Page 25 of No Saint

The only one.

He clutches me tighter when I try to pull away, dominating the act, punishing me with his brutality in a way that looked passionate to everyone else.

And then it was over, and my mouth was swollen from the punishment.

Those jaw muscles pump as he clenches, staring down at me, “Finche morte non ci separi.”

“Until death do you part,” Someone repeats.

He forces me to turn with him, rotating us until we face the audience applauding what they don’t know is a forced marriage. It’s when we start to make our way down the aisle that the first shot rings out.

A scream pierces the crowd, overpowering the clapping and music. Everything happens so quickly that I can barely keep up with it. More shots begin to blast through the ceremony, bullets hitting bodies, blood soaking the white ribbons and petals. Gabriel is on me in an instant, he forces me to bend, his chest to my spine as his body curls around mine, using it as a shield from any bullets that may come our way.

Glass shatters and cries echo inside my head.

“Lincoln!” I scream.

“Stay down!” Gabriel orders with an authority he had yet to display, it was dominating and hard to disobey but Lincoln, my son.

“My son!” I cry, fighting him.

He pins me to him as he maneuvers us to a bar set up to the left of the aisle, the champagne glasses and bottles tipped over, some shattered, the golden liquid dripping off the edge of the pop-up bar. He shoves me behind it, his body still wrapped around me, hand cupping the back of my head as he forces my face into his chest.

The carnage was still going on, the shots and screams so loud I was sure you’d hear them all the way at the city.

I push at Gabriel, I shove, and I scratch but he doesn’t let go.

“Lincoln,” I beg, “Please, Gabriel, my son!”

“Devon has him,” he growls, letting me go only to cup my face and force my head to the side, seeing Devon cradling my son while he ushers a woman through the French doors. They disappear a moment later.

My legs start moving before it registers, going after them. Another shot rings out, Gabriel tugs me back but too late, the bullet slices across the top of my arm. Fire erupts across my skin, the heat of the blood like an inferno and the pain like an explosion.

Gabriel slams a hand across the bloody site, black spots dancing in my vision from the pain.

“Fuck, Amelia,” he hisses angrily, “Hold fucking still.”

I slump against him.

“Stay fucking awake,” He grabs my face just as another bullet hits the bar, the bang loud. Glass rains down onto us but he uses his body to shield me from it.

I turn my face to the doors, my heart thumping inside my chest, the blood roaring in my ears in time to see a mass of black suited bodies storming from the house.

They begin firing immediately in the direction of where the bullets were coming from.

And then it all stops, and silence settles like a weighted blanket around us. Gabriel breathes heavily, blood trickling from a scratch in his cheek where the glass must have nicked him.

“You’re okay,” he murmurs, meeting my eyes, “It’s over.”

I swallow, staring at his cruelly handsome face, my kidnapper, my husband. He holds me still as he looks past the edge of the bar and when he deems it clear, he curls his arms under my body and lifts us both off the ground. My white wedding dress was stained red, splotches of crimson blooms wetting the silk and mesh.

“Devon!” Gabriel yells.

He takes easy, determined steps into the house, leaving the carnage behind, the bodies dying, the crying. He ignores it all like a man who has seen death and calls it friend.

“Put me down,” I push on him.

He glares down at me, eyes moving to the blood seeping through the fingers cupped around the wound on my arm and to the bloodied dress, the droplets of it that sit on the exposed section of my abdomen, across my breasts and ribs.

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