Page 37 of Dirty Legacy

“I now declare you husband and wife.” Father Charles snaps the book shut. “Ego coniungo vos in matrimonium, in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.”

Connor wraps me in his arms and kisses me.

I melt against his mouth. His taste is sin, honey, death, and hellfire. It’s the end of me and I know it. Whatever I’ve done, whatever I’ve gotten myself into, there’s no way out, there’s no escape, not from a man like Connor.

I break as I kiss him, the sweetest kiss I’ve ever tasted, both poison and cure at once, and I know my life is over, even as it’s just beginning.

10

ANGIE

I’m bundled into Connor’s Mercedes. Mom is left behind with a warning: call the police and her apartment will burn to the ground while her corpse is left in the bathtub. Father Charles pretends like he doesn’t hear any of it, smiling the whole time as though he completed a successful homily.

“I need clothes,” I say as Connor steers the car away from the only life I’ve ever known. The ring on my finger feels like fire, like there are ants crawling under my skin. “I left my phone in the kitchen. I need my computer⁠—“

“Everything will be provided for you at home.”

“Home? What home? I don’t even know where you live.”

His eyes cut to me, dark and roaming my body, no smile on his face. This Connor is all business. He’s the Big Boss, but morphed into a hellish monster. “I have a house in Queens.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. “Queens? Are you crazy? That doesn’t tell me anything. Queens is huge.”

“You’ll see.” His phone starts buzzing. He checks the screen, jaw twitching, but shuts it off and throws it into the back seat.

This is very, very bad.

I don’t fully understand what’s happening here.

I’m married to Connor, all because I got pregnant with his baby, and he apparently left some other woman at the altar for me?

It’s insanity.

Now he’s ignoring phone calls, presumably panicked messages from the wedding he’s skipping.

All because he already got married.

“You’re in trouble, aren’t you?” He doesn’t answer. Only keeps driving, eyes locked forward. “You should at least take their calls. What if that girl you were going to marry is worried? What about your family?”

“None of them matter.”

“How can that possibly be true? Connor, talk to me. You ran out on another woman. This is crazy.”

He says nothing and I want to scream.

Houses flit past as the car drifts further away from sanity. We get on the highway, the Mercedes purring like a cat. Connor changes lanes, slips between a truck and an SUV, hits the gas. I cling to the side panel, nose against the glass, trying to hold it together. Connor goes faster, like he’s trying to get us both killed.

Until he takes an exit, gliding down as the road curves and narrows, down into trees, through streets that don’t make sense, past houses I’ve never seen before in my life. We’re near the water and it’s like the whole neighborhood’s bending toward it. Massive stone structures, villas and Victorians, so different from what I grew up with. It feels like we’re in the rich suburbs, but we’re still in the city.

“What is this place?” I ask, annoyed with myself for not knowing. I grew up in New York and there are still areas I’ve never heard of.

“It’s called Malba. Small community. Not much out here. No bodegas, no cheap bars, none of that.”

“Rich people. That explains it.”

He grunts as the car slows and turns toward a massive stone-and-metal fence, pausing in front of a gate. Connor taps a code into a pad and the gate rolls back, giving me the first glimpse of my future.

The house is enormous. I’ve never seen anything like it in the city before. It’s like we’re in Cape Cod or something. Multiple wings, trees all over, a driveway big enough to park ten cars or more, plus a huge detached garage with space for ten more. There’s a fountain but it’s dry and the concrete looks cracked. Weeds are growing in some of the flower beds, though the grass is cut and tidy.