Her Broken Mountain Man (Broken Heroes Love Harder)

1. Iris

IRIS

It's my wedding day to a man I loathe and the bullets are flying.

The first shot rings out as I nearly reach my bridegroom, the sharp crack of it swallowed almost instantly by the soaring marble walls of the church.

For a second, I freeze, watching the guests and the priest and my brother Marco dive for cover in one of those slow-mo fight choreographies I adore in historical c-dramas.

The church is breathtaking with soaring ceilings, walls of cold white marble veined with grey.

The air is thick with frankincense and melted candle wax.

Morning light pours through the stained-glass windows in fractured ribbons of amber and deep violet, pooling on the stone floor in a rainbow of colors.

Alas, my bridegroom is not a sword-wielding warrior who will shield my life with his. My reality’s quite the opposite, in fact. Old man Vitale grabs my arm in a bruising grip and ducks behind me, his sweaty hands fisting into the silk of my dress at my waist.

I couldn’t take a full breath in the damned thing before. Now, his grip twists it until I hear a rip. Half my ass and my thighs are bared.

The second bullet whizzes by my ear and I definitely flinch this time, the displaced air a hot sting against my cheek. Around me, guests are screaming. The heavy church doors crash open, bringing in cold May air and armed men.

Two of my brother’s men reach for me.

As they push me through the chaos I catch glimpses—my step-sisters crouched behind a pew, clinging to each other, not one of them looking for me. My stepmother already gone, vanished, as if she was never there. Then Marco—fighting off two men near the side entrance, his jaw tight.

Oh God, did I make this happen? Did I turn my wedding into a bullet-fest?

I desperately wanted to get out of marrying old man Vitale. He was old, pudgy, stank of cigarettes and cheap wine. And sweated like a pig. Still, that wasn’t the worst.

The two times I was forced to meet him, he pushed me against a wall and felt up my considerable boobage. Then he proceeded to lick his very wet lips and even tried to thrust his thick tongue down my throat. I nearly puked into his mouth that second time.

It’s the one time in life I forgot that I lived under my stepmother’s roof under sufferance, that I was a crow in a cuckoo’s nest, that she raised me, clothed me, fed me to use me as an asset.

I begged my half-brother Marco, the newly minted Capo and the only one who treated me like a human being, to save me from it, even though I knew that he had inherited territory disputes thanks to my father’s mismanagement.

My eyes fall on Vitale hiding behind the first pew, trying to push himself underneath the wooden bench.

Finding myself at the edge of the melee, I sink to my knees and crawl towards the back of the church and into the confession box.

The wooden door is rough under my fingers, the small dark space smelling of old wood, dust, and the faint ghost of a thousand whispered sins.

Outside, the sharp crack of gunfire ricochets off the marble walls, the sound bouncing and multiplying until it fills every corner of the church. Glass shatters. Someone rattles the old wooden door with a violence and the ground thuds with the weight of footsteps.

Sweat beads over my neck and in my armpits as I realize I’m seconds from being discovered. I bring my hands together and start chanting.

Please God, I don't want to die a virgin.

It’s confusing and stupid, because if God hears me and decides to grant my wish, it would be old man Vitale who takes that from me. And yet somehow, I cannot stop.

I barely finish my chanting when the door is pushed open and a giant behemoth of a man stands there, blocking all light. For a second, I wonder if the devil’s allowed to enter holy ground.

The smell of him hits me first—cold mountain air, gun oil, and something underneath it, something clean and dark that has no right to be comforting right now. A black mask covers his nose and mouth and I have the overwhelming urge to see all of him.

He has the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen, catching a slant of violet light from the window above, sharp and steady in the chaos.

"Iris?”

My tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth. I just nod.

In the next blink of an eye, his arm comes across my middle, pressing into my belly, and the heat of him is shocking—solid and warm and alive in a way that short-circuits every thought in my head.

A puff of air punches out of my mouth. Sensation engulfs me. My breasts are crushed against his upper back and the torn hem where Vitale tugged it means he has his arms around my bare upper thighs.

I’m so stunned that I don’t even react for a few seconds. My long hair is a waterfall in front of my eyes. I push it aside to see him cutting a swathe through the chaos, as if he was Moses parting water. Really, I’m overloading myself with all kinds of imagery today.

The blood rushes to my head, the cool church air hitting the backs of my bare thighs where my dress has ridden up.

I’m not a small woman—yes, I eat my emotions, yes, but I also eat a lot of carbs because I love them— and this man has lifted me and thrown me over his shoulder as if I weigh nothing more than a bag of flour.

It comes to me then that he’s kidnapping me and that maybe I should protest.

I still hesitate though, because honestly, I’m not much of a target.

But I beat my fist against his back half-heartedly, the solid wall of muscle not yielding even slightly under my knuckles, my eyes glued to the perspiring, shaking form of old man Vitale, eyeing me from under the bench.

The candles on the altar are still burning, flames trembling in the draft from the open doors, throwing long shaking shadows across the pews.

His brown eyes nearly bug out of his head as he chants his thanks—to God, I'm assuming, for saving his hide. It’s clear he feels not even an ounce of sadness at the prospect of losing me.

Throwing all caution to the wind, I lift my hand and give him the finger.

Marco often tells me I’m too naive for my own good, too optimistic, too sunshiny for the violent world we live in. And maybe I am. Maybe this kidnapper’s going to do untold things to me. Maybe a worse fate waits for me.

But as I scan the church one last time, my eyes find Marco’s.

Something glitters there as they light on me—satisfaction, even relief.

I frown, but there’s no chance to linger.

The giant carries me out of the church. Crisp May air hits the top of my thighs. With the sound of gunfire fading behind us, I can’t stop feeling that I’ve been saved.