Archer snickered a laugh as he tucked himself back into his suit pants, then smoothed my dress back down.
"I better get cleaned up," I murmured with a faint blush as I climbed off the sofa and felt the slickness between my legs.
Steele rolled his eyes but tossed me a packet of wet-wipes left behind by my makeup artist. "I should have come back in five minutes like I said." He crossed over to me when I was done with my speedy clean up and ran his fingers through my curls to tidy them somewhat. He swiped a thumb under my left eye and his brow furrowed. "Have you been crying?" His accusing gaze shot to Archer, who raised his hands defensively.
"Don't look at me like that, shithead. It wasn't me."
"It was Connie," I assured Steele. "She wrote me a very sweet letter."
He still frowned but jerked a nod and gently pushed me to sit so he could help me strap my gun into the thigh holster included with the weapon. "Alright, everyone is in place. Arch, you better go." Steele nodded to the door. "I'll stay with MK until the last possible second, then we're at go time."
Archer nodded his understanding, then stooped to kiss me possessively. "Stay safe, baby girl," he murmured. "I love you."
I bit my lip, but he was gone before I could reciprocate the sentiment. Steele just arched a brow at me.
"You ready for this, Hellcat?"
I nodded, firm. I was more than ready for this.
32
The second Alyssa gave Sampson and I the nod to say it was go time, I almost keeled over. The processional music had just started playing, and a thick knot of emotions choked me. It wasn't some cheesy wedding march by Bach. It was Steele's song for me, played by a string quartet.
What the fuck?
These boys were piling on the sweet gestures as though this were a real wedding. It was tripping my nerves out, and my arm was trembling in Sampson's.
"Don't worry, Miss," he murmured at me under his breath. "Your boys got me all strapped up in Kevlar. If anyone shoots, you go down and I'll cover you, got it?"
I jerked a nod. I couldn't tell him that I wasn't even remotely worried about getting shot, I was shaking because my heart was too fucking full of love.
The faces of the guests were totally anonymous, almost all planted there. Of course we’d made excuses for Constance and Ana not to come; there was no way in hell we would have risked them being caught in the crossfire. Samuel was dead, Cherry had been told she wasn't welcome, and Bree was still in the hospital. Aside from our security team, I recognized no one, and that was exactly how I wanted it.
I held my breath almost the entire way down the chapel aisle. It wasn't a huge venue, which played into our "intimate guest list" bullshit, but I was torn between wanting to soak up the sound of Steele's music being played by the string quartet and remaining alert for any assassination attempts. The plan should safeguard me from long-range attacks, though. I had to trust in the plan.
Still, my palms were sweating as Sampson delivered me to the end of the aisle where my groom waited, looking sexier than I'd ever fucking seen him. Maybe that was helped by the fact that I was equally in love with his two best men, both sharply dressed in tailored suits that made my inner submissive pant with desire.
The three of them stared at me like they were seeing me for the first time, and it was a feeling I never wanted to get used to. It made gooseflesh break out all over my skin and my chest tight, but I couldn't stop fucking smiling.
Fucking hell, MK, this is an ambush, not a real wedding. Pull it together!
Our celebrant started droning on with his canned-wedding-speech crap, and I totally tuned him out. My attention was all for my boys. My gaze ate the three of them up, and everything else faded into the background. Not the smartest move when we were actively expecting someone—or several someones—to try and kill me today, but... too fucking bad. Like Archer had said, this may be the closest we ever come to a real wedding, so why not make the most of it?
I had faith in our plan. It was airtight.
Yet as the ceremony progressed, I started getting uneasy. Archer's brow was furrowed, too, as he held my gaze, and I could sense he was just as concerned. They should have tried something by now. All our intel on the four hitmen who'd taken my contract while the listing had still been active suggested each of their standard MOs was to take an easy target. That's exactly what we were giving them. Yet... nothing had happened.
Not a single person had tried to attack throughout the ceremony. Not one. No one had even attempted to interrupt the whole bullshit wedding, and I soon found myself tripping over vows that I hadn't remotely prepared to say.
I made the best of it, though, meeting each of my guys’ eyes with each line of those trite, well-worn wedding vows. Because regardless of who I was already legally married to, I was in it for the long haul with all three of them. I hoped they all knew that.
"...may now kiss your bride." The celebrant's declaration shocked me. I gasped as Archer threaded his fingers into my hair and claimed my mouth in a searing kiss that I felt all the way to my toes.
"What the fuck is going on?" I whispered against his lips, letting the fall of my pink curls hide our faces from the clapping fake-guests. "What went wrong?"
"I have no idea," he murmured back, his thumb stroking my cheek. "But I'm kind of glad it did."
And just like that, the chapel exploded.
Not metaphorically. A goddamn fucking bomb detonated and took the entire back of the chapel off. Archer threw himself over me, guarding me with his body even as he pulled his gun from his underarm holster. Gunfire rang out from every damn angle, and my gut churned with anxiety. Something had gone seriously wrong with our plan.
"Stay down," Archer barked as he lifted his weight off me somewhat.
I didn't argue, just scrambled to shelter behind our dead celebrant as Archer stood and started shooting at one of our attackers. One of our many attackers.
"Babe, you good?" Kody demanded, appearing beside me as he ejected the magazine of his gun and slammed a fresh one in. How had he already used an entire fucking magazine? Boy was a machine.
"Yep," I replied. "Go. I'm fine."
He jerked a nod, then rose to his knees and squeezed off at least five shots before reaching his feet. I had no doubt they’d all hit their intended targets too. Steele really had trained him well.
Gripping the long silk skirt of my gown, I quickly hitched it up and retrieved my own gun. No way in hell was I going down without a fight. No. Fucking. Way.
Still using the celebrant as a shield, I rose up enough to get a look at what was going on. Not that it helped, much. There was almost a wall of suited guys shielding me, so I couldn't see much of anything. That didn't stop a sneaky fuck from creeping up on me from the opposite direction, though. Only the flash of his movement in the corner of my eye tipped me off, and I reacted quickly, doing exactly as Steele had trained me.
Shoot first. Ask questions never.
The man dropped to the floor, my shot finding its mark as my heart raced.
Fuck. Fuck. We hadn't expected an attack like this, but luckily we'd planned for all circumstances.
"Hellcat!" Steele roared from somewhere past the line of suits protecting me. "Plan C, gorgeous!"