Page 10 of Malicious Wedding

“Ash, please listen. I can help. I can—”

I slam the door in his face and jam the lock shut.

Then I collapse down to the floor, crying into my hands.

Chapter5

Ash

It takes a lot of crying, a little whiskey, and a lot of talking before Bernie understands what’s going on. We’re in my tiny back office next to the bathrooms jam-packed with my desk, the security camera equipment, and my pathetic excuse for a filing system. “I’ll drive you to the hospital,” she says, pacing back and forth. “We’ll find your brother. I’m sure someone there can tell you more about what’s going on.” She looks pale and terrified, like me.

“Carson said something.” I stare down at my hands. Everyone I grew up with is gone. How is this happening? “He said if I go to the hospital, they’ll know where I am. He said I’m next.”

Bernie sinks down into the chair across from my desk. “This is crazy. This can’t be real, right?”

“They were all in the organization.” I stare at the empty glass in front of me. “All of them, Bern. If Carson says it happened—” I stop myself, unable to go on.

“Fuck.” Bernie stares at me. “I’m so sorry, Ash.”

“Yeah.” I blink away another round of crying. “Me too.”

“Come on. Keely and Jams can run the bar while we’re gone. Let’s go to the hospital and at least get some more information, okay?”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “Yeah, you’re right. I can’t just… sit here.” I shove myself to my feet. “I have to do what I always do, right? Keep going on.”

“Keep going,” Bernie echoes in agreement. “Hell, maybe your guardian angel’s watching right now, yeah? Maybe your brother will be okay?” The hope in her tone only makes my stomach drop.

Nothing’s going to be okay.

She tells everyone that there was an emergency in my family and that we’re heading out. Jams and Keely are in charge. Fulco grumbles about it but doesn’t make a thing over nothing. I order an Uber and it takes us to the hospital. Bernie keeps up a steady stream of meaningless chatter as we go, trying to distract me from the bleak, ugly truth about my life.

I’m an orphan. My family is dead, and my brother might be next.

Inside, it takes a while for a nurse to finally come out to the waiting room. She seems haggard and exhausted, but tells me what she knows in a quick, clinical tone. Iain was shot eight times. He’s in surgery, and if he survives, he’ll be in critical condition. She doesn’t know if he’ll ever wake up. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever he the same if he does wake up. Everything’s up in the air.

“It’s true,” I say to Bernie once the nurse is gone. I sit numbly next to my friend while other quietly nervous families sit in tense silence nearby. I try to keep my voice under control, but it’s hard. “It’s all true. He’s alive, but—”

“Oh, Ash.” Bernie hugs me tightly. “I’m so sorry.”

“If this is true, then everything else—” I choke back the rest of it.

Everything else must be true too.

My father, uncles, male cousins, all dead. Murdered by people I don’t know for crimes I don’t understand.

After a half hour of nervous waiting, I escape to the bathroom, lock myself in a stall, and I use his number.

He answers right away. “Are you safe?”

“Why?” I ask him. That’s all I keep thinking. The only question that matters to me right now.

He’s quiet for a long moment. “I’ll tell you in person.”

“No, you’ll tell me now. Why, Carson?”

“Your brother made a mistake.” He lets out a long, tortured sigh. “A mistake I told him over and over not to go through with, but Iain never did like to listen.”

I bark an ugly laugh. “My brother worshipped you. If you told him to cut his throat, he would’ve sliced away.”

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