Page 6 of Guilty as Sin

Lucy was ecstatic to learn I’m getting married. Jennifer, less so. Honestly, I couldn’t tell if Jen was more upset about my longstanding lie, my hypocrisy about Marriage isn’t something to force, or me getting married before her and Dave.

The fact that I couldn’t invite them to the wedding didn’t help. But I had no say on the guest list. I only know Connor’s on it because I saw his courier-delivered invitation. According to him, no one else from our family received an invite, but that’s unsurprising.

Lucy said she understood wanting to keep the wedding small, given the haste. Jennifer offered no such nicety, though she did agree to Lucy’s suggestion of giving me three weeks off for my “honeymoon.” Lucy will be covering all of my patients, while I will be covering my eyes, ears, and awareness to the fact I’m on my honeymoon.

“And with your old flame, how romantic!” Lucy had said, her hands clasped in front of her chest.

It didn’t feel great, immediately lying to them again. But it was necessary.

The whole “By the way my name is really Cora Muloney, and the guy from that article who you said was hot is actually my brother, and anyway he was in trouble and so an old family friend named Brady O’Sullivan—yes, one of those O’Sullivans—stepped in and helped, and he and I kind of used to have a thing, and anyway because of this we rekindled it, and now we’re having an impromptu sort of wedding, but sorry you’re not invited,” was bad enough without telling the full truth.

We managed to skate past the Boston Muloney crime family element that Lucy had read aloud from the article, but I think it was because she was so excited about me getting married to a well-known son of Chicago.

Unlike my family, the O’Sullivans keep their illegal dealings discreet. My father’s too vain not to flaunt his influence over cops and judges. The O’Sullivans must also have a significant number of officials in their pocket, in addition to the media they control, but they apply their leverage shrewdly.

To Lucy and the rest of the public, Brady is just the handsome son of a wealthy and prominent family.

“Do you enjoy each other’s company?” she’d asked.

“Yes.” I’d said it convincingly, without hesitation.

“Then that’s all that matters.”

Not quite. In my case, what matters is being a good liar to my friends, as well as people in general. Brady O’Sullivan is a mafia man, which means I highly, highly doubt that he and I will enjoy each other’s company.

I clench my fists at my sides as I glare out at the painfully bright Chicago afternoon. I feel like this city has wronged me. It was supposed to be my escape, the setting for my new life as Samantha Greene.

And now, I have to be Cora Muloney again.

But I will dig in my stubborn heels to fight for the career I’ve worked so hard to achieve. Non-negotiable.

Someone knocks on the door. The dress fitter, the hairstylist, and the makeup artist have all come and gone. My gut sinks as I realize it’s probably Orla. I haven’t met my mother-in-law-to-be yet, but she’s the one in charge of this wedding. She seems the type to show up way too early to order me downstairs.

Thus far, our only interactions have been indirect. In addition to couriers bearing instructions and schedules and legal paperwork, she sent a tailor to my apartment with three wedding dress options in my size. I chose the simplest one, a sleek Oscar de la Renta.

It’s gorgeous. I hold it against Orla for having good taste. She should’ve forced me into something hideous, then I could hate her all the more. Still, I put on my active bitch face as I answer the door.

My scowl disappears. It’s Connor, and he’s holding out his phone. The sight of his horribly bruised face makes me soften with sympathy for my little brother. I’m doing this to protect him, and it’s those fucking O’Sullivans who did that to his face. Poor Connor.

“Charlotte wants to talk to you,” he says.

“Charlotte?” I’m too stunned to move. I haven’t spoken to my sister in ten years. We were close, once upon a time. Before I discovered my inner stubbornness and realized how compliant and submissive she is.

Her engagement was my final straw. Watching her so dutifully agree to marry that awful man—I couldn’t stomach it. While she spent months selecting color schemes and place settings, I created my new identity. It was no easy feat for me to get a new social security number. I also had to falsify enough backdated credentials to get accepted into Loyola.

Though I liked the idea of Chicago in general, I chose Loyola specifically because it’d be the last place my family would look for me. I’d told Connor, but he would never betray my location at the Jesuit school. I swore off Catholicism when I was fifteen, my feminist way of protesting the Church’s exclusion of women from the priesthood.

My father beat me when I refused Communion, but he never made me attend Mass again. He must’ve understood enough of my rebelliousness by then. Really he should’ve foreseen that I’d try to run away eventually, and maybe he did. But he couldn’t have predicted I’d be so thorough about it.

My final arrangements weren’t in place until the week of Charlotte’s wedding. I considered attending, I really did. Then I imagined having to witness her walking down the aisle, the obedient bride, vapid smile on her face as she was transferred from her father to her husband like some docile package with no will of her own.

I left Boston the day before my sister’s wedding.

It was a practical decision in the end.

I left a note saying I’d be safe and not to look for me, knowing our father still would. He would put every available resource into finding me. Not for my sake, but because I was a valuable pawn, and his last one left. Charlotte’s marriage, advantageous for the family as it was, meant that one of my father’s two pawns had already been sacrificed. With her wedding occupying most of everyone’s attention, I gained a day’s head start.

The P.S. of my note read Sorry, Charlotte.