Chapter 46
Lili
Sitting in the second row at Skylar and Matteo’s wedding, I can’t help the wide smile on my face as Grace and Victor walk down the aisle together and part ways at the front of the auditorium while soulful music plays.
They look so damn good together it makes my heart hurt sometimes.
“Please rise for the presentation of the bride,” the officiant says as she raises her hands to indicate standing.
Matteo looking nervous is a bit of a treat too. Who knew he was capable of nerves?
Everyone stands and turns to the back of the room where the double doors open to reveal a stunning Skylar.
Instead of walking straight into her vows, Skylar reaches down and lifts a guitar from where it’s been resting against the altar, and a hush rolls through the room.
“I wrote this one about him, before I even had the guts to admit it,” she says, tuning one string with a small, nervous laugh. “Bear with me.”
She strums the opening chords, and her voice, the same one that’s filled arenas for the better part of a decade, goes soft and unpolished. None of her records have ever caught her like this.
“I used to keep the good stuff locked up tight,” she sings, “six strings and a chip on my shoulder every night. Then you walked in without a single warning shot, and stole the only thing I thought I had.”
“You’re a guitar thief, baby, plain and simple. Walked off with my heart and left an empty case. I should be angry, should go chasing after. But I think I like the quiet you left in this place.”
By the time she lowers the guitar, Matteo isn’t even trying to hide that he’s crying, and half the room isn’t either. Including me.
Grace
I wink at Lili as Victor escorts back down the aisle after the bride and groom. It was a gorgeous ceremony, and after the obligatory wedding party photos, we’ll be heading to the reception.
At the back of the ceremony hall, Victor pulls me close and kisses me while the rest of the wedding party exits to the recessional song.
“You’re fucking stunning. But when we get married I don’t want a ceremony this big,” he growls against my ear.
I lean back and stare at him. “When we get married?” I squeak.
He chuckles. “Don’t worry. I’m not suggesting we do it tomorrow, but I do intend to marry you.”
“What about Liliana?”
He frowns. “What about her?”
“Isn’t it rude to legally marry only one of us?”
He lets out a soft chuckle. “I see where you’re going. Talk to her. She and I had a good conversation the other night, and she has no desire to be legally tied to another person, no matter how much she loves us.”
My shoulders relax a little, but I’ll absolutely be talking to Lili before I agree to legally marrying Victor.
“What will your family think?” I ask.
“Who cares?”
I let the silence sit for a second before I decide not to push it tonight. There will be time to talk about families and ceremonies later. Right now I just want to enjoy the party.
Victor
I lean against the bar watching the pregnant DJ spin. It’s amusing me for some reason.
Then my eye catches Luke talking to his father, Jamie Bowden. The conversation is a serious one, but Luke doesn’t look upset.
After Jamie parts ways with his son and pulls a pretty woman onto the dance floor, Luke heads my direction.
At the bar, he slips a folder out of the inside of his jacket and slides it toward me. “Looks like we have a Griffin Price problem after all. He was behind the assassination of the mayor. But Jamie doesn’t have enough to go to authorities here without putting his own operations into jeopardy.”
I open the folder and scan the top page.
Wire transfers from a Meridian Holdings shell account to an offshore account tied to the shooter, timestamped two days before the assassination.
Behind it, a set of surveillance photos showing Griffin Price meeting privately with the mayor’s eventual replacement, three weeks before the funeral.
“What do we do?”
Luke shakes his head. “Let Tyson keep an eye on him like he agreed. You know he’s more than a chef.”
I nod and snap the folder shut. “Nothing to be done about it tonight. Don’t share this with Matteo until he’s back from his honeymoon.”
Luke laughs. “He’s not going to be back for awhile. Didn’t you hear?”
I frown. “Hear what?”
“Skylar’s touring the new album, and he decided to go with her.”
“What about the club. Las Vegas?”
“The job running a VIP night club? A BDSM club that practically runs itself thanks to the team we have in place? Let him have a break. He’s put his heart and soul into that place. Now enough work talk. Come with me. I want you to meet someone.”
I follow him toward the DJ booth where a tall man with a beard hovers over the pregnant woman.
“Luke,” Gage says warmly. “How’s your wife?”
“She’s well. Excited about the opportunities you and your people are giving her in Las Vegas.”
“Good. We’re excited to be working with her. Especially Reva and Darci.”
“Mrs. Givens has been wonderful.”
I frown. “You mean Darci Givens? President Givens’ daughter-in-law?”
Luke chuckles. “Forgive my colleague, he doesn’t get out much. This is Victor Serrano. The fourth owner of High Card.”
Why is Luke just spilling our business to the DJ’s partner?
“Luke did you meet my wife, Kenzie when you were in DC?”
Luke shakes Kenzie’s hand. “I feel like we crossed paths, but there wasn’t a formal introduction. Congratulations on the pregnancy.”
“Thank you, Luke. Think you can get this one to stop hovering?”
Luke lets out a jovial laugh. “Afraid not, lass. If my Zara were in your condition I would be hovering too.”
She rolls her eyes and turns to me. “I guess you feel that way about your wife?”
“Girlfriends. And yes. If either of them were pregnant I would be even more protective than I am now.”
She sighs. “You do understand that women have been having children for centuries, right?”
“Yes, but not my children,” Gage says with a shrug. “Now sit down while you can. You’ve been on your feet too long.”
Then he turns his attention to me. “Apologies, I haven’t formally introduced myself. I’m Gage Allard. I owned Club Exposure in D.C. Your friends came for a visit a few months ago, and I partnered with Luke’s wife on a project after they helped us out with something.”
I nod as if I understand, even though I don’t at all.
“Gage and Kenzie are living in New Orleans now,” Luke says pointedly.
Now the introduction makes a little more sense.
“Do you know Tyson Vance?” I ask.
Gage’s face splits into a huge grin. “That bastard almost killed me when he was first learning to cook. Of course, that’s because we were cooking in the middle of a jungle and we only had so many resources, but still, I like to give him hell about it.”
So whatever Tyson did for the government before turning to cooking apparently involved this man.
“He’s been good to us in Las Vegas. We’re bummed to have to give him up to New Orleans, but I guess he has to go where the culinary inspiration hits.”
We keep the conversation going for a few more minutes before Lili appears at Victor’s elbow with a fresh glass of champagne, sliding easily into the circle like she’s been part of it all night.
Victor excuses himself not long after, murmuring something about needing to say hello to Danny Trentini before the night gets away from him.
I watch him cross the room to where Danny’s been quietly nursing a drink near the family tables all evening, and the two of them disappear onto the terrace for several long minutes.
When Victor comes back, his shoulders have dropped an inch.
“Everything all right?” I ask, looping my arm through his.
“Yeah.” He presses a kiss to my temple. “Danny finally told me the truth about his father. Confirmed what we all suspected. He did it himself, years ago. Mercy, not malice, if you believe him. And I think I do. Ernesto was slipping fast, and Danny couldn’t stand to watch him destroy everything his family built along with himself.
He pinned it on the Serranos because he thought it would break the four of you apart before you got this far. ”
“And now?”
Victor huffs something almost like a laugh. “Now he’s standing at his brother’s wedding, watching four crime families and a room full of people who actually like each other. I think he’s finally starting to understand what Matteo built is worth more than what he tried to protect.”
I squeeze his hand, because I don’t know what else there is to say to that kind of quiet, complicated grief.
“That’s my cue,” Kenzie says as she clicks something on her laptop.
We gather around Skylar and Matteo as a song I’ve never heard before begins to play talking about starting a new adventure together. It’s clearly Skylar’s voice, so it must be something from the new album.
Grace
Luke ushers everyone outside for the sendoff, and Lili and I end up on either side of Victor on the sidewalk, sparklers hissing in our free hands while we sing along at the top of our lungs. We know the lyrics by heart. Skylar’s been playing us this album in the car for a month.
“I’ve been to plenty of family weddings,” Victor murmurs against my temple, watching the sparks die out over the sidewalk. “They always felt solemn. Obligations dressed up in white lace. Nobody actually learns to like their spouse until they’ve been married a few years.”
“This doesn’t feel obligatory,” I say.
“No.” He presses a kiss to my hair. “It doesn’t.”
He looks between me and Lili like he’s trying to memorize the moment, and his expression makes my chest go tight. I want this, whatever it ends up looking like, for as long as they’ll have me. Lili still isn’t living with us full time. But I’m holding out hope she’ll get there. I think we all are.
By the time the limo pulls away with Skylar half hanging out the window blowing kisses and Matteo laughing beside her, most of the wedding party has drifted back toward the reception hall for the last of the dancing. Victor doesn’t move.
“Walk with me?” He laces his fingers through mine instead of waiting for an answer, pulling me away from the noise toward the quiet side garden strung with the same fairy lights as the ceremony space.
Lili catches my eye as we go and winks, which does nothing for my nerves.
“What’s going on?” I ask once we’re alone, the music from the reception fading into something softer.
Victor doesn’t answer right away. He just looks at me for a long moment, the way he still does after all this time, like he’s cataloging every detail before he lets himself say something serious.
“I told you earlier tonight I intend to marry you,” he says. “I’ve been trying to figure out for two hours if this counts as showing up the bride, doing it the same night as her wedding.”
My heart stutters. “Victor.”
“She’s already gone.” A corner of his mouth lifts. “Technically I’m in the clear.”
He drops to one knee right there on the garden path, and every sensible thought in my head goes straight out.
“Gracelynn Marsh.” His voice doesn’t shake, not even a little, even kneeling in the grass with his hand already reaching into his jacket pocket.
“I told you I don’t want a ceremony this big, and I meant it.
I want something quieter. Something ours.
But I’ve known since the night I found you stranded in that parking lot that I was never going to let you go, and I’m done waiting for a better moment, because there isn’t going to be one. ”
He opens the box, and the ring inside catches the fairy lights, simple and beautiful, exactly what I would have picked for myself if I’d ever let myself think about it.
“Marry me.”
He isn’t really asking. He never has been, not since the beginning, and I love him too much to pretend I want him to.
“Yes.” It comes out somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “Yes, obviously yes.”
He slides the ring onto my finger and pulls me down into the grass with him, kissing me until I forget we’re supposed to be walking back to a reception at all.
When we finally do make it back, Lili is waiting by the door, and the second she sees the ring, she lets out a whoop loud enough to turn heads across the room.
“Finally,” she says, hugging me so tight I nearly lose my breath. “I thought I was going to have to do it for him.”
“You knew?” I accuse her.
“He asked my permission a month ago.” She grins at Victor over my shoulder. “Don’t worry, lover. I have zero interest in a ring of my own. This one’s all yours.”