Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 86629 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 433(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86629 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 433(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
“We have,” Connor says.
“Fuck no! This is insane!”
“Very good.” Father Charles looks back down at the Bible as if I didn’t speak. “Will you love and honor each other as man and wife for the rest of your lives?”
“I will.” Connor sounds like he truly means it. “Angie, say it.”
“Hell no, please, don’t do this!” I look at my mom in a desperate panic, but she’s pinned to the spot, not moving a muscle. “We can’t seriously be doing this?”
“Wonderful.” Father Charles licks his finger and turns a page. “Since it is your intention to enter into marriage, join your right hands and declare your consent before God and his Church.”
Connor switches the gun to his left hand and drops to his knees in front of me. He takes my right in his, gripping tightly, the pistol still pointed at my mother. He lifts my hand to his lips and kisses my knuckles, and my heart goes wild, racing a mad rhythm against my ribs.
This can’t be happening. I can’t find this exciting. There’s no way this is legal.
“I, Connor Maguire, take you, Angelina Bellandi, to be my wife. I promise to be faithful to you—“ He kisses my wrist. “—in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health—“ He kisses each tip of my fingers. “—to love you and to honor you all the days of my life. I swear it on my heart and by my soul, to death.”
Silence falls. Mom’s mouth moves like a fish. Father Charles watches me expectantly.
The world flattens to Connor. His words ring in my ears, but not only what he said, but how he said them, like each was a prayer, a divine pact written in blood, and this all becomes real, all of it. The gun, the marriage, the baby, the threats, the fear. It’s real, it’s happening, and I’m going to be his wife. There’s no stopping him.
“We can skip—“ Father Charles starts.
But I cut him off. “I promise to be your wife,” I whisper, choking out the words. “If you protect our baby to your dying breath.”
“I will,” he says.
And I believe him. “Father. Finish the ceremony.”
Father Charles clears his throat. “Not the traditional vows, but good enough. What God has joined together, let no one put asunder. Ring now, please.”
Connor cuts his eyes to my mom. “You move and you bleed.” He places the gun on the floor and takes out the ring again. I watch, horrified, fascinated, as he puts it on my finger. It’s slightly too big, but it fits close enough. “Beautiful,” he says, kissing the stone one more time.
“I now declare you husband and wife.” Father Charles snaps the book shut. “Ego coniungo vos in matrimonium, in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.”
Connor wraps me in his arms and kisses me.
I melt against his mouth. His taste is sin, honey, death, and hellfire. It’s the end of me and I know it. Whatever I’ve done, whatever I’ve gotten myself into, there’s no way out, there’s no escape, not from a man like Connor.
I break as I kiss him, the sweetest kiss I’ve ever tasted, both poison and cure at once, and I know my life is over, even as it’s just beginning.
10
ANGIE
I’m bundled into Connor’s Mercedes. Mom is left behind with a warning: call the police and her apartment will burn to the ground while her corpse is left in the bathtub. Father Charles pretends like he doesn’t hear any of it, smiling the whole time as though he completed a successful homily.
“I need clothes,” I say as Connor steers the car away from the only life I’ve ever known. The ring on my finger feels like fire, like there are ants crawling under my skin. “I left my phone in the kitchen. I need my computer—“
“Everything will be provided for you at home.”
“Home? What home? I don’t even know where you live.”
His eyes cut to me, dark and roaming my body, no smile on his face. This Connor is all business. He’s the Big Boss, but morphed into a hellish monster. “I have a house in Queens.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. “Queens? Are you crazy? That doesn’t tell me anything. Queens is huge.”
“You’ll see.” His phone starts buzzing. He checks the screen, jaw twitching, but shuts it off and throws it into the back seat.
This is very, very bad.
I don’t fully understand what’s happening here.
I’m married to Connor, all because I got pregnant with his baby, and he apparently left some other woman at the altar for me?
It’s insanity.
Now he’s ignoring phone calls, presumably panicked messages from the wedding he’s skipping.
All because he already got married.
“You’re in trouble, aren’t you?” He doesn’t answer. Only keeps driving, eyes locked forward. “You should at least take their calls. What if that girl you were going to marry is worried? What about your family?”