Page 78 of The Vow
“You sure buddy? ‘Cause this is way more than any of us thought… I thought we’d just go through with a fucking nice day out, you’d kiss the girl, go your separate ways, and annul or whatever a week or so later, but this has been a big fucking ordeal from start to finish… you said you’d marry her over your dead body… I never thought we were seriously talking about a possible dead body-”
“I love her, Colt, I know I vowed never to marry her, I know what I said… she said it, too, we were both set against it… but fuck… I fell for her so hard, Colt…”
“I know, brother,” Colt said.
“We both… and then I took her to the fucking altar in Vegas and I said I’d love her and protect her ‘til death do us part… and I’m a man of my word Colt, I meant the sentence I said when I said those vows-”
“Yeah, I hear you. We all do.” Colt put a hand on Carmelo’s wet shoulder.
“And now it looks like someone got me laid up and hurt Lena and I wasn’t there to protect her-”
“Hey, this isn’t on you-” Jared frowned.
“I should have been there for her-”
“Hey, you were spiked, okay? Muhammed Ali would have been out for the count with Rohypnol in his system, too, we know you Carmelo, we know you didn’t just fuck off, get high, and leave Lena to the wolves last night. We know you probably put up a fight, hell, you can hold your weight and then some when it comes to a punch up, we know that.” Jared continued.
Carmelo sighed and looked at Phantom. A deep, feral snarl issued from his lips and Carmelo felt it. The solidarity. The support. They would all kill for him, they would all die for him. Phantom was probably already visualizing the bloodbath he wanted to unleash. Colt fucking hated that he’d been one-upped, and Jared looked like he wanted to smash skulls with his bare hands. They had him. He was safe, he was with his family.
Carmelo swallowed loudly. “We fucking carry on. We wait for them to make the first move. They’ll fuck up. They think they’ve fucked me over, remember? They think I won’t show up, they think Lena will pull out… well, we won’t. You’ll have me looking sharp as fuck at the front of the alter and Lena will glide down the aisle looking beautiful and they’ll be so stumped they’ll give themselves up-”
“We’re assuming they are all in on this, like this was sanctioned by Jovan himself…” Sully said slowly.
“Well, isn’t it?” Colt snapped back.
Sully shrugged. “He wouldn’t have sanctioned his daughter getting roughed up, he wouldn’t want her or them looking like a fool, a full church and a runaway groom.”
Nix nodded. “True, brother.”
“Just worth thinking, it might not be them all acting as one, the Zakarian’s might not be as tight and united as we are assuming here.”
Colt grunted and his eyes lingered on Sully longer than expected. Like he was calculating something in his head. “Huh.”
“That’s true, but either way, we keep our guard up, we call their bluff, we figure out who it was first-”
Colt pursed his lips. “Well we don’t have any other plan, so fuck it, let’s do it. But I want the MC briefed and in on the game.” Colt turned to Jared now, instructing him. “No drinking, no messing around, I want them primed for trouble and I don’t want any trigger happy fingers, we let the Zakarian’s do the fucking up, as Carmelo says. We come out of this looking shiny clean, the shit won’t stick to us. Got it?”
Jared and Phantom both nodded. “Prez,” Jared barked, acknowledging the order.
Carmelo
And that was how Carmelo found himself standing at the altar, an hour later, pale and clammy, fighting to stand up straight. His suit felt like it was made of chain mail with a nest full of red ants poured inside it, his head felt like it was going to split open, he was well aware he had a sheen of sweat on his forehead for all to see.
But the room was full. It wasn’t a church but this event room was designed purely for weddings, it looked exactly like a church. High ceilings, stained glass windows. Rows of wooden benches, a table at the front all dressed up like an altar.
There were flowers everywhere, roses, white and pink, looking so beautiful and fragile. When Carmelo felt the situation was entirely the opposite; brutal and ugly. And everyone dressed up, dolled up, neat, bold makeup, elegant dresses, fancy shoes. When really, practically everyone here were criminals, in some guise. Whether they were Zakarian family members or business associates, they were affiliated with a gang who transported illegal goods across America and overseas. They distributed drugs, guns, they controlled whole ports and supply chains, they took money for ‘protection’ when they were the ones causing the violence in the first place. And on the other side of the aisle, the MC. Men who had done bad things, too. For different reasons, not to get rich, or because family honor dictated it. Mainly to survive. Carmelo knew he had to acknowledge that. But still. He stood up in front of these people, beaten and drugged against his wishes, expected to marry one of them.
A few months ago he would not have believed this. He would have unequivocally raged against it. He had, but a certain someone had changed things massively for him. A certain someone he was waiting for right now in fact.
He knew he was supposed to be facing the altar, as they had walked through the night before, but Carmelo kept peering over his shoulder, turning his body as much as the pain allowed to see down the aisle. He wanted to see her. None of this was real, none of the flowers and the suits and the giant room pretending to be a church meant anything. But she did. She was the most real thing in Carmelo’s world. He had to see her, he had to feel her near.
Music started. Suddenly a loud, booming organ. It hurt Carmelo’s head a lot, he almost cringed at each new note. People stood, flapping, the level of hum in the room rose, excitement flitted through the crowd.
Here comes the bride, Carmelo thought to himself. He remembered Phantom and Sophie’s wedding, what felt like a thousand years ago. The stab of jealousy he had felt when he saw Sophie beaming at Phantom. The envy, the first little niggle he felt, that something in his life wasn’t quite right. Wasn’t fitting correctly. He had hoped that one day he’d find someone who would smile at him like that. It was so ironic that, that someone had been picked for him, and he’d stubbornly fought it at first.
And now she was walking down the aisle to meet him, but the look on her face was far from the serene bliss that Sophie had looked at Phantom with, all those months ago.
Lena looked pale. Worryingly pale. And sad, her features ridgid, set in place but ice cold, rock hard. She looked scared. Carmelo felt his breath catch in his throat. She was wearing some ridiculous puffy dress that was not her style at all. The back-up one her mother had insisted on getting. Carmelo felt angry for her.