84. Kiera
KIERA
The sight of Issac was enough to make me nauseous. After all the heinous things he’d done, all the lives he ruined, he had the audacity to stand up on that altar in his fancy tuxedo and pretend that he deserved any sort of happiness?
Pathetic.
But the sight of Dom and I in the front row seemed to shake him just as badly. The color drained from his face as he blinked to clear his shock. It was like he’d seen a ghost — and considering he’d likely ordered my death, he kind of was.
“Madel—”
“Surprise,” Dom smirked, wrapping her arm over the back of my chair. “Hope you don’t mind the extra guest. She didn’t want to miss your special day.”
Isaac’s mouth hung open as he stammered for a response. His hand lifted toward his right ear, hovering over a discreet ear piece that seemed to be humming — comms from his guards, no doubt.
Before he could gather himself, the officiant arrived on the stage, signalling for everyone to rise. Strings from the live band swelled, lifting everyone onto their feet. At Dom’s side, I stood too, keeping my eyes locked on a frowning Isaac as he pressed his finger to the earpiece. “Shoot.”
I hardly processed the word before I heard a body slam to the ground.
Dom?
For one horrifying instant, I was sure that we’d overplayed our hand. My heart seized as I whipped toward the source of the sound. But Dom was still standing tall beside me, her arm wrapping around my shoulders to shield me.
I clung to her arm desperately as the crowd reacted to the sound. There was no gunshot, just flesh and bone breaking against stone. An abrupt pause to the bridal march. All eyes turned to the balcony, to my Leo.
She was flushed, hair slicked back by sweat as she frowned down at the body — the General. Had she pushed him down? Blood staining his military blues painted a different story. She’d shot her father, killed him, and then tossed his body down from the balcony.
But why?
While the rest of us gaped and screamed, trying to puzzle it together, she didn’t waste any time, throwing her backpack off her shoulder and assembling the sniper rifle within seconds.
And then I realized exactly why she’d needed the distraction — and why she was moving so fast.
“I said shoot!” Isaac screamed into his earpiece, unconcerned with who heard him.
I followed his eyeline to a nearby rooftop, where a sniper focused his sights on Dom. As he readied his shot, I tried to throw myself in front of her. But Leo was faster than both of us.
In a second, he was dead. In five, she’d taken out four more guards, including the one guarding Maura at the far end of the aisle.
My mother shrieked as the man fell dead at her feet, splattering her white dress with fresh red blood. I hadn’t heard a sound like that come from her lips since she found my father’s body.
I thought once that it had been a cry of agony — that the reason I’d never heard it again was because she didn’t have a heart left to break after my father’s death. But as she screeched over the dead guard, I could hear the sound more clearly now.
It was fear. Her calculations were off. She was losing control.
Desperate to save herself, she made a mad dash up the aisle toward Isaac. If she could cling to the most powerful man in the venue, maybe his protection would save her too.
Not this time.
As she sprinted toward the aisle, I stepped out in front of her, blocking her path. She stumbled to a halt, locked in place by my pleading gaze.
Please don’t do this. For once, let him go.
The shock and guilt only lasted for a second before she tried to sprint past me, willing to flatten me if she had to. But the second had been long enough.
Dom was already charging the altar, pulling the glock from her shoulder holster and taking aim at the guards rushing to protect Isaac. My chest tightened as I watched them reach for their own weapons, terrified that I might lose Dom all over again.
But a rapid series of pops sent them straight to the ground: Leo was lethal with that sniper. While she continued to pick off the guards closest to us, clearing Dom’s path to the altar, Spencer hurdled down from the balcony, pulling a pistol of her own as she hit the first floor.
Wedding guests screamed as she moved through their ranks, crashing into one another as they all tried to find shelter from the gunfire. It was total, utter chaos. And without his men doing the dirty work to guard him, Isaac had no idea what to do.
Dom, on the other hand, had spent years preparing for this exact moment. Before the old man could run, she had her arm around his neck and her pistol firm against his temple. “If I were you, I’d stay very fucking still.”
Isaac was a big man — in another world, he may have been able to put up a decent fight — but Dom wasn’t one to be fucked with.
One wrong move, and she wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet straight through his brain. She knew exactly how to aim that gun to ensure that the rest of his pathetic life was spent in agony.
His hands were tied. So like any smart businessman, he relented, standing compliantly while Leo cleared the rest of the guards from our vicinity. As soon as the last guard fell, she was packing up her gun, hopping down from the balcony, and making a mad dash toward us.
Only once Spencer was close and a path had been cleared did Dom adjust her grip on Isaac. Shifting the gun to the back of his skull, she locked his left arm to her side with one bulging bicep, letting Spencer take a hold of his other side as they dragged him down the hill toward the river.
Leo was quick behind them, using her body to shield me as she guided me down the hill. “Let’s go, Princess.”
I did as she said, sprinting as fast as my legs would carry me in my heels. Bullets whizzed in the distance behind us, but I didn’t look back. Not until I heard my mother’s voice.
“Kiera!” she cried out from the top of the hill. “Don’t do this, please.”
Her voice was like a knife to my gut. The desperation brought tears to my eyes. But I just shook my head. “This is what dad would have wanted.”
As close as we can get to it anyway.
Tears rolled down my cheeks as I ran after my lovers, but I didn’t stop. While my mother sobbed for her dashed schemes, I prepared to carry out a plan of my own.