Page 142 of Brutal Heir

Rory

The dress is too heavy.

Not just in fabric, though there’s enough lace and satin draped over my body to drown a small village girl. No, it’s the weight of what it means. Of what I’m about to do.

A sacrificial lamb wrapped in couture.

The winter air bites at my exposed skin as I step onto the manicured lawn behind the Quinlan estate. The grass is crisp with frost, and the sky overhead is the color of ash. Rows of white chairs are lined up on either side of a makeshift aisle, filled with faces I grew up seeing across smoke-filled pubs and backroom meetings. The Irish mob families, men with blood under their fingernails and their wives in pearls pretending they’re not just as dirty. How the hell had Conall managed to assemble everyone so quickly?

The O'Shea clan sits up front. My father. Bran. Even Blaine, with his arm in a sling, eyes bloodshot and fixed to the ground. Ican’t bring myself to look at him too long. The betrayal still feels like a knife lodged in my gut.

There’s a violinist playing some haunting melody I don’t recognize. It sounds like a funeral hymn. Very fitting.

And then there’s Conall.

Standing at the altar like the king of the damned, his suit perfectly pressed and his smile cold as the grave. He watches me with the same gaze he always has. It’s possessive, cruel, and certain that I’ll bend. That I’ll break.

But he’s wrong.

Because I’m not doing this for them anymore. Not for Blaine. Not for Da. Not for anyone but myself now. And the moment I see a sliver of a chance, I’m gone. Let them all rot in hell.

My fists clench beneath the veil. I’d rip the whole bloody dress apart if it would make a difference. I’d run barefoot through a patch of thorns if it meant I didn’t have to say those two words.I do. I won’t. I can’t.

Someone shoves me from behind, and I take a shaky step forward, teetering down the aisle on sky-high heels. Another constraint to keep me from running.

Every step is pure torture. And it isn’t only because my heels sink into the dewy grass. On the contrary, I wish the lawn would swallow me whole.

My eyes lift to find Conall’s, and I instantly regret looking up when I meet that icy gaze. Instead, I blink quickly and imagine a pair of blazing irises, one the most beautiful blue of a summer’s day and the other as dark as midnight.Alessandro.

“Smile, Brigid,” Conall murmurs when I finally reach the altar, tearing me from the lovely daydream. His voice is venomous beneath the polite hush of the crowd, nothing like Alessandro’s warm timbre. “This is the happiest day of your life.”

I glare up at him, my lips numb with fury. “You really think I won’t kill you someday?” Maybe even today. I skewered myhairpin dagger through the high bun after the attendant left. It’s well hidden now beneath my trailing veil.

He leans in, brushing my cheek with his lips like a lover, but his whisper chills me to the bone. “Try anything, and Blaine gets a second hole in his gut. Or maybe your father loses an eye. I haven’t decided yet. And if by some miracle you do escape again…” He smiles like a snake. “I’ll carve up your Italian mafioso until there’s nothing left but bones.”

I keep the frosty mask in place despite the fear ravaging my insides.

“And when I’m done with him,” he adds, voice like acid, “I’ll send what’s left to your doorstep in a velvet box. Right next to your mam’s rosary.”

My blood turns to ice. My chest squeezes.

Alessandro.

I have no idea where he is. But at least he’s alive. God, please, let him have stayed away.

Please, let him come for me.

The priest clears his throat. I didn’t even hear the beginning of the ceremony. My head is a screaming storm. Conall takes my hand. His fingers are ice and iron, manacles to keep me prisoner.

“I now ask the bride?—”

A low rumble shakes the ground.

My head jerks toward the estate. The guests stir, confused.

Another second, thenboom!

A wall of heat punches through the air, knocking some of the front-row guests off their feet. The ground bucks under me like a living thing. My ears ring, and smoke coils around my ankles like it’s come to drag me under.