I hadn’t thought about flowers. Hadn’t thought about little bags of birdseed. But she had.
As I’d walked with Aidan toward Finn, Lena had given him a bouquet for me to hold. And on the way out, with Finn at my side, a newly inked marriage certificate back in the chapel, I saw the floral touches that Lena had arranged.
When we made it outside, the O'Donnellys swarmed us from the back, and they pelted us with a shower of birdseed. Finn and I laughed, ducking our heads as the grains collected in our hair, and I knew that smile of his would forever be imprinted on my memory banks. His sheer, unadulterated joy at that moment made him look ten years younger and a hundred times more handsome in his navy-blue suit.
As he turned around to chide Conor for tipping his bag of seeds down the back of Finn’s collar, I saw it.
The truck was big.
Out of place in this neighborhood.
It wasn’t the most affluent of places, but this van was beat up enough that it caught my eye. And then, the door to the side slid open as it started down the road.
I saw the two men hanging to the sides before I saw the guns.
Frowning, I reached for Finn, grabbed his arm to warn him, but before I could, they fired.
After the crowing laughter from the brothers, the joyous tears from Lena, the staccato bursts of gun shots interspersed with screams, sounded all the more obscene.
And just as my happiness turned to dread, my pure white suit which Finn had insisted upon because of my virginal status before he’d deflowered me—as he called it—bloomed red. Where before, there’d been joy, now there was only pain.
And blackness.
II
Screw Me
Chapter Sixteen
Finn
I thought I’d known rage.
Truly, I did.
I’d been abused by my father, and had known my mother was aware of it.
I’d run from home.
I’d killed.
I’d sought a fortune and I’d made it.
But catching my new bride on the church steps as a bullet tore through her body showed me that the rage I’d experienced in my life, was nothing compared to this.
It surged inside me like a tidal wave. Forging more fury as it destroyed the limits of my control.
On the streets, you learned to live fast. It was either that or die young. I’d never intended on dying young, and my bride, who was twelve years younger than me, wouldn’t either.
Not if I had a say in it.
There was a shocking scarlet stain on her white wedding suit, and suddenly, I regretted her not wearing the white meringue dress, having all the bridesmaids and the big wedding party. She’d deserved that. Not this small affair.
She deserved the fucking world.
My throat clenched and I refused to believe the world wasn’t still hers for the taking. I’d give her that and more if she just. Fucking. Lived.
A part of me wanted to breakdown. To cry. But I couldn’t.
My instincts were too strong. I wasn’t like my brother, Eoghan. I wasn’t a sniper, but he’d helped train us. Had helped forge our skills so that the O'Donnelly sons and myself weren’t dumbshits when it came time to hold a weapon.
Clutching Aoife with one arm, I pulled the gun from the holster on my other shoulder. It seemed like fate that I didn’t even have to shuffle her in my hold to grab the gun. It slid seamlessly into my dry palm as I quickly took in the scene around me.
At my back, there was chaos.
I could hear moans of pain and low curses, as well as someone on the line with the emergency services.
But I blocked it out.
Blocked everything out as my gaze switched to hyper focus on the scene ahead.
The gunmen hanging out of the van were barely twenty, and had they been older, they’d have fucking figured out that drive-bys were supposed to be fast. In and out before anyone could lay chase.
Either they were slow, wanting to watch some of the pandemonium they had stirred, or the world had slowed down for me so everything took incrementally more time than usual.
I saw the door to the truck the Colombians were using was still open as it drove past. I saw the grinning clown faces, loaded with those ugly fucking tats as they celebrated their ‘win,’ but more than that, I saw a target.
As Eoghan had taught me, I took aim. I held my breath to steady my heartbeat, then I