GRACE
I PROP my shaking arm on the vanity as I swipe on a touch of lip gloss. My honey-blonde hair is
pulled back in a simple updo, with a few curled tendrils framing my face. My hazel eyes are accented
by tasteful eyeshadow and mascara that highlights my long lashes.
The look is understated. Classic.
The picture of an innocent bride.
So why the hell am I so fucking nervous?
I really shouldn’t be getting anxious about something I’ve been looking forward to for months, but
now that my wedding day is here, my insides are in a twist. My hands won’t stop shaking, and I don’t
know if it’s just typical wedding day jitters or something else.
I love Brian. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have agreed to marry him. If I didn’t completely love him, I
wouldn’t be here right now, minutes away from walking down the aisle and marrying him. We’ve
been together for over two years, our sex life is decent, and the next step after spending a few years in
a relationship is marriage. Because that’s what people do.
Isn’t it?
Ever since my life changed in the blink of an eye when I was sixteen, when I was yanked out of
the violent, dark world I grew up in, I’ve always tried a little too hard to be “normal.” To fit the
textbook definition of the average American life. And getting married is a part of that.
That’s not why you’re doing it though, Grace, I remind myself. That would be crazy.
I’m getting married because I’m in love. Because I want to start a family soon. Because I’m ready
for this next step.
Right?
My hazel eyes seem a shade darker, larger than they usually are, and I shake my head at my
reflection, shooting her a quelling look.
“Stop it,” I whisper at the woman in the mirror, clenching the lip gloss between my fingers. “Just
stop it.”
I draw in a breath and force myself to unclench my hand, setting the tube down gently on the
vanity. I just need to stop worrying. In a few hours, it’ll all be over. I’ll be happily married and on my
way to a nice Canadian cabin with Brian, wrapped up in bliss.
From the outside, my life looks pretty perfect already. I went to college and came out with straight
A’s and no debt—thank goodness for scholarships—have a business degree, a good job lined up, and
I’m getting married to a handsome law enforcement officer who will keep me safe. In a few years,
we’ll have kids. Cute kids with blue eyes like Brian and chubby cheeks...
The door behind me gently creaks open, and my gaze snaps up to the mirror, catching sight of my
father. He smiles when our gazes meet, and a wave of emotion washes over me at the sight of him all
dressed up in a suit. He looks handsome and dapper. I haven’t seen him in a suit in years, although he
used to wear them all the time.
Back before we moved to Washington.
Back in the other life we never talk about.
Six years ago, we moved from Chicago to Washington, traveling off the grid and staying low. We
were running from our past lives, running from the death of my mother, the wars of blood... the mafia.
Seeing my father looking so much like that old version of himself makes a pit form in my stomach,
but I push it away.
Today isn’t a day to be focusing on the past.
Only the future.
Dad gives me a small wave and creeps into the room, closing the door behind him. I watch him
through the mirror, biting my bottom lip and probably messing up the gloss I just applied.
“Grace, you look beautiful. I can’t believe my little girl is getting married.” His usually deep
voice is a little gruffer than usual, and I know he’s fighting back emotion just like I am.
I turn around in my seat. “Dad, stop.” Trying to laugh, I blink away the tears welling in the corners
of my eyes. “You’re going to make me cry.”
“I’m proud of you, honey.” He squats next to my seat and grasps my hands, pulling them to his
chest. His solid heartbeat comforts me, and I suddenly realize how damn lucky I am to still have him
with me. He’s all I have left. “For once... I’m at a loss for words.”
“Proud of me for what, doing something everyone else does?” I attempt to joke, speaking my
earlier thoughts aloud. “Getting married? Doesn’t seem that hard these days.”
“For recovering,” he says seriously. “For flourishing. For making the best of the bad times and
coming out stronger than ever. I’m proud of you for putting up with all of my bullshit.”
What he means is the running, the moving, the not knowing where we were going to sleep next. It
took us almost a full year to get completely back on our feet after leaving the mafia, a full year of
memories we both tune out.
“I’d do it again for you, Dad. You know that.”
“Your mother would be proud too.” Heavy sadness weighs on his voice. She died six years ago,
just before we fled Chicago, but I know he still misses her every day. I do too. “I wish she could be
here to see you.”
“Me too.”
“I think she must be looking down on you today.”
Clasping my hands in his, my father places a tender kiss to my knuckles, like a benediction. When
he stands up, his knees pop with the movement.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you are turning into an old man,” I tease.
“Oh hush.” He cracks a smile. He gives me a flick on the chin like he used to do when I was a
little girl. “You know I’m still as spry as a man in his twenties. Cool too.”
To prove his point, he cocks an eyebrow at me and slicks back his hair, turning on his heels
smoothly. He’s aged well, still carrying the look of a classic American movie star, and the older
ladies love him for it.
“Right. Just don’t embarrass me by tripping down the aisle. Or dancing down it,” I say with a
warning tone. He gives me an innocent wink and slips out, shutting the door behind him. As the door
closes on his chuckle, I catch my reflection again.
My expression looks lighter, happier, less pinched. Seeing my dad helped calm me down, quieting
the little voice of doubt and worry in my mind.
I rarely think about the time before now, but just briefly talking about our past lives brings back a
rush of memories. Before we left Chicago, my dreams were completely different—so different that I
feel like I don’t even know the girl I left behind. The mafia princess became a picture perfect
suburban woman in just a few years.
There was a small part of me that didn’t want to leave when my father dragged me away, that was
consumed with the life of the mafia. But how is a sixteen-year-old girl to know what’s best for her?
If we hadn't left Chicago, what would my life have turned into?
One thing is for sure, I wouldn’t be in such a hurry to get married or settle down. I would want to
—
I cut off that thought before I can even finish it. There’s no point thinking about the life I left
behind. Or the people.
Not even the ones who kept a piece of my heart with them.
Shit.
Now is not the time to be getting cold feet.
My hands clasp the locket at my neck on instinct, popping it open with my thumb. I look down at
the familiar and worn picture it holds, a picture of a woman who looks just like me—hazel eyes,
blonde hair that glints with natural highlights. The only feature I took from my father was his smile,
and he’d never say this, but I know sometimes my dad has a hard time even looking at me. I remind
him of Mom too much. Of everything he lost when she died.
“I hope you’re proud,” I murmur suddenly. Then I shake my head, wrapping my hand around the
locket. “No. I know you’re proud. This is the life you must’ve wanted for me.”
No mother wants her child to grow up in the mafia, a place where a child may become a bidding
piece. A pawn on a chessboard. Bait or blackmail.
I mean, just look at what a rival syndicate did to my mother...
They killed her.
I clasp the locket shut, knowing I’ve made the right choice to settle down and marry Brian.
This is the life I’ve chosen, and I’m happy with it.
JUST LIKE WE practiced last night, I think, grasping my father’s arm. I can feel him shaking slightly,
which makes a small smile cross my lips. My father is never nervous. Only a few times in my entire
twenty-two years have I ever seen nerves get the best of him.
“You ready, Dad?” I ask, not taking my eyes off the church door in front of us. Everything I see has
a soft filter around it, the white veil covering my face giving the world an almost ethereal glow.
“I feel like I should be asking you that.” He grips me a little tighter and I feel him turn to look
down at me. “You’re not nervous at all?”
“Nope. Got all my jitters out already.” I give him a reassuring smile just as the doors open and the
first strains of the Wedding March begin on the piano.
Even though my dad and I have been living a simple life for the past six years, my wedding
certainly isn’t small. The shuffle of people turning in the church pews to watch my father and me walk
down the aisle sends a new jolt of nerves through my stomach, but when I meet Brian’s eyes from
across the church, everything settles.
There he is. This is right.
Brian doesn’t know my full history. He knows that my father and I had a rough year before I
started college, but he thinks it was money problems and not anything to do with running from the
mafia.
I suppose I should feel bad for lying to him, for keeping things from my future husband, but my
father has ingrained that habit in me since the day we left Chicago. It’s not safe for anyone to know
who we were before we became the Taylors. The surname Weston has been scrubbed from every part
of my identity, and I’ll never go by that name again.
Soon enough, I’ll take Brian’s name anyway, and I’ll be one more step removed from the girl I
used to be.
My soon-to-be husband beams at me as I walk down the aisle toward him. He looks as handsome
as ever—classically attractive, well-built, blue eyes, blond hair.
His smile grows lopsided as I approach the dais at the front of the church, one corner of his lips
lifting higher than the other in a grin I know so well. I smile back, hoping he can see it through the
gauzy film of my veil. I don’t know what I was so nervous abou—
Crash!
There’s a burst of sound, and my steps falter. My entire body tenses at the sudden loud noise.
I flinch as my father instinctively pulls me behind him.
My heart lurches in my chest and my knees nearly buckle at the sight of the suited men who
suddenly fill the church from all sides—behind us, in front of us, to each side.
And when they look at my father, I know they’re not here to speak now or forever hold their
peace.