by Elle Casey
A very tiny smile starts to appear. “I thought you said I was too hyper. You said I smile too much.”
“When I say things like that, you just need to ignore me. I have this grouchy default attitude that I fall back on, but it’s not how I want to be. Not anymore.”
She nods. “Lucky is a good influence on you.”
“Yes, he is. I love him.”
She almost glares at me. “Does he know that?”
“Yes. Probably.”
“Have you told him?”
I’m squirming in my dress under her scrutiny. “Not exactly.”
“What’s that mean—not exactly?”
I have to answer her, as uncomfortable as the conversation makes me. She’s been a good friend to me and this is what friends do; they talk about shit that makes people like me want to cry with confusion.
My face is burning with embarrassment. “It means that this is the first time I’ve acknowledged it out loud.”
“Why?” She takes a step toward me, her voice filled with pity or sadness, maybe.
I shrug. “I haven’t allowed it. I don’t know why. Maybe because it didn’t feel right to let myself fall in love with someone so good.” I have to stare at the ground rather than at her or risk crying.
Her smile grows bigger. “You should tell him. Here, at my wedding. Now.”
Getting a grip on my runaway emotions in response to her sudden enthusiasm for my certain humiliation is surprisingly easy. Knowing May, she’s expecting me to announce my devotion to Lucky over a bullhorn across the backyard or something equally loud and obvious.
“Sure, we can do that. Maybe later, though,” I say. “Right now we need to focus on you and Ozzie.”
She claps her hands together twice before stopping herself. “I know, isn’t it great?” She leans in closer and lowers her voice. “I have such an exciting surprise for him. One of my good friends who’s an awesome photographer is here to take pictures. And I booked us a cruise for our honeymoon. He has no idea!”
“He’s definitely going to be surprised.” I laugh inside at the expression I can already picture on his face. Ozzie hates cruises.
But hell, what do I know? Maybe May will change his mind about that like she’s changed his mind about a lot of things. Maybe he’ll love it. He probably won’t even notice he’s on the water because he’ll be too busy staring at May the entire time. She’s going to look adorable in a bathing suit with that baby bump of hers. It’s just starting to show, but I’m afraid to say that to her, worried that she won’t want to know that at her wedding.
“It’s almost time,” I say. “Are you ready?”
She reaches behind her and pulls a small bouquet of flowers out of a long white box on the table. “These are for you.”
I take them from her and turn them over, admiring all the colors. “They’re beautiful. What’s your bouquet look like?”
She pulls a larger version of what I’m holding out of the box. “These are mine. Jenny helped me pick.”
“Gorgeous. Jenny did a really good job.”
May nods, wiping a tear from her eye. “She did. She’s the best sister in the world.” She puts her hand on my arm and squeezes it gently. “And now you’re my other sister. And I know you’re crazy and impetuous and sometimes foolhardy, but I love you anyway.”
I can barely get the words out between my tears. “I love you too, May.” I expected to feel pain at admitting that because love has often brought me that sensation, but I don’t. I feel . . . lighter.
She throws her arms around me and squeezes, and I gasp from the pain, but when she tries to let go I don’t allow it. “I’m so glad you joined the team,” I say.
“I am too,” she says. “Now stop crying before you ruin my makeup.”
She pulls away and I smile, trying to wipe the tears away. “Ruining my makeup would be worse, trust me.”
Her smile falters. She points at my face. “Oh my god. You need to go fix that. Right now!”
“Where’s Jenny?” I ask as I move around her giant dress, trying not to trip on the train. The thing is a mile long, it seems.
“She’s in the living room. Go find her and fix your makeup, stat. I’ve got a wedding to start and I can’t have one of my bridesmaids looking like she ran into a bus with her face.”
I walk as fast as I can with my bum ribs to the living room and show Jenny my disaster. She wastes no time getting me fixed up. She’s patting the last of the powder on my cheek when she bends down and looks me in the eyes. “All done. Are we ready to do this?”
I nod. “We’re ready.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The music is playing and I’m waiting at the end of the aisle with Jenny. When the regular music switches over to the Wedding March, Jenny urges the four little kids to move into position. According to May, ring bearers and flower girls are supposed to be at the end of the wedding party’s procession, but neither she nor her sister believed they could be trusted to execute their roles properly without supervision, so here we are, letting them go first.
Sammy pushes Jacob’s wheelchair down the aisle as Jacob holds a pillow with rings attached to it in his hands. Both boys wear sober expressions, concentrating on their very important jobs. Jenny is beaming.
The girls come next, happily throwing flower petals all over the place, not limiting their spread to the aisle itself but also sprinkling plenty on the guests sitting nearby. I put my bouquet up to my face to hide my smile. Lucky and Ozzie are looking down at their folded hands, battling laughter. It looks like flower bombs are going off and the guests are taking on shrapnel.
Jenny is next. She follows sedately, pausing from time to time to brush petals off guests’ heads and shoulders. I consider this a good call on her part, because May would probably panic if she knew her nieces were attacking guests with her flowers. The little girls are currently in a wrestling match over their baskets; the older one seems to be winning. Jenny arrives at the temporary altar under the flowered arbor just in time to referee.
I’m just looking over my shoulder at the back door of the house, expecting May to walk through the opening behind me, when something weird catches my eye. A wedding guest standing with the catering staff off to the side steps out from behind the group to become visible. I shouldn’t recognize him because he’s definitely not a cop or family, but I do.
My heart leaps up into my throat when I look at the guy more closely and see the scar on his cheek. Holy shit, it’s Marc Doucet! I glance left and right, my mind racing. Why is he here? No one invited him, that’s for damn sure. Are there members of his gang with him?
Scanning, scanning, scanning . . . I’m looking all around, as casually as I can, and everything seems in order, but I wouldn’t put it past him to take out his anger at having his operation shut down on this wedding party.
There’s no time to think about the risk or the danger I’m putting myself in. I have to handle this situation before everything blows up.
“I’m just going to go check on the bride,” I say loudly, walking as quickly as I can into the house. I know I’m causing a stir by not going down the aisle as expected, but I’m hoping everyone will write it off as a bridesmaid helping a nervous bridezilla.
As soon as I cross the threshold, I throw my bouquet to the side and rush over to Thibault and May.
She’s frowning at me. “Why’d you throw your flowers on the ground like that? The petals are breaking . . .”
“Shush, we don’t have any time.” I turn to Thibault. “Doucet is here.”
He looks at me like I’ve lost my very last marble. “What?”
I point out to the yard, getting more desperate by the second. “He’s here!” I’m whispering as loudly as I can. “He’s out there! With the caterers, dressed in a suit.”
“No, he’s not,” May says. “I didn’t invite him or anything. I was only joking about that.” She pauses as she bites her lip. Then her expression changes drastically to one of worry. “I
maaaay have accidentally butt-dialed him once, though.” She cringes as Thibault and I both turn our full attention on her.
“What did you do?” he asks, his voice dangerously low.
She huffs out a breath and drops her voice to a loud whisper. “I’m sorry! I didn’t think anything happened, so I just hung up and forgot about it.” She looks over her shoulder at the backyard. “Are you sure he’s here? Maybe it’s someone who just looks like him.”
I grab her hand and shake it, causing a few flower petals in her bouquet to loosen and fall. “May, listen to me! He’s here! And he can’t possibly be showing up just to try to catch your garter at the reception.”
Thibault takes me by the wrist and pulls me over to the window. “Show me.”
I point through a pane of glass while I rest my free hand on my aching ribs. “There. Black suit. Red tie.” Thankfully Doucet’s attention is on the wedding guests and not the house.
I look at Thibault and watch as recognition dawns. “Who else is here?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Could be anyone. Caterers? I have no idea. He’s the only one I recognize from our surveillance photos and video, though. He could be flying solo. Most of his guys are in jail right now.”
“Who’s he after?” Thibault asks. He might be thinking out loud, but I answer anyway.
“May. It’s gotta be May. Maybe the chief, too.”
We both look at the gray-haired man sitting in the front row. Knowing Marc, he’d be happy to take down the five people sitting next to the chief of police, too, in his bid for revenge.
Thibault’s expression hardens. “We need to take him out.”
“Yes, I agree. How?”
Thibault looks at me, his jaw pulsing. “You feel like doing a little bit of acting?”
I grin, glad to be involved in ending this bullshit. “Hell, yeah.”
“What’re you guys doing?” May asks, coming up behind us. Her voice is trembling. “Is he really here?”
I nod.
“How did he know about my wedding? How did he find Jenny’s house?”
My mind is going a thousand miles an hour. May has butt-dialed me several times, leaving me inane recordings of conversations that go on for ten minutes or more. “Maybe you left him a voicemail when you butt-dialed him. All you’ve been talking about for weeks is the wedding. You called me eight times yesterday about it.”
Thibault interrupts. “Doesn’t matter right now; we’ll figure that out later. Right now we need to get this taken care of without risking the lives of the guests.” Thibault pulls his phone from his pocket and taps out a text to the team.
We watch through the window as every single one of them ignores it.
“Send it over and over until they answer,” I say.
Thibault re-sends the message five times before everyone on the team takes a look at it. They lift their heads and nod in our direction.
Good to go.
“I need to get out there,” I say. “The guests are getting restless. It’s going to make Marc nervous if we delay any longer.”
Thibault nods. “You’re right. So what’s the plan?”
It comes to me so clearly it’s as if I’m watching a movie play out in my head. As far as I can see, this plan is the only way to shut Marc down and avoid any collateral damage. I’m also holding out hope that the wedding will still happen and I won’t have to wear this dress twice.
I speak quickly. “Here’s what we need to do . . .”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
I wait until Thibault has sent out another text to the team before walking over to the door and picking up my discarded flowers on the way. I try to put them back in order, yanking out a few that are too far gone.
“What do I do?” May asks, breathing heavily down my neck from behind.
I turn and point at Jenny’s hallway. “Get your piece, hide it in your flowers, and shoot his ass if he gets too close.”
“My piece? I left my piece at work!” She looks around desperately. “I don’t have my piece!”
I point at my bag. “My Taser’s in there. Get it. It’s fully loaded.” Not that a Taser is going to help her at this point, but I need her to stay calm and not freak out. Having a weapon will make her feel more secure.
She runs over to retrieve the weapon, getting buried in her veil on the way, and I steady myself on the threshold. I can’t concern myself with her; I have to worry about the plan and making sure I get my part right. I take a deep breath in and out, smoothing my dress over my baby bump. Prepare and execute. Come on, Milli and Vanilli. It’s up to us now.
“You got this,” Thibault says, kissing me on the cheek.
“You know it.”
“Don’t get hurt,” he growls.
“I’ll do my best.”
I take a step out into the sun and make my way down the aisle, acting like I don’t have a care in the world.
The sun is gorgeous, warm as it filters through leaves of a great oak that shades most of the guests. The scent of roses floats past me, riding a light breeze that teases small hairs away from my sweaty forehead. All movement drops into slow motion as I make my way down the aisle to the sounds of the Wedding March.
The man I love more than anything in the world is ahead of me, standing at the end of the aisle next to Dev and Ozzie. I wish I had some way to tell him how I feel right now, but I don’t. All I’ve got is a dress, a handful of flowers, and a shitty plan. God help me.
Guests line the walkway marked by a pink runner on either side of me, sitting in white folding chairs decorated with bows. The catering staff and at least one murderer are standing in a group next to some bushes, off to the side in Jenny’s backyard.
My teammates are all on alert, ready for anything. Thibault is walking from the front door to Jenny’s side yard as quickly and as quietly as he can, headed to a spot directly behind Marc Doucet. His job is to take this criminal down while the rest of our team protects the guests and looks out for accomplices who may have wiggled their way into the celebration.
Hands are resting lightly on guns in holsters covered by jackets. Any obvious movements on our part could make bad guys’ fingers go to triggers and pull, so we need to avoid that if at all possible. We know how these gangbangers operate. As long as we keep them thinking their plan is still in motion, we have a chance of stopping it before it starts.
When I’m halfway down the aisle, I stop, putting my hand to my belly. “Oh!” I yell out with exaggerated volume, trying to look surprised.
Several guests turn to look at me, frowning in confusion.
I drop my ratty bouquet and clutch my belly with both hands, slouching as best I can in my stupid dress. “Oh, my god. I think I just had a contraction!”
The people closest to me stand.
I hold out my hand. “No, sit, sit, sit, I’ll be fine.” When the man nearest me holds out his hands toward me, I glare and growl at him. “Sit, I said!”
His wife pulls him back and he takes his seat reluctantly.
I try to grin through the pain of aching ribs as I whisper, “Sorry. Just playing a part here.” I take another step and then stop, bending over again and gasping. I speak as loudly as I can without being too obvious. “Ow! What the heck! I think I’m in labor!”
Hopefully, Marc Doucet doesn’t know a hell of a lot about pregnancies, since I don’t look like someone nine months along. I risk a glance in his direction and see him standing there with no expression on his face. He’s stone-cold serious as his hand moves slowly into his jacket. Time slows.
Thibault’s too far away. He’s just made it to the gate separating the side yard from the backyard. I can see him through the chain link. He’ll never make it in time.
I bend over again, yelling louder. “Oh, boy! That was a big one! Watch out!”
Lucky takes a step toward me.
I hold out my hand to stop him. He needs to stay out of the line of fire. I can’t let him get hurt.
Marc starts pulling his
hand slowly from his jacket. I see the butt of a gun coming with it.
“Oh, hey, Marc!” a high voice yells out from behind me. “You came! Oh my god, you are so crazy!”
What the . . . ?
I turn with my jaw dropped open to watch May streaking out from the house with her dress’s train gathered up in one arm and her bouquet in the other. “How did you know the address? I forgot to call you!”
Everyone . . . and I mean everyone . . . in the entire place just stares at her. Even Marc. My feet are rooted to the ground, but even if they weren’t, I wouldn’t be able to stop this train wreck from coming down the rails. Thibault is still too far away to intervene and Ozzie doesn’t have wings. It’s all up to May now.
She stops about ten feet away, when his hand comes out of his jacket with a pistol in it. She tilts her head to the side. “What are you doing, Marc—trying to ruin my wedding?”
I see everything happening at once like it’s part of a film I’m watching from a movie theater seat:
Thibault pulls his piece out of his holster and throws the gate open.
Ozzie leaps away from the arbor and starts running toward May.
Lucky runs toward me, his hands out as he hopes to block anything from reaching me.
Marc puts his finger on the trigger of his gun and turns the muzzle to point it at someone sitting in the crowd of guests.
And May raises her bouquet up at Marc and yells, “I change my mind! I don’t want an urban wedding after all!”
Two barbs from the Taser hidden in her bouquet come flying out from the flowers and embed themselves in Marc’s chest. His gun angles up and then falls from his limp hand as his body seizes several times and he arches over backward toward the ground.
May walks toward him, and, with each step, she pulls the trigger again and again, sending several jolts of electricity down the wires. “Take that, you horrible, awful wedding crasher!”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
May appears in the doorway of the house leading into the backyard, hanging onto Thibault’s arm. Across from where Jenny, the kids, and I are standing at the arbor awaits May’s husband-to-be and his two groomsmen, Dev and Lucky. Lucky winks at me, making my cheeks go warm. I don’t have a bouquet anymore and neither does May, but we don’t need them because we’re badass bitches and we make our own rules.
