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I shoot her a death glare and she goes, “What?” as if she hadn’t just suggested messing with the actual mafia for shits and giggles.
“Maybe—okay,” I mutter, pacing about the room. Or trying to pace, anyway. I keep forgetting I’m in a ridiculously huge dress that doesn’t allow for much movement in small spaces. “Right. So maybe it was all a misunderstanding.” Hope dawns and I very nearly cry with relief. “Maybe they think we’d be okay with them assassinating Lilian because we’re in the same line of work as they are. Maybe if we just told them that we’re not mafia, they’d let us go? Maybe they’d call the whole thing off!” Tears of hope spring to my eyes and I grin madly at my two aunts, hoping like hell that they’ll agree with my logic.
“Or maybe, like I said before, the only reason why they haven’t just bumped us all off is because they don’t want to start a war,” Fourth Aunt says in a flat voice, stabbing a dagger into my hope balloon.
Big Aunt sighs. “Oh, Meddy, you still must learn so much, ya. Mafia not work like that. Is more like Fourth Aunt say, if they think you mafia, they respect you more. If they think you not, then they know they can kill you and no consequence.”
“But there are consequences! You can’t just go around killing civilians. The cops will get you!”
“The cops,” Big Aunt snorts in the tone someone might use to say, “Pfft, the clowns.”
“Yeah, the cops! Especially here in England. They’re not going to be okay with a little murder spree going on in good old Christ Church College.”
“Don’t be daft, Meddy, of course Staphanie’s family won’tbump us off right now. I’m talking about later on,” Fourth Aunt says. “When everything’s done and dusted and we’re all back home in L.A., we’ll get picked off, one by one. They’ll make it look like an accident to the Americans, but the Indos will get the message.”
I gape at her. Somehow, in my naivete, I’d thought that if we just made it through today, we’d be okay. This whole thing would be behind us. But she’s right, of course. Why wouldn’t it follow us long after the wedding is over? Of course the mafia wouldn’t just let us walk free, especially since we know what they’ve done. The realization is suffocating. Literally. I find myself wheezing, my breath coming in and out in an awful whistle.
Big Aunt grabs my face with both hands and yanks me firmly down so I’m staring right into her eyes.
“Stop that, Meddy,” she says, using the Voice.
I gulp and stop breathing, staring like a trapped animal.
“You hold yourself, not panic like that, malu-maluin aja,” she says sternly.
Embarrassing? I want to laugh. No one’s around except us—okay, and the two knocked-out men—and she’s worried about saving face?
“We not run around like chicken. No. We handle it. We will show them, we are even more powerfulest family than them.”
It’s as though Big Aunt has been waiting for this moment all her life. Right in front of me, she changes. Her back straightens. Her enormous bosom rises majestically. Her chin lifts, ever so slightly, and her expression changes into one that is self-assured and speaks of easy violence.
And I find myself staring at a mafia boss lady.
20
Big Aunt and Fourth Aunt coach me on how to behave more like a gangster before giving up and saying, “Well, you could pass as the princess who has no idea how the family business is run, I suppose.”
“Thanks, Fourth Aunt.”
She grins and rubs her hands together, reminding me of how eager she’d been to see Ah Guan’s body that terrible night.
After checking the bindings on the men one last time, we leave the room in time for cocktail hour. I walk behind my aunts, grabbing the heavy skirt of my dress and struggling to keep up with them as they stride down the hallway. Even the way they walk is different. How the hell did they change themselves so effortlessly? Big Aunt has always had an air of self-assurance about her, but now that air has sharpened into something that is, quite frankly, terrifying. And Fourth Aunt, well, she’s practically scampering with glee. I can very easily imagine her leaping out of some poor sucker’s closet deep in the night with a dagger in her hands.
We walk through the quad and into the Masters Garden,where they’ve set up for cocktail hour. The place is breathtakingly beautiful. When I’d last seen it during our tour, it had already been impressive—a vast lawn lined with centuries-old stone walls and greenery, flanked by the majestic Christ Church College in the background.
Now, there’s a beautiful white tent set up, inside which there are canapés and drinks, and it seems like there are bursts of flowers everywhere. Huge arrangements of hydrangeas, peonies, lilies, and roses line the borders of the garden, so gorgeous I can’t help but stare as we get closer. Everyone is mingling and having a great time. Off to one side, a live band has set up and is playing something I don’t recognize but that makes me want to kick off my shoes and dance barefoot on the dewy grass. Staphanie and her family may be fake vendors, but apparently they have good taste in music. The entire place has morphed into a magical fairy-tale garden.
If only I could enjoy it the way I was meant to.
A cheer goes up when the guests spot me, and I give them a weak smile.
“There you are,” Nathan says, coming up to me and giving me a kiss. “I was starting to wonder if you got cold feet and ran away,” he jokes, but his eyes are truly concerned, making my stomach twist painfully.
“Sorry, I was just—uh, I had to pee, so I had to get out of my dress and, um, it’s a whole thing.”
Nathan laughs. “I didn’t even think of the logistics of going to the bathroom. I’m sorry it was such an ordeal for you. Have I told you that you look...” He sighs happily, twining his arms around my waist and pulling me close. I turn my face up toward his and our lips are about to meet when someone says, “Got you!”
I jump, my forehead smacking into Nathan’s jaw. “Ow!” he cries, grabbing his chin.