A Love Most Fatal (Morelli Family #1)

42. Vanessa

42

VANESSA

I don’t know how many hours pass before I see Cillian again. My wrists are scraped raw from trying to free myself from the bonds and my arms ache both from my futile efforts and from being held so tightly in place for so long.

My stomach feels like a gnawing pit, tearing at itself in hunger, and the burning in my throat has only gotten worse. There’s an acute ache behind my left eye that has been throbbing as the sun has traveled across the sky. It hasn’t set yet but it’s low enough that I know it’s evening already.

I’ve realized that torture might be most effective in an empty floor full of windows. You can’t pretend more or less time has passed when you can see just how much sun is lighting up the sky. It might be more grueling than a basement.

He strolls in with a tray of food with him that makes my stomach growl instantly. His hand is also bandaged, and it fills me with a spark of glee to see that I left a mark. If he lives through this, I hope it scars.

“How was your time to think?” he asks, ever chipper.

“Comfortable.”

“Good.” He pulls up his chair again and sits down in front of me. If I had access to my hands, I would claw his face. “I brought you dinner.”

I am exceptionally wary of anything this man wants to offer me. Certainly, it’s drugged. When I press my lips shut at his offered spoonful of soup he sighs and takes a bite himself.

“See? Harmless.”

Nothing from this man could ever be harmless, but when I’m hungry, I get faint and if I lose consciousness, my opportunity for escape drops to near zero.

He offers another spoonful, and this time I do take it. It’s soothing on my throat and I am ravenous for more, which he dutifully feeds me.

“Is this what married life will be like?” I ask after he gives me a sip of water through a straw. “Me tied up in the attic and you feeding me three meals a day by hand?”

Cillian laughs through his nose.

“I won’t need to keep you tied up,” he says. “You’ll learn.”

I want to scream at him until I lose my voice, tell him I will never love him, tell him I have no intention of marrying him or learning to keep quiet, that I am smarter than him and always will be, but I take another bite of chicken and rice soup and try to hide the scorching blaze of hatred from my eyes.

Cillian moves onto the bread, biting off a piece for himself before feeding me the rest. I already feel better, marginally more energy now that I have some food in my system. It won’t be enough to get out, though, not when I’m this weak and he’s got bombs on every one of my loved ones.

“What are you thinking, dove?”

“Why do you call me that?” I ask instead of answering.

He takes a bite of the last thing on the tray, bread pudding, and when he shows me his tongue to prove he swallowed it, I let him feed me that, too. It’s intimate having his hand so close to my face to feed me and wipe a napkin under my lips. I detest the closeness with him.

“Everyone loves a dove,” he says. “They’re romantic birds, some even mate for life.” I chew and swallow the last bite of pudding before he speaks again. “But at the heart of it, doves aren’t so far removed from pigeons, are they? And everyone hates a pigeon.”

Cillian sets the tray down on the chair and walks behind me.

“Jensen,” he yells, and the man I recognize as one of Cillian’s goons steps into the room. Was he just standing silently in the hall awaiting beckoning?

Jensen is a big man, but one of his arms is in a sling, which makes him look a lot less scary than I know he can be.

He looks at me with mild disgust written across his face.

It dawns on me, then. He was shot. By Nate .

“You tried to kill my sister,” I say, my whole body tense. That day on the site. Of course Cillian was behind that too, sabotaging everything. And then Jensen shot her. She can’t fight because of him.

“Nothing the bitch doesn’t deserve,” Jensen says. “But it’s not personal. I just wanted to get the teacher.”

A chill runs down my spine at this admission.

Cillian starts to untie the series of ropes that have me locked in place and I’m already formulating a plan to incapacitate them both when his breath skates over my ear.

“Mary will go first if you even think about it, Vanessa. Feel free to test me, I’ve been waiting for an excuse to kill her for years.”

I still, letting this news sink in before giving one jerky nod.

That’s enough for him, I guess, because soon as the rope is undone he’s helping me stand. My legs are completely asleep, and as soon as I try to step, I fall right into his arms, my face pressed against his chest. That cologne is so strong I could almost throw up the whole meal I just ate.

“I hate you,” I whisper.

“That’s okay,” he says and kisses the top of my head.

As soon as I’m able, I stand away from him and try to shake some life into my limbs.

“You look nice in this dress,” he says. “It suits you.”

I look down at the thing. Now that I’m standing, I can see it clearly, a low square cut on my chest and puffy sleeves. A sort of princess look. The kind of dress I would have killed for as a little girl.

“Shall we? There’s a wedding we don’t want to be late to.”

I give one long look that he meets with a hard one in kind. One that says he wasn’t lying about what he was going to do to my family. I duck my head. I need to think.

“Good girl.”

Cillian slides palms down both of my arms until landing on my wrists which he squeezes lightly before cuffing them again in front of me, this time with zip ties that will cut into my skin if I struggle.

“You’re so beautiful when you behave.”

My heart drops further into the ever-growing pit of my stomach when I realize where we’re going. My church, the Saint Mary, not ten miles from my home, the backdrop of so many memories, and now to be sullied with this. It’s fitting, I suppose. I always wanted to be married here.

When we arrive, the sun is almost set, half of the sky is now a purple twilight. Cillian ushers me into an empty old building, save for a man I don’t recognize at the altar. Outside there were about a dozen armed guards, maybe more, which gives me hope that he’s worried someone might know where he is. Someone that might be dangerous to his plan.

He let me use the restroom before we left, but watched the whole time. No funny business, he said, can’t take any chances I’d try something.

He even held the dress up for me, a smug smirk all the while. Quite the gentleman.

The last light of the day filters through the stained-glass face of the Virgin Mary as she looks down on us. It doesn’t provide comfort today, just a sad foreboding. If I was her, I would know what to do, I think. Maybe I’d have some divine intervention.

I’m good at thinking on my feet, but as soon as I realized Cillian had weapons pointed at everyone I love, my mind went blank.

I wasn’t meant to be the choice maker; I wasn’t meant to be a boss. My dad would never have ended up here, not ever. He was smart and discerning. He knew who he could trust, and when he couldn’t, he dispensed of them with regret but readiness.

I wonder about the signs I missed as Cillian slowly marches me up the aisle. What didn’t I see in the last three months, in the last thirteen years, that led us here?

“Did you get the license?” the man asks.

“Of course,” Cillian says, and pulls an envelope from inside his suit’s chest pocket. Cillian always has made light work of expediting official documents.

“A beautiful occasion,” the man at the altar says, and I can see now that he is a priest, though not one I recognize.

I could almost laugh. A supposed man of God stands at the head of this beautiful place about to marry a wicked man to a woman whose hands are zip tied in front of her. My mind wonders over what Cillian must’ve threatened him with. Or bribed, I suppose.

“Indeed,” Cillian says. “I thought you’d want to be married in your church. Such a beautiful wedding your sister had. Yours could’ve been as grand a celebration as hers, but,” Cillian shrugs at the priest, “it is what it is.”

“Indeed,” the priest echoes. “Shall we get right to it, then?”

Cillian nods and takes my bound hands in his, his thumb tracing small circles over my knuckles. His touch is gentle, like he’s trying to soothe me, but his eyes speak something different. They promise pain, violence, and all manner of cruelty if I mess this up.

I lift my chin and meet his eyes as the priest begins reading off the marriage ceremony from his old leather book. There are candles lit on the altar and in sconces around the old church, a yellow-glow hue illuminating the scene as the sky darkens to night.

The priest starts with prayer, and Cillian winks up at me from his head bowed in mock reverence. This isn’t a normal wedding, none of the repeated prayers and songs, just a homily. The priest speaks briefly about the bonds of marriage, the sacred nature of it, and how we will be one for the rest of our long lives here on earth. He shares some scriptures, but I don’t hear them; I’m too deep in the pit of my mind willing every ill-intention I’ve ever had into my eyes.

Cillian just smirks. Amused.

“Do you have the rings?” The priest asked Cillian.

“Yes.” Cillian lets go of my hands only to pull two gold bands from his breast pocket. The one for me is dainty, with an intricate vine design carved on the outside. He slides it on my left ring finger, though it’s tight with all the blood that’s rushed to my hands since being tied up. He puts his own ring on instead of making me try in my state.

“Cillian, do you promise to be a companion to Vanessa in all of her successes and failures, her happiness and sadness, to always give to her your unwavering support and above all else, the freedom to be herself?”

“I do,” he says. The hollow promise guts me, and without meaning to, a drop falls from my eye and rolls down my cheek. Cillian wipes it with the pad of his thumb then licks it off.

“And Vanessa?—”

A phone starts buzzing in Cillian’s suit, halting the priest. Cillian pulls it from his breast pocket, reading over the screen briefly before nodding. “Continue.”

“Vanessa, do you promise to be a companion to Cillian in all of his successes and failures, his happiness and sadness, to always give to him your unwavering support and above all else, the freedom to be himself?

My mouth is dry, like I’ve swallowed cotton balls. If I say yes to this, what am I promising?

How long will I have to endure pretending before I catch him unawares? Weeks, or months? Years? Will I need to have a child with him? Suffer through sleeping with him and then bear his children?

I don’t care what he believes, I will never, ever love him.

I think to say as much, just as a reminder. When Cillian raises a brow, daring me to test him. Jensen stands guard at the entrance. It would take just a nod from Cillian to make his threats reality.

“I do,” I whisper.

“Hm?” Cillian prompts.

I clear my throat. “I do.”

I will have to pretend, but it won’t be forever. I will beat him somehow, it’s the only option?—

His phone buzzes again, and after a glance at Jensen, he nods and ignores it. The priest says a few more words that I don’t hear, only thinking about the smug grin spreading over Cillian’s face, the indeterminate years of torture I’ve just promised myself to.

“You may now kiss the bride,” the priest says, and Cillian wastes no time pulling me to him, dipping me back until I’m suspended almost parallel with the ground and pressing his mouth against mine.

His lips are lukewarm and probing, but I won’t yield this, not again, not when I let him kiss me thoroughly last night when I thought he was just my confused friend.

There’s that phone again, vibrating loud, and this time, I feel it against my chest, pressed up against him as I am.

He lets up for just a breath.

And then it feels like the whole place explodes.