I really think at your wedding rehearsal dinner there should be one person who loves you.
Doesn’t have to be more than one, I’m not greedy. But as I look around the table, there isn’t anyone who cares about me, never mind love. Surely impending nuptials should not be so entirely devoid of affection, even for a mafia princess?
The whole thing is bleak. The private dining room in an expensive London hotel is very old-world money. Shiny brown wood, red velvet, paintings of horses. I’d suggest updating it, if they asked for my professional opinion. Keep the dark luxury, since that’s their brand, but simplify. Get rid of the judgey stag head staring down and the curtains with a busy pattern that is giving me a headache. Or maybe it’s my nerves.
There’s subtle and tasteful piano music and the plates are warm. The food is probably identical to what rich people ate in the 1890s. Same date my fiancé wishes he had been born.
David Bree-Fogg has a thin, gaunt face, a spindly physique, neatly combed dark blond hair, and wears a black double-breasted suit with a spotted scarlet cravat. He’s like if a Chucky Doll was haunted by a Victorian man and stretched until he was six foot tall. And I’m supposed to be marrying him.
I have a white dress on and everything. Two white dresses for a wedding seems excessive, but the symbolism isn’t lost on me. I am a virgin sacrifice to my brother’s greed and stupidity. This colourless dress is slinky and evening-ish, clinging to my curves, whereas there’s a stiff, corseted meringue lined up for tomorrow. An engagement ring is on my finger, too. It’s so “tastefully” modest, from a distance you’d think there was no stone in it at all, just a plain band.
Tonight is for our two families to have dinner together and get to know each other. What a joke. We’ve already done the walk through at the church, complete with formal group photographs with false smiles for posterity. But despite us now eating the main course, there’s little more conversation than dusty comments about the food and weather. This marriage has nothing to do with the people involved. It is a financial and power transaction.
My fiancé raises his hand and clicks his fingers. One of the servers comes running. “More wine. And replace my fiancée’s glass. There’s a smear on it.”
“Of course, sir.” The waiter, in his late teens I’d guess, only a few years younger than my imperious fiancé, doesn’t even justify a turn of David Bree-Fogg’s head.
And though there is nothing wrong with my glass—looks perfectly clean to me—I murmur, “Thank you,” and meet the boy’s eyes with a tiny smile as he removes it. I stab a pile of French beans with my fork with more violence than necessary and they squish like overcooked watery green jelly. Gross.
At midnight I turn twenty-one and inherit a small fortune from my dead parents. Half of their ill-gotten mafia funds. My brother, Colin, thinks I don’t know what happened to his half.
Ha.
I might be innocent in one way, but I’m not naive about his gambling debt. And my wannabe-mobster brother has a plan to pay David back: me.
Or rather, my inheritance, via marriage. He assumes that since he’s my guardian, and I’ve had no control over my life for twenty-one years minus one day, that I’ll be the banknote to settle what he owes David Bree-Fogg.
At first I argued. He lost the argument but wouldn’t concede. Then he locked me in the house. I still argued. Then he hit me, and I realised he wasn’t my big funny brother anymore. Finally, I pretended to accept his decree like a dutiful sister should.
He’s the only family I have and he has traded me in for gambling chips.
But he doesn’t know my plan.
“You really shouldn’t be so familiar with the staff, Jessica. You’ll give the boy ideas,” David Bree-Fogg says, looking down his nose at me.
Jessa. And accurate ideas like, I’m not posh and rude? I bite my lip. I don’t correct him, because none of it matters. The only reason I’ve acquiesced to this marriage is that tonight I am getting out.
“You’ll be my wife tomorrow,” David continues. “Everything you do and say will be a reflection of my taste and judgement.”
I just have to hold on until five past eight. Then escape. Freedom. A waiting black cab taxi will have a bag containing my new identity. A ride to the airport, and when Colin’s guardianship is over and control of my finances flips to me I’ll be on my way to Australia. A country where I know no one, on the other side of the world. It cannot be any lonelier than I am now.
I’ll start a new degree there with a new name—no point in crying that I won’t graduate after over two years of study, there’s no way David would have allowed me to finish—and launch an interior design business. I’ll spend my life creating cosy, pretty, practical spaces. And even if it’s a disaster, it will be on my terms. I won’t have David Bree-Fogg telling me off for being polite to a kid who got shouted at earlier for bringing the wine two degrees too cold.
“What we do in private is different,” David adds, grabbing my thigh under the table.
Grabs. Like my leg is a shopping bag. He’s bought me and he’d delight in grinding me down in public and spitting on me at home. I’m nothing but a fleshy bank balance to David.
To either side, there is the gentle clink of silver knives and forks on bone china plates.
I look up into David’s face and what I see there… My chest threatens to explode with anger even as disgust slides across my skin. I will never marry this man. He revolts me in every particular.
There’s a bang and everyone’s heads snap up to find Grant Lambeth strolling into the room, the door swinging on its hinges where it has splintered from the force of him slamming it open against the wall.
His titanium eyes glitter furiously as he takes in the scene, perusing us in a leisurely way like we’re the statues we’ve become at this shocking intrusion.
“Am I too late for the wedding?” he drawls and his voice is a sweet smoky liquor that sends heat through my body.
Oh. Shit. This could derail everything.
He’s the boss of the Lambeth mafia that controls the centre of London. Where my brother and David think they’re powerful and rich, they’re feudal lords, beholden to the king: Grant Lambeth.
“You’re early,” Colin says, so awkwardly it sounds like a lie. “This is the rehearsal dinner.”
Grant’s chin tilts arrogantly.
He’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. And dangerous. Inherited his father’s failing territory at eighteen, before I was even born, and has built it into the most powerful in London.
What Grant Lambeth wants, he gets.
Which is why everyone in the room has stopped eating and is staring as he prowls towards us like a black panther through shadowed foliage. Perhaps this could work in my favour. No one will bother with me when there’s a hungry predator on the loose.
In a grey suit that fits so perfectly it must have been made for him, he’s controlled but has a hint of the roughness that got him to the top of the ladder. His dark hair, with silver at his temples, has a slight curl that makes it seem a little mussed and invites touch like a lion’s mane. An uncompromising square jaw is covered with masculine stubble, as though he was too busy with being a brutal and genius kingpin to shave this morning. His nose has a tiny kink where it was once broken.
Perfect imperfections.
I’ve only met him on a handful of occasions, and each time his eyes have gleamed and taken me in. He speaks with me at every event we’ve both attended. His deep rumbling voice makes me shy as he asks after my health and the progress of my studies, then passes on with only a brief sidelong glance. The person who regularly enquires about me is a stranger, not say, my brother or fiancé. Grant Lambeth’s attention to detail—he remembers I’ve been doing a degree in interior design and I twisted my ankle last year—must be part of the all-knowing mafia boss persona. Even realising that, it’s pathetic how his notice feels special. Because somehow the kingpin’s face is familiar beyond those few interactions.
Honestly, I think there’s something wrong with me. I see Grant Lambeth everywhere. Glimpses. It’s not him, it can’t be. My overactive brain notices his grey eyes in the wing mirror when I get into a car to be taken home, or thinks I recognise the outline of his shoulders, or the soft wave of his dark hair, when I’m out running in the park.
Delusional. As though the kingpin would have any interest in me. I’m so desperate for attention my brain makes up a stalker.
The young waiter from earlier slips inconspicuously around the table and replaces my glass. I don’t dare look away from Grant, but murmur my thanks under my breath. Gotta be kind to the little guys, even when you might get murdered by the kingpin. As the boy passes at a discreet distance, head lowered—smarter than he looks—Grant’s arm shoots out.
“Lay another place setting, please. I’ll be joining for dinner.” The words are a request, but his tone has the weight of an order that will be fulfilled or blood will flow. Grant releases the waiter, who scuttles off.
“Do continue eating,” he says as his gaze snaps to where David’s hand is still slack and moist now like a slug, as though he can see through the wood. A lightning strike of fury burns in his eyes, there and gone in an instant, leaving me wondering if I imagined it.
David slowly suctions his hand from my thigh and, sweating at the brow, hands trembling, picks up his cutlery and cuts a slither of meat. Under the kingpin’s pointed look, David puts the food into his mouth and chews like it might kill him. Which is a serious consideration.
It’s not random that Lambeth is here. He wants something.
“There,” Lambeth indicates with a flick of his wrist, and in seconds the waiter has set a place for him right opposite me.
Everyone eyes him warily and I allow myself to look too. After all, I won’t see him again. I wonder if I will stop hallucinating him once I’m in Australia? He’s a compelling figure as he gracefully sits. Although big, and the width of his shoulders hints at muscles, he’s smooth in his movements. That door breakage earlier? Deliberate.
I subtly take a deep breath. Calming, like the videos show. Another. In goes the future. Out the past. In goes a woman in control. Out goes a scared little girl terrified the kingpin will disrupt all her plans.
Leaning across the table, Grant refills my water glass. It’s loud as a waterfall, even with the nondescript piano music, because no one says anything. Only David is valiantly trying to pretend this is all normal by doing as Grant told him, like a good underling. The sound of him eating next to me is awful. Grotesque. All clicking teeth, the scraping of metal on bone, tearing flesh, and moist noises that turn my stomach.
“Are you in love?” Grant asks abruptly. He doesn’t specify who he means, but he’s watching me like I’m a little grey fluffy rabbit he’s going to eat for supper.
I tremble under his scrutiny. What is the right answer here? I haven’t a clue. It’s a mafia marriage, what does he expect? And what does he care?
“A marriage brings a cornucopia of benefits to all parties involved,” Colin says with an edge of panic. Probably he’s worried I’ll say, no, or point out that all the benefits are to him. “Where one of those is love from the beginning, it’s a romantic extra.”
“That’s your view, is it?” There’s a pinch between Grant’s eyebrows and he hasn’t turned his head to look at my brother.
The waiter returns with a plate of food and leans over the kingpin as he fills his glass with red wine, splashing a little onto the inner side of the glass as his hand shakes. Poor bungling kid, anyone would be afraid of Grant Lambeth.
I watch it happen in slow motion. The waiter is trembling so hard, and desperate to get away, and I think that’s what causes the crisis.
As he retracts the bottle, it tips. Wine spills down the kingpin’s chest. Bright red splatters over his heart, stark on his white shirt. Like blood. Just like blood.
I hold my breath, waiting for the explosion.
The waiter is stammering an apology but Lambeth’s jacket is shucked off within a second, then his tie. Methodically he undoes his wine-covered shirt, button by button. First his neck, then the dip of his throat, then the top of his chest is revealed and I don’t think I’ve taken on any oxygen since that wine spilt. He strips the shirt off and I stare at his muscled shoulders, wide chest and hard stomach that tapers down to a light dusting of dark hair. His golden skin is crisscrossed with scars and his muscles are defined.
My mouth goes dry.
The waiter has fallen silent, backing away, eyes full of terror. We all wait for the consequences, but I am shamefully entranced by Grant Lambeth’s bare torso. I’m admittedly a bit sheltered, but I’ve never seen anything like him.
Lambeth looks up and brushes the waiter away with a satirical look and a drawl that he needs to be more careful. Then he transfers his observation back to me.
But he’s partially unclothed. Aggressively naked. It ought to make him vulnerable to be without his suit, but it doesn’t. It just underlines how utterly in control of this he is. Calm in the face of the provocation of wine being splashed over him, he doesn’t need to overreact. He is the undisputed king.
The only way to cut the tension in this room would be with diamond-coated chainsaws. Despite my calming exercise earlier, I can barely breathe. My skin is tight. My limbs are stiff.
I cannot do this. My heart rate is galloping, as ungainly as the horse in that oil painting on the wall. The sight of him has ripped my nerves to shreds. With Grant watching me so intently, I’ve no hope of remaining composed and not screwing up. Fuck. I’ll reveal myself and end up married to David Bree-Fogg and no. That must not happen.
“Please excuse me while I go to the ladies’ room,” I murmur. It’s a little early, but I’ll take my chances. Much more of Grant’s eyes on me and his terrifying presence and I’ll be shaking so hard I’ll vibrate off my chair.
“Of course,” Grant replies, like this is his event.
My brother keeps his head down. I thought I’d smile goodbye to him, but the last time he ever looked at me will be when he scowled because I used the wrong fork with the starter. Fine.
David though, he makes my skin crawl. He watches me stand with this look that says spying on girls in bathrooms is his thing. Gross.
The kingpin’s gaze flickers to mine for no more than a quarter of a second as I sweep past him. It feels like a warm caress. But it’s nothing. Fleeting. Careless. The merest judgement of whether I am a threat to him and his enormous wealth and power. I’m not. I’m getting out.
I don’t look back.
In the central stall, I tear off my shoes and toss them out the window. Then I hoik up my dress, grip the small window frame, and pull myself up. It’s a lot bloody harder than I anticipated, wriggling through a gap this tiny. I guess I’ve been eating too many pies?
My dress is not designed for the job, and neither is my body. The frame pinches into my flesh. My legs dangle and flail like ill-placed curtains in a draughty window. By the time I’m dragging my hips through the small gap, I’m panting, my hair is absolutely everywhere and tangled, and my butt may never be rounded ever again. But I’ve planned well. Though the window is high inside, the ladies’ loos are right at the back of the building, and the bin I’d seen the last time we had dinner here and hoped would still be, is present. Otherwise I’d have been risking falling onto my head.
Don’t get me wrong, freedom would be worth it, but I’d prefer not to start my new life with concussion.
I half fall, half drop myself onto the closed lid of the big black dumpster bin, and take a second to catch my breath. The ground hits me with a crack up my legs when I jump, but there’s no time to wince. I shove my feet into one shoe then hobble to the other, smooth down my dress and dart my gaze from side to side. I’m alone.
One yank and my finger is released from the engagement ring that has felt like a noose. I drop it carelessly onto the tarmac. Hopefully someone who needs the money will see it, and it’ll bring them more joy and luck than it did me. I’m better off without it. With more confidence than I feel, I try to strut down the alleyway to the quiet end where I’m due to meet the London black cab. Once I find that taxi and I’m in, I’m good. I’m safe and away.
I spot the distinctive shape of a black cab and my chest almost heaves with relief. Nearly there.
Five steps. Three. One.
“Hi!” I say with false cheer to the driver, a middle-aged woman with a T-shirt that says Bosslady. “For Jessa, right?”
The woman nods and gestures to the back. I open the big black door and step hastily in. Then my blood turns to ice.
Sitting in the back of the cab is the kingpin.