“Oh God. What’s happened?” I asked, feeling the blood drain from my face.
“Breathe,” Luc said, placing a hand on the small of my back. “They’re for you.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I’m not comfortable with you going to the funeral with Dom and Franco.” He nodded to the cars. “They’ll attend with you and escort you home.”
It made sense now why he’d agreed and said no more on the matter. Luc had cooked up his own idea on how to make this more palatable and had conveniently not mentioned it to me until now.
“Luc, this is beyond excessive.”
“Nothing is excessive when it comes to my family’s safety,” he said, looking down at me. There was a fire in his eyes that dared me to argue but I wouldn’t. If this made him comfortable in his decision to let me attend, then I’d let him hand off half his men to me for the morning.
“If it helps, I told him it was overkill,” Dante informed me, earning him some points. “Enjoy the funeral, Mia. Is that the correct sentiment here? Enjoy?”
“Go,” Luc ordered him, pointing towards the car, and Dante ducked his head and went. “Call me as soon as you get home,” Luc said to me. “Stay out of trouble.”
I mimicked crossing my heart but something about Luc’s expression said he didn’t believe that I was capable of it. We parted on the drive after a kiss and I slid into the car, securing Link into his seat.
“Florist’s first?” Dom checked from the driver’s seat.
“Please.”
The sense of dread grew as we collected the flowers and drove to the church where the service was being held. Not our church. And by our church, I meant the family church. Silas was not a welcome member and Chas had more sense than to hold the funeral there. Instead, she’d chosen St Mary’s. A quick Google search had revealed that Chas had picked somewhere an hour away from home though whether out of respect to the family or because it was the only church that could hold a funeral at such short notice wasn’t clear.
“We’re going to be late,” I said, drumming my fingers across my leg as we hit traffic.
And I wasn’t wrong. By the time we reached St Mary’s, we were half an hour late and I walked through the church doors with Link in my arms, rather than wrestle with the stroller and wasting more time, to see the space completely empty.
“Graveside?” Franco suggested.
The grounds of the cemetery attached to St Mary’s was firm and covered with frost. Each step I took was cautious as I spotted Chas at graveside with the priest. She wasn’t quite alone. Gabe would never have allowed for that but the men who accompanied her kept their distance as they’d been trained to do. Paulo caught sight of us, eyebrows raising and hand moving towards his weapon. Franco went ahead to speak to him before gesturing us forward. Franco was a familiar face and a safe bet. They trust him more than the rest of us and once again, I was grateful to have him around.
The guard’s surprise was subtle compared to Chas whose face turned into a caricature as I joined her side. She didn’t say a word. The priest eventually concluded the ceremony and I mumbled ‘amen’. Dom was the first to move, placing the flowers that I’d bought down at the head of the grave before he stepped back to allow us some privacy.
“That’s sweet of you, although I’m not sure he deserves it,” Chas said, staring at the bright-coloured blooms.
“I wasn’t sure what the proper protocol was, given the circumstances,” I told her. “I’m sorry I’m late. I assumed there would be more people here.” There was a stunning lack of mourners in attendance and it had nothing to do with the drizzle that had begun to form. I knew that Silas’s reputation had made him an outcast, but I hadn’t banked on Chas being completely alone in her grief. My heart ached painfully for the woman standing next to me. “Gabe—”
“I told him not to come,” Chas said. “I haven’t forgiven him for doing it.”
“You’re mad at him?” I couldn’t keep the surprise from my voice.
The silence made me wonder if she’d heard me but then she spoke, “I know it’s weird, but I wouldn’t be here without him, so I feel like I owe him some type of loyalty in some strange and twisted way. He still looked after me, even when Mom...” She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms, smudging black around her eye sockets.
“Dom,” I called gently, and he came to my side. I handed Link over to him and placed a hand on Chas’s arm.
What she did next surprised me. Chas turned and collapsed her weight against me and cried. There was a moment of shock before I wrapped my arms around her and rubbed her back gently, letting her sob. Nothing in life was straight forward. Regardless of what her dad had or hadn’t done, Chas had just lost the last of her family.
She straightened up and sniffed, her mascara trailing down her cheeks and I reached over to wipe them from her face.
“I think you’re mad, Mia,” Chas told me as she took over, roughly wiping her face. She looked like she’d gotten into a fight and lost.
“Excuse me?”
“Certifiable. Wanting to marry into all this. Wanting this. You don’t quite fit the mould but here you are. Why on earth do you want this?”
“Love,” I told her simply because that was the reason. If I wanted Luc, then I had to give up living a traditional life that most people knew. I sacrificed what was ordinary for a love that was extraordinary. “The same reason you’re with Gabe and chose to step back into the fold.”
