Chapter 2
Allie
Some days I wished I could have been born an only child to a completely different family.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my family, but they have their share of skeletons in the proverbial closet.
I also love my sister, Ellie. She’s the best twin a person could have.
But she had a nasty habit of lying her way into horribly complicated fiascos.
Today’s was the worst one yet. We were in Las Vegas for an obvious reason, her quickie wedding to one Johnny Porciello. Or as I’d taken to calling him, Johnny Pornstash. Because that mustache had to go.
Of course, without it, he’d look like a pre-teen.
Johnny was thirty-one years old and had the baby-soft skin of a fourteen-year-old, and just about as much facial hair, except for that dreadful caterpillar on his upper lip.
It was as if his body had something to prove, but was incapable of doing more.
In more ways than that, he was unworthy of my baby sister.
I was thirteen minutes older, therefore wiser, or something like that. Even though wisdom wasn’t magically bestowed through those thirteen minutes, I still knew this marriage was a bad idea.
And while putting on our dresses that afternoon, Ellie walked through the doorway of reality, finally, and realized it was an unquestionably awful idea to marry Johnny Pornstach. Which spiraled into a very bad evening.
Tequila should not be consumed before five in the afternoon. Especially not by brides who just found out their soon-to-be-husband was a lowlife, gangsta’ wannabe fresh out of his mother’s basement.
It all started because I’d gotten a tip. Not the cash kind, the clandestine kind.
Normally, I’d completely ignore anything that came from my maternal grandfather’s lawyer because it was bound to be tied up in so many strings it would make the Gordian knot look like child’s play.
But this was hand-delivered by the hotel concierge himself with an urgent demand of, “Please make your sister look at the contents of this package. My Boss insists.” Capital B, Boss.
I ripped the envelope open, expecting to find yet another court summons to fight the challenges to my grandfather’s estate, and instead got a handful of photos of Johnny’s wrecked Mustang.
It was mangled beyond the point of repair. In the background was a Mercedes that didn’t look much better. In fact, it looked much worse. Johnny had rammed into the driver’s side so hard the steering column was in the middle of the vehicle.
Luxury automobile or not, whoever was in that car wasn’t walking away.
Clipped to the top photo was a hand-written note.
“The Family needs to be notified. If your sister goes through with this wedding, there will be a price.”
Crap. Family. Capital F. Not the family of the victim.
That’s not how this lawyer worked. He wasn’t asking for more money, he was warning us that whoever Johnny hit with that car was likely “connected.” Just like my dear departed grandfather was connected.
Just like the owners of this hotel were connected to a friend of a friend of someone who had a friend who knew a guy, ya know?
My family secret wasn’t a secret to that crowd. It was a legend. One that, two generations later, made accomplished men grovel like a puppy who’d just peed on your shoes. Unlike the puppy, I didn’t have an explanation why humans did things like that.
If I thought Chicago was a cesspool, Vegas was the whole damn sewage treatment plant.
And for an accountant, my grandfather had lived a very interesting life.
So interesting, the FBI were my neighbors until I graduated from college and started my post graduate studies in veterinary sciences.
No matter how straight and narrow my immediate family lived, they were interesting, too.
But monitoring a veterinary surgeon was too boring for the feds, and I finally lived like a normal person, with a normal job, like every other law-abiding citizen.
That was until the will.
Ugh.
And the press… which ruined everyone’s lives.
Mom and Dad took a settlement, an early retirement, and fled to Arizona with a matched pair of alpacas, their collection of tie-dyed shirts, and a used school bus where they’d live happily ever after out of the spotlight.
Meanwhile, I lost my career. No one wanted to hire the mob heiress. That would be too risky.
Ellie? Well, cocktail waitressing at a dive bar on the outskirts of the Chicago suburbs wasn’t the type of job that rumor and criminal underworld entanglement exactly hurt. In fact, she turned the notoriety into better tips because “she knew a guy, ya know?”
And that’s where Johnny Pornstash fell in love—with my little sister’s trust fund and the lure of mob connections.
Except we weren’t connected. Not one bit.
She was blind, thinking him a harmless thug. It was the baby face that had fooled her, I was certain of it.
Thank God, she caught me red-handed with the goods. I passed them off to her with a warning, “You need to think about this wedding, hard.”
“Is that an order, Doctor Stickupherass?”
It was. “Jaja’s lawyer said it, I didn’t. Read the note clipped to the top photo.”
Her face paled. “Did you look at any of these?”
“Not unless you won’t. We finally got free of FBI surveillance, and I for one don’t want to go back to that life. Remember how they frisked our prom dates?”
Ellie made a guttural gagging noise at the memory. “Assholes.”
I wouldn’t go quite that far, but they had made our lives pretty miserable. Growing up like that sent me down a path of buttoning every button, planning to the point of obsession, and never, ever, putting even the tip of a big toe over the line.
Ellie?
That’s all she ever did. Toes, heels, whole legs…
She flipped through the photos and got to about the fourth one before her knees got wobbly and she fell faster than a soufflé. I couldn’t even catch her before she became a sparkly, chiffon and crystal-beaded puddle on the floor.
My sister couldn’t stand the sight of blood.
And there was a lot of it in that photo.
Some bullet holes, too.
Johnny was a lot more awful than a reckless driver.
I shoved the photos with their clipped-on note into my suitcase and got out the smelling salts.
Ellie woke up with a groan and a mission labeled, “drink that man right out of mind.”
Which meant the afternoon tequila binge, and missing the chapel limo.
The latter arrived precisely on time to collect the back-up dresses my sister bought, Ellie’s carry-on, and my stocked tote bag before it whisked away, right according to plan.
Except the delivery was devoid of one bride and one bridesmaid because I was busy looking for Ellie at the hotel bar.
There were eleven to search. But I lucked out and found her at number three. She was easy to spot in her wedding gown.
“Oh. My. God, Allie, what are we going to do? The mob is going to come after us.”
What’s this ‘us’ thing you’re talking about?
“They’re not. If they go after anybody, they’ll go after Johnny.
You’re not marrying him, remember?” I was being supportive.
Or as supportive as I could get wearing a practically see-through bridesmaid dress almost the same color as my skin.
Sure, I suppose it was pretty for a supermodel, or an actress trying to shake a child-star fanbase, but for an out-of-work veterinarian still in therapy from the trauma caused by the panopticon of my childhood? Hell to the no.
It looked like lingerie.
The funny thing about it was that barely anyone noticed.
Their eyes were on Ellie in her beautiful, sparkly wedding dress.
Random people would walk up and say, ‘Congratulations,’ then smile and look around for the villainous and missing groom.
At first, I smiled and tried to say ‘thank you’ while squeezing Ellie’s hand so she’d not blurt out something horrible.
But after she smacked me in the shoulder for getting too rough, I gave up.
Then things got much more interesting.
“Oh, you’re getting married. Congratulations!” The couple must have been pushing one-fifty, collectively.
“Fuck off with that shit, my fiancé is a no-good amateur murderer, and once I find his ass, he’ll get an education on how murders should be done.”
Their eyes went wide, and they shuffled away.
“That tops the culinary school threat.”
Ellie shrugged. “If I chopped Johnny into pieces, there’s bound to be blood. I’d faint again and ruin this dress.” She picked at the heavily boned and beaded corset. “And I love this dress. But, do you think I should have worn the other one?”
She bought two wedding dresses with matching bridesmaid ensembles.
This one was stunning, featuring a flat-front bodice with pearl and sequin embellishments reminiscent of the 1600s, along with a draped tulle skirt.
It gathered at Ellie’s hip. The excess cascaded from the focal point in tiers.
The designer embellished each delicate layer with crystals sewn into the fabric so artfully it sparkled like a waterfall that extended to the train’s end.
Ellie glittered under the lights of the ride share pavilion I’d led her to.
My dress didn’t have sequins. It looked like the whorehouse version that should layer under that dress. “You’re not getting married anymore, remember?”
She sighed heavily. “What a waste of a dress. I wish I’d worn the other one. It would have been so pretty.”
The other one was the opera lingerie one. It had a matching bridesmaid dress that wasn’t even legal it was so see-through. Thank God it was in the limo or at the chapel because I talked Allie into trying these on first.
Not that the wedding gown she’d picked to match that abomination was much better. Her alternate dress was completely sheer with a keyhole window that touched her bellybutton. If not for all the off the shoulder bodice ruffles and its numerous flower appliqués, it would be indecent even for Vegas.