VIOLA
“This place looks like Adams Family owns it,” Saskia exclaims as she walks through the door. Quinn walks in behind, surveying my childhood home with the same intensity. I’ve never brought Quinn here before. I’ve no idea what she makes of it as she takes in the deep dark wood, almost black furniture, the gold-accented wall art, and the rich flocked wallpaper. It’s all Adriren’s taste, and it’s horrendous, suffocating.
The security men at the door search the girls and their family of suitcases. And then they’re free to follow me to the Western wing. The bride’s guests will stay until after the wedding.
No one said I couldn’t have bridesmaids, so I took it upon myself to invite Quinn and Saskia.
“So who is planning this shotgun wedding, and where is your dress?” Saskia asks the moment we get behind closed doors.
I blink at her. “How the fuck should I know?”
Saskia’s eyes almost pop out of her head. “Please tell me you’re joking?”
I look at Quinn, silently asking for help. But Quinn raises a brow as she walks over to where her suitcase is and heaves it onto the bed. “I’m not getting involved. I’m just here as tech support.”
“She’s not, is she?” Saskia asks, looking at me in horror. “You need two bridesmaids. Three would be ideal, but two will do. You can’t have one. It’ll ruin the symmetry.”
I open my mouth to reply, but nothing comes out.
Thankfully, I’m saved by someone knocking at the door. It’s Sorrow Vice, Dino’s cousin, with a stormy expression on her face—brows furrowed, eyes narrowed, lips thin and taut.
“I’m supposed to try on a dress?”
I let out a breath and then step back to let her in.
“Saskia, Quinn, this is Sorrow. She’s the third bridesmaid.” Lola came and found me earlier in the day to inform me of that fact. I don’t care either way, but Saskia’s face brightens, so I suppose that means it’s good for the damn symmetry.
“The dresses are in here,” I say, leading the three girls into a second adjoining room that used to be a study. Someone brought the dresses around earlier. Saskia immediately screeches and runs up to the boxes and begins opening them.
“You didn’t even hang them up?” she snarls, looking back at me.
Quinn purses her lips at me and then mouths ‘run’.
I roll my eyes and walk out of the room. I can’t right now. I just can’t. I’d rather torture someone for information than do whatever is happening in that room.
Any day of the fucking week.
An entire morningof girl talk has my head exploding and my left eye twitching. After Saskia finds out that Lola is the wedding planner for the event, she makes her join us for breakfast cocktails and dress fitting. Lola is happy enough to get trashed at 10 a.m. She’s also delighted to stick a few pins into me while helping Saskia take in the dress.
It needs to fit me like a second skin, apparently. Having lost a lot of weight from my stint in Juvie, Saskia hasn’t stopped complaining about how awful it looks. I don’t see what her problem is. It’s a dress. All wedding dresses are meant to be hideous, aren’t they?
The sharp needles are a welcome distraction from Saskia’s cutting remarks and the celebrity gossip around the band booked for the wedding—a romantic scandal that I’m not the least interested in involving the sister of the famous singer, Lana Langfield. I’ve no idea who that is, and I don’t care. But Lola and Saskia seem to revel in revealing what they know and what they don’t.
I’ve never understood idle speculation. Why discuss an unknown fact that could or could not have happened? What a waste of time. When Quinn joins in the debate of which guy the sister is fucking, I know I’ve had enough. Especially when Lola refuses to adjust the dress to fit my dagger underneath.
“There won’t be any weapons at the ceremony,” she sniffs at me.
I would stab her had Saskia not been there. Quinn doesn’t care. And Sorrow looks like she wants to stab Lola too when she deems the conversation riveting enough to tear her eyes away from her phone.
But…Lorcan would not be happy if I lost it in front of his not-so-delicate sister. Throughout the day yesterday, he sent me several messages warning me not to lose my temper in front of his sweet Sassy. The guy is delusional. Saskia is vicious as she is fashionable. I’ve already taught her how to shoot, and she’s bugging me to teach her self-defense. I’m waiting for the day she asks me how best to part someone’s jugular and not get blood on her dress.
Something of which I’d love to know myself.
I extract myself from the room when Lola and the girls switch their attention to the bridesmaid’s dresses. Not that there’s anywhere else to go. Dino and his family have taken over the entire house, making me on edge, as well as Gigi. Whenever one of Dino’s uncles passes by, I feel for my knife, just as her hand hovers over the gun tucked under her suit jacket.
On the bright side, Gigi seems to have forgotten I exist with the Vice family in residence. I have enough on my plate to deal without her beady eyes following my every move until Adrien returns—Adrien, who still hasn’t bothered to return from his business trip to Turin. A good thing, too, because if he were here, I might have already tried to kill him out of sheer frustration.
Dante would say that it’s essential to plan this right.