Epilogue Mary - cont’d.
Epilogue Mary - cont'd...
I watched as Maeve danced with Mac beneath the lights strung between the trees while Mila tried to teach Rain a spin and nearly knocked over a table of champagne flutes.
Presley sang with Fritz’s mother near the cake because apparently every gathering eventually became a concert if Presley stayed long enough.
Pax found me near the cake with a glass in one hand and the look of a man who had been thinking about something for a while. “Business management and pre-law,” he said.
“One day I’ll finish it.”
“You could finish it.” He said it lightly, which from Pax meant he had already worked out how. “Mateus and I would employ you afterward. You’d be insufferable to work with but I think you’d be extremely good at it.”
Mateus arrived at his shoulder. “He’s been rehearsing that since the vows.”
It was a real offer. That was the strange part of it. Not a favor dressed up as one, and not a man deciding what I ought to want out of my life.
Lincoln came up behind me with Violet asleep against his shoulder and caught the end of it.
“She likes to paint,” he said. “So she’ll paint.”
Pax lifted his glass half an inch. “Understood.”
“Keep the offer, though,” I said.
“It doesn’t expire,” Mateus said.
Damien arrived late from the airport, with two ridiculous stuffed bears for the twins and a hug for me that no longer felt like an apology trying to wear friendship. “You look happy,” he said.
“I am,” I said. “But I need to put some different shoes on.”
He nodded. “Do you want me to come with you?”
“No. I won’t be long. You stay here and find your fathers.”
I slipped away to the upstairs room.
The suite was quiet when I let myself in. I put the bouquet on the dresser and got as far as taking off one shoe.
Then a sound came from under the desk.
I went still. Two years of Rain had taught me what a child holding its breath sounds like.
“Hello,” I said, to the desk.
A small face appeared between the chair legs. Five, perhaps six. Dark hair in a braid that had given up somewhere around lunchtime, and a tablet held against her chest like a shield.
“Mummy said you wouldn’t be back for hours.”
“Did she?” I crouched down, slowly. “Where’s your mummy?”
“Cleaning the rooms.”
“And she left you here.”
“I’m quiet.” It came out fast, rehearsed. “I’m really quiet, and I play on my iPad, and I don’t touch anything. Please don’t tell her bosses.”
“I’m sure you don’t.” I thought of the two men downstairs who had spent the morning being kind to everyone who came near them. “I think somebody should tell the owners. They’ll want to help.”
The tablet came down.
“No.” She scrambled forward on her knees. “No, please. They’ll sack her. They’ll sack my mummy and then there’s no money, because Daddy spends it all, and if she gets sacked he’ll...”
She stopped and her chin wobbled.
“He’ll shout at her,” she said, and started to cry.
“Your daddy shouts at your mummy?”
She nodded. “That’s why I come here,” she said, when she could manage it.
“Stay there.”
I took an apple from the bowl and a bottle of water from the minibar, and when I put them into her hands she looked at the bottle as though I’d handed her something live.
“That’s expensive. Mummy says I’m never to touch those.”
“I’ll pay for it.”
“She’ll be cross.”
“Then she can be cross with me. I’m very good at being shouted at, my father wasn’t very nice either.”
She gave me a shy, sweet smile..
“What’s your name?”
“Nelly.”
“Nelly.” I sat down on the carpet beside her. “I’m Mary. Nobody’s getting sacked today.”
The door unlocked and a young blonde woman of about twenty-seven came into the room. She saw Nelly first, and then me, and every drop of color went out of her face.
“Mummy, the nice lady gave me an apple and a bottle of water.”
“I’m so sorry.” She was already moving toward the desk. “I’m so sorry, I’ll take her, I’ll–”
“It’s fine,” I said.
She crouched and gathered Nelly against her. Her hands weren’t steady. “Please don’t say anything. Please. I know I shouldn’t have brought her here, I know, I just couldn’t–”
“I’m not going to say anything.”
She looked up at me, and I watched her decide whether to believe it.
“What’s your name?”
“Maya.”
A knock came at the door, and Nelly’s eyes went wide.
“Nelly can stay here until you finish your shift,” I said, quieter. “Make yourself comfortable on the bed.” I looked at Maya. “Give me a couple of minutes to leave. It’s probably my husbands knocking.”
I put my finger to my lips for Nelly. She copied me with enormous seriousness. Then I slipped out of the room and stood in the hallway, thinking about the woman and child inside. Maya looked terrified.
A footstep came behind me. “You’re–”
A callused hand clamped over my mouth. “Not a sound,” my father breathed against my ear. “Not a single sound or I start with the little girl you left in there.”
He dragged me backward. I stumbled as he pulled me into a room with three zero three on the door. He kicked it shut and it clicked behind us.
“Sit.” He pushed me on the bed.
My legs were shaking. He stood between me and the door, his face exactly as I remembered it. The same cold eyes. The same mouth that only ever curved when something was going wrong for someone else.
“You cost me three million euros and my reputation,” he said. “Three million. My own daughter. Do you have any idea what I had to do to fix that hole?”
I couldn’t speak. My throat had closed.
“Nothing to say?” He paced in front of the door. “I thought you were the one I could manage. And yet now you’re bonded to two alphas and you think you’re invincible. You think their claiming marks make you untouchable.”
“I don’t think that.”
“Don’t lie to me.” He walked forward, looking at me but saying nothing more. I hated it when he got quiet because that was normally the calm before the back of his hand. “I raised you. I know every cowardly thought in that head of yours.”
He pulled out his phone and dialed. One hand stayed near his belt. I knew a gun was tucked there.
“Bring the car to the back entrance and keep it running. And be careful, the Russians are here.” He paused. “I don’t care how. Figure it out.”
He hung up.
“Please,” I said. The word came out smaller than I wanted. “Please just leave me alone.”
“Leave you alone?” He laughed. The sound of his voice scraped over every one of my nerves.
“You’re going to do exactly what I tell you.
You’re going to walk back down there, and you’re going to get Violet and Mila, and you’re going to bring them to this room.
You’re going to smile and nod and tell anyone who asks that the girls need a nap.
And if you say anything to anyone, if you so much as look at one of your alphas the wrong way, everyone at that wedding dies. ”
My lungs ceased and my heart dropped to the floor. I couldn’t breathe or speak.
“You think I came alone?” He laughed as he walked to the window and looked down at the garden.
At the lights strung between the trees. As the wedding guests danced, no doubt.
Or was he looking at Mila and Violet? “The perimeter is surrounded by my men. One word from me and this wedding turns into a funeral.”
He didn’t turn around.
“No, when you have the kids, bring them to the rear entrance, not the room. The car will be waiting. Remember, Mary. One wrong move and everyone dies. Your sister. Your alphas. Your precious little kids.”
His back was still to me as I reached under my dress and grabbed the gun strapped to my thigh.
He turned.
He saw the gun. And he laughed.
“Do you really want to do this, Mary?” He tilted his head. The same way he used to look at me before he unbuckled his belt. “Do you really want to risk everyone’s lives? Including your alphas? You’ve never had the stomach for anything that mattered. You think a claiming mark changed that?”
My hand wavered. The gun felt heavy as I kept the aim over his cold, dead heart.
He saw it and smiled. Then he stepped forward. “You wouldn’t have the stomach to kill your father.”
“I don’t have a father.”
He lunged.
I had no time to think as my index finger squeezed tighter.
His eyes went wide. His mouth opened as he tried to stand taller. And he looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time. Like I was something he should have been afraid of all along.
Then he took one more step back before his legs gave out, and he slumped on his back to the floor.
His eyes stayed open. Glassy and staring. Not at me anymore. At nothing.
I stood over him, no longer shaking. The gun was still in my hand. My arm was still extended just in case I needed to put another bullet into him.
But he was dead.
I lowered the gun. Set it on the bed. Then I picked up my phone and dialed.
Ivan answered on the first ring.
My father’s body lay on the carpet. His shirt turning redder. “My father is dead. Room three zero three. I need the cleaners. And check the perimeter because the bastard claimed there were men ready to kill everyone if I didn’t bring Violet and Mila to him.”
“Mudak!” A pause. “Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Good. Stay there. Give me two minutes, and throw a towel over him to soak up the blood.”
He hung up.
After I placed a towel either side of him and once over the wound, I sat on the bed next to the gun and waited. I didn’t look at him, I looked at my hands instead. Still not shaking.
Two minutes passed. Three. Then a soft knock.
I counted to ten before I glanced through the peep hole. Ivan came alone.
After I opened the door, he looked at the body, then at me. A flicker of something crossed his face. Respect, maybe.
“There was only one man,” he said. “In a car by the rear entrance. Gregor has him.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes. He was bluffing. The perimeter is clean.”
I nodded. My father had always been a liar. Right up to the end.
Ivan made a call.
“Go back to your wedding,” Ivan said to me. “I’ll handle this.”
I stopped at the door. “Ivan.”
He turned.
“Thank you.”
I expected him to say something funny about wanting to use the rocket launcher on him. But he just nodded once. Then I walked out.
I stopped in the bathroom down the hall where I washed my hands and looked at myself in the mirror. My eyes were clear. I killed my father and hadn’t shed one tear.
My dress was clean. A bride looked back at me like nothing had happened.
I found a side door that led back to the garden. The music was still playing. Someone had opened more champagne. Rain was covered in frosting up to his elbows and Presley was laughing so hard at something Maeve told her that she had to lean on a table.
Hudson found me first.
His nostrils flared. Just slightly. His eyes moved over my face. “Are you okay, Mary?”
“Perfect.” I wasn’t going to tell them today.
I could tell by the look on his that he didn’t believe me, but he also didn’t push. He just pulled me against his chest and purred against my head while I breathed in his scent until my heart slowed to something normal.
Lincoln appeared at his shoulder. His gaze went to Hudson, then to me. A silent conversation passed between them.
“What do you need?” Lincoln asked.
“Just this,” I said. “For a minute. Then I need to hold my children.”
Only then did my eyes coat with wetness. But I blinked it back as I stood between them while our family laughed in the garden. Somewhere, Rain shouted something about needing more cake. Violet replied with the commanding authority of a queen displeased by her court.
For a moment, we were quiet. Then Hudson said, “Are you happy?”
I turned in their arms and looked at them properly. I touched Hudson’s face, then Lincoln’s. “I’m so happy it frightens me what I’d do to keep what I have safe.”
Tomorrow they’ll find out exactly what I would do.
Someone gasped.
Presley shouted, “Rain!”
I closed my eyes briefly. “Our son needs to learn portion control. We should hide the cake.”
“In a minute.” Hudson said. “I’m sure Presley and Maeve will deal with him.”
Lincoln’s arms tightened around me. “Yes, let the children survive without us for a few more moments.”
And then I breathed in rain, whiskey, sugared blackberry, and the perfect wild violet, and although the girl today knew they were mine, the girl in Boston would never have believed this.
My father's actions helped me find my alphas and now he was gone. The man who made me small was no longer, and I was the one who ended him. Not my alphas. Not Ivan, Artem, Gregor or my sister. Me.
I did it.
I freed myself from my past and found my future.
The End.