a stationary target. You have a masters in Business.” Papa told him? How much does he know?
“You wanted to take over for daddy and play Don, yeah?” He leans closer to me, furrows his brow and takes up all the space in the whole cabin.
The menace in his tone makes me want to lean back, or maybe run down the aisle, then promptly jump out of this plane.
But I fight the urge. “Well, princess, I’m your don now.
And nothing will stop this partnership or this marriage.
No matter how batshit crazy you act, fill my house with frilly pink crap, buy another last-minute rat-dog.
It won’t matter.” Fear is replaced by rage the more dismissive words he spews.
“It’s over, it’s done. No way out. This is your life now, you might as well be yourself. ”
I lift my chin and let my pouty face fall, squinting and shaking with rage, I say, “You will never be my don.”
I admit I’ve felt admiration or respect for this man a couple times, even something like attraction at one point. All of those vanish as he oozes calm condescension, leans back, half-grins like the true psycho that he is, lifts his black eyebrows and says, “We’ll see.”