And sure, the second is slightly true, but sadly I am far from pregnant. I must be the only twenty-two-year-old who went to a destination wedding and not lost her V-plates.
The silence continues, and I realise I might have made a tactical error by mentioning that I’m a hairdresser, and about the wedding. I should have said I was the maid-of-honour. Stand-in, but still.
“Wait,” comes the curt reply.
“Hello?” I say after a while, and there’s no response, so I just stand there, the minutes ticking by. The marriage certificate burns in my pocket.
Then the gate slides almost silently open, with no invitation or anything. Bit weird, but okay. I step through, my anxiety spiking again. All the waiting has made me twitchy.
A walled courtyard is revealed, with paving nicer than the entrance hall in my shared house.
And a rough semi-circle of men in suits.
“All this for a slip of a girl?” a man with a Russian accent asks. He has grey eyes and his arms crossed, and regards me curiously.
I’m surrounded. Some are eying me speculatively, others are arguing.
“I don’t take risks with the Angelini family,” a man hisses.
The gate slides closed behind me with a clunk.
Terror grips my throat.
Several of the men are openly carrying guns. Mr “I don’t take risks” ispointinga gun at me.
I begin to tremble.
“Ruby.” Dante’s deep voice cuts through the various discussions as he steps forward. He goes as though to clasp my shoulder when at least two people gasp and several draw their guns.
“Don, she needs to be searched,” Mr “I don’t take risks” says respectfully, but pushes forwards, gun still in hand, almost between Dante and me, clearly trying to get Dante away from the perceived threat of a five-foot-three girl who’s now shaking.
It’s me. I’m the girl who’s shaking.
“Everyone calm down,” Dante says firmly.
“I have to talk to you.” I try to focus on Dante rather than all the shit-scary other men.
“Is this your daughter, Clerkenwell?” asks a man with a posh accent.
“No.” Dante’s green eyes flash as he throws the denial over his shoulder. He looks like he might spontaneously combust.
The posh-accented man says, “I’m sure this is important to you, young lady, but we do need?—”
“You think it’s just a coincidence she’s arrived now?” A man in a blue suit regards me suspiciously.
My eyes go wide. Because yes. It is a coincidence. Whatever he’s talking about, it’s not my fault.
“She could be hiding a weapon, or a bomb,” Mr “I don’t take risks” says meaningfully.
“For the last time, I’m not strip-searching her, Giovanni, get a grip!” a woman’s voice says.
A strip search! Horror floods me. “No!”
I notice that one of the people surrounding me isn’t a man, but although she’s of a motherly sort of age, and spoke in my favour, there’s no sympathy in her expression. But there isn’t a gun in her hand, and she bats the arm of Mr “I don’t take risks” down, and grumbling he puts his weapon away.
“She’s not armed, for fuck’s sake,” Dante snaps. “She’s ahairdresser.”
“Scissors can be very sharp,” the man with a Russian accent says with an amused but deadly vibe.
