Outside the car, Royal stands in a knot of his cousins, giving orders. His deep voice rises and falls. The sound is soothing. I could fall asleep, if I weren’t so charged with adrenaline.
“Principessa.” Royal pushes into the car and pulls me into his arms, easily overcoming the wall of the wedding dress.
I pull my skirts out of the way so they won’t catch in the door. “You know, for two hundred yards of tulle, this dress survived pretty well.”
Royal cups my face, forcing me to focus. “Leah.”
“It’s okay.” I press myself to him. “I’m okay.”
He steals a kiss, murmuring against my lips, “I’ll never forgive myself.”
“It wasn’t your fault. And everything turned out okay.”
Enzo appears by the open car door. “Boss, you’re not going to believe this. I had one of our men drive by and get intel. Looks like the firemen found illegal substances in the house. The cops arrived to take everybody in.”
I bite my lip. Is it bad I got Royal’s dad arrested?
“The guys all had their pants down,” Enzo continues. “They ate some bad shit or something. It stunk so bad?—”
“What the fuck?” Royal breathes.
Time to come clean. I duck my head and raise my hand, like a kindergartener in class. The men’s eyes cut to me.
“I may have found an expired box of off-brand Ex-Lax and made cupcakes with them,” I say.
“Fuck me,” Enzo says with awe.
“I also, um, put a bag of flour in the oven, and oil in the toaster. And turned them on. Oh, and dumped bleach and ammonia into the bathroom. In addition to, um…” My voice dies to a whisper as Enzo’s eyebrows creep upward. Royal’s face is scarily blank. “Tampering with the gas line.”
Enzo looks too overcome to swear. He opens his mouth, closes it, and crosses himself.
“Let me get this straight,” Royal says. “You took down a house full of thugs using nothing but a smoking oven and cupcake mix.”
“Excuse me, I bake everything from scratch.” I’d never made laxative cupcakes before, but when my ex dumped me, I might have looked up a recipe a time or two.
Royal’s brows are two angry slashes in his face. Is he mad at me?
“Tell me the truth, Leah,” Royal rumbles. “Did you take out my father and a bunch of his men with homemade cupcakes?”
“No one expects stealth poop muffins,” I whisper.
“Fuck me,” Enzo says in a tone of awe.
The blaring sirens are coming closer.
“Uh, boss?” Another mafioso hovers behind Enzo. “We should get out of here before the cops widen the net.”
“All right.” Royal waves a hand. “Move out.” He crushes me to his side. His lips burn a kiss to my browline. “I am taking you home.”
CHAPTER 9
The girl in the mirror is glowing. She looks happy, even when she bites her lip. I’m back in a wedding dress—a different one from yesterday. The last one survived kidnapping and an escape from a gas explosion, but not Royal’s passion. In his haste to undress me, not even the veil remained unripped.
“Yoohoo, Leah?” Lula sticks her head into the dressing room. “You ready to get married? I’m supposed to take you to the wedding. Royal has a last minute meeting with the family.”
“Oh.” A meeting with the family? I'm not sure if that’s a good or bad thing.
“How are you doing?” Lula saunters in, looking fabulous in her bridesmaid dress.
