Rosa
I fidget in my seat as my mother-in-law keeps throwing not-so-subtle glances at me on the ride over to the Holy Cross Cathedral. As much as I would have preferred to go to the church I’ve been attending on Baker Street for the past few months, I couldn’t refuse accompanying the matriarch of the Kelly family to her preferred place of worship when she announced this morning she wanted to pray for the health of my unborn child and its quick delivery. However, I didn’t think I’d have to suffer being placed under a microscope the whole ride through. I try to feign nonchalance at her constant staring, but when she starts to giggle like a schoolgirl, that’s when my poised composure starts to crack.
“Please, Saoirse. If you have something to say, just come out and say it.”
“Now girl, call me Ma like I told ye.” She nudges her shoulder playfully against mine. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. It’s that it only just occurred to me why my Shay wasn’t sure if the babaí in your belly was Tiernan’s or not.”
“It is,” I state evenly, hoping my stern tone is enough to dissuade her from asking any further questions.
I don’t want to sound rude, but I’m at a loss as to what to say if she does ask me what Shay meant by that remark last night. It’s not like we four have had much time to talk about the logistics of our relationship and what we’re going to tell people.
I mean, how would that conversation even start?
I’m in love with not only my husband but also his brother and cousin. And we’ve decided that we’re all going to be one big happy family together.
Not exactly a statement people will accept, no matter how open-minded they are.
“Aye, this one maybe,” Saoirse muses, pulling me out of my reverie and bringing my attention back to her. “But I doubt you’ll be too sure of the next younglings that might come along after. Am I wrong?” She hikes up her brow suggestively.
Virgen.
I guess this is how the conversation starts.
“Maybe not,” I admit, chewing my lower lip nervously. “Will you think any less of me if that happens?”
“Why would I?” She dismisses my apprehension with a smile. “From what I saw and heard last night, you’ve got all my boys tied around your finger, and they couldn’t be happier about it. Those three are head over heels for ye, and if the broad smile my Colin was wearing when he came downstairs this morning is any inkling, then I’m sure you are making all three extremely happy. And that’s all a mother like me would want for her children. For them to be happy. You’ll see that soon enough when your own little one is born.”
Relief relaxes my tense posture, making my head fall back onto the leather seat.
“I was so afraid you wouldn’t feel that way. I know your husband doesn’t like me very much, but hearing you say those words lifts a huge weight off my shoulders. I doubt many people will be as understanding.”
“Ah, don’t pay my Niall any mind. He has a good heart underneath his stubbornness. He’ll come around. You just wait and see.”
“I hope so.”
“I know so.” She pats my knee lovingly. “As for the rest of them? Who cares? We Kellys have never cared much for popular opinion. We’ve always danced to the beat of our own drum.” She throws me another comforting grin. “However, next time you four decide to sleep under my roof, give an old woman some notice. At least long enough for me to run to the store and buy some good earplugs. I think most of Beacon Hill heard you four go at it last night. If I was a betting woman, I’d put money down on how a lot of babies were made on account of listening to you lot.”
“Oh my God!” I cover my face in embarrassment.
“Yep. I heard that one, too. Always knew you were religious, I just never assumed that much.” She winks.
“I’ve never wished for the floor to open up and swallow me whole more than I do at this very minute.”
“Relax, child. I’m only messing with ye. You’re a Kelly now. Through and through. You’re going to need tougher skin than that. Teasing and making fun of each other is how we show we love one another.”
She entwines her hand in mine and gives it a little squeeze, my heart swelling with gratitude at her words. My mother died a little while after Francesco was born, so to have Saoirse’s motherly affection feels like a gift all on its own.
When I first arrived in Boston, I thought this city would be a prison for me—grey, dull, and stifling. I was sure that I’d never find peace here, much less love. But in just three months, my predictions were all proven false. Just as my opinion for this great city has shifted, so has my life turned on its axis, giving me room to hope and live a love well beyond anything I could have ever dreamed of. Now as I stare at the passing scenery, with my mother-in-law at my side, I see all the vibrant colors I missed before—the blue sky above and the smiling pedestrians buying their fresh flowers, fruits, and vegetables from street vendors and market places. How the new skyscrapers blend with the old architecture that gives this city its warmth and appeal.
This is my home.
And it is magical.
When our driver pulls up at the church, any apprehension I had about coming here vanishes. I no longer look at it as a symbol of my impending doom, but as the place where I took my first steps toward leading the life I have now. Humility, as well as gratitude, fill me up with joy as I walk alongside Saoirse into the large cathedral, wishing I could tell the old me not to be afraid. That marrying my enemy would be the greatest thing that could have ever happened to me.
We walk down the aisle and find a pew in the front to say our prayers. I take out my rosary and begin to thank the Virgin Mother for all her blessings and pray that the child growing inside me knows only love and joy in its future. After I’ve said my prayers, I get off my knees and give Saoirse a little tap on the shoulder.
“I’m just going to light a candle for the baby and some other ones for my brothers.”
“Aye, don’t forget to light some for my boys, too.” She grins widely.
“They’re the first ones on my list.” I smile.
I walk over to the other side of the church where the candles are and begin my ritual of praying for the men in my life. I’m so consumed in my task that I don’t hear someone walk up behind me until it’s too late. Strong hands cover my mouth to prevent me from screaming, and before I can lift my head to see who it is, my attacker strikes a blow to my head that knocks me out cold.
The next time I open my eyes, I’m tied to a large pillar with my arms behind my back. My heart thumps madly in my chest as I see a small altar in front of me, Father Doyle pacing back and forth, mumbling to himself.
“Father Doyle?” I ask, confused, tugging at my binds.
He snaps his head to me, his gaze looking completely unhinged.
“What… what am I doing here? What is this place? Where am I?” I swallow dryly, looking around the dimly lit room, trying to gather any detail that might tell me where I am.
The detailed religious imagery on the windows and the small altar in front of the room tell me that I’m still somewhere inside the church. Probably somewhere underneath it. This room must be a private chamber where priests come to pray. However, something tells me that Father Doyle is going to use it for nefarious reasons—reasons that have my heart shriveling up inside my chest.
“I’m not sure what your intentions are, Father, but I can tell you now, this will not end well for you.”
He marches over to me and grabs my throat, almost crushing my windpipe as he does it.
“I don’t want to hear a word from you, jezebel. Don’t try to seduce me with your wicked tongue, you she-devil. Your kind have no effect on me,” he snarls before releasing me from his grip.
I gasp for air, my lungs burning from being deprived for so long. He begins to pace back and forth again, mumbling incoherent babble. It’s hard to make out what he’s saying, but the few words I’m able to comprehend only heighten my fear.
“The devil must be cast out…”
“Weak men pulled from their righteous path…”
“Adulteress whore…”
“Devil child…”
He’s lost his ever-loving mind.
Ayúdame, Virgen de Guadalupe.
Por favor, te lo ruego.
For el niño.
I look around the room, scouring it to see if I can find a way out of here. My purse, which contains my phone, is stashed away on the altar, too far away for me to grab it and call for help.
But then it hits me.
Unlike the men I love, the priest isn’t used to doing this type of thing, which made him sloppy in his first kidnapping attempt. If he lived in our world, then he would have known that my phone and belongings should have been the first thing he had gotten rid of. Colin is too overprotective of me to not have put a tracker on my phone. Which thankfully is a good thing right now for more than one reason. My husband is a possessive beast which means he’d burn the whole city down to find me. If Colin has a tracker on it, then Boston can breathe easy from Tiernan’s wrath. I can’t say the same thing for Father Doyle, though. Once Shay is through flaying him with his knives, I doubt there will be anything left of his body that’s even recognizable. All I have to do is buy them some time to get here and rescue me.
I’m not entirely comfortable playing this role of damsel in distress, but to my bitter resentment, it’s the card this lunatic of a priest has dealt me. I look over to the small stained-glass windows one more time and see that the sun’s shadow on the grass has moved from its position. I must have been out for at least an hour. I’m sure by now Saoirse has noticed my absence and has called my men to warn them. They know I would never leave them of my own accord. Which means I’ve been kidnapped. Unfortunately, by the deranged look on the priest’s face, there will be no ransom asked for sparing my life. That realization chills me to the bone, but I square my shoulders and keep my head held high, determined to not let fear rule over me.
Both my child and my men need me to be strong right now.
And by God, I will not disappoint them.
“Just how do you think this is going to play out, priest?” I smile sinisterly at him, summoning the worst parts of my family behaviors. “You’ve made a grave mistake taking me. Now you will pay with your life.”
“Shut up you worthless whore! I will not let your serpent tongue break my resolve. God is with me. This is what needs to be done.” He rushes at me and slaps me across the face so hard that his rings slice my lip and cheek.
“God has left you, priest,” I spit out the blood in my mouth to continue. “He turned his back on you the minute you tied me up to this pillar. Let me go, and maybe you can still save your soul, if not your life.”
Because that was forfeited the minute you put your hands on me.
“I said shut up! You will not deter me from my calling.”
“And just exactly what is that? What do you think you will accomplish today?”
“I will send you back to the hell that you should have never left. I know the kind of woman you are. The things you let men do to you so they stray away from God’s grace. I heard it with my own ears last night. You let them all into your body and corrupted their souls.”
“Don’t talk to me about corruption, priest. Not when your church has benefited from both pain and misery. I know the Kellys are this church’s main benefactors. You don’t bat an eye at their monetary contributions, knowing full well the blood that was spilled to obtain it.”
“That is different,” he blanches.
“Right, because greed, violence, and murder are a more acceptable sin than sex is.” I sneer sarcastically. “Than love.”
This time the slap that he deals me has my teeth rattling. He steps away from me, walking backwards to his altar as if afraid to turn his back on me, even though I’m the one tied up.
“I know what you’re doing,” he says maniacally. “I’ve heard the stories about what you heathens do in Mexico. Slaughter and sacrifice the innocent to pay homage to the devil. Your spells and sorcery will not work on me, witch! I am a man of God, and I have vowed to purge the devil from the souls of men.”
When he finally turns his back on me to face the altar, I frantically rub the rope around my wrists on the edge of the pillar in hopes of being set free.
“When I learned that you were coming, that your arrival would mean there would be a ceasefire amongst the mafia families, I tried to keep an open mind. This city has seen too much destruction and death as it is. I should know since I gave the last rites and carried out more funerals than most in my position. But the minute I laid eyes on you, jezebel, I knew in my heart you were not the answer to our problems or my prayers for peace. No. You would be the thing that would finally destroy us all. I can’t sit on the sidelines any longer and watch you corrupt our sons and lead their souls into hell. You are an abomination, and that child inside you is the spawn of Satan himself.”
My heart stops when he turns around with a dagger in his hand.
“I’ll cut the sin out of you and clean the earth of the threat you want to bestow on it.”
“You’re insane!” I shout, thrashing around to break free from my bindings.
“No, whore. I’m one of the last remaining few that see you for what you are. Do not think I’ll be the only one against these unions. I’m sure more God-fearing men like me will see through this façade and take matters into their own hands. The treaty be damned if it compromises the salvation of our souls. You’ll see. You all will.”
When he starts walking in my direction, my back goes ramrod straight, flush against the pillar.
“You’ll see hell long before my men or I ever will, priest. On my life and The Virgin Mother’s, I guarantee you that.” I spit in his face and growl like a woman possessed.
This time he doesn’t slap me but purposely punches me in the gut, pain and fear for my unborn child wrecking my senses. He rips my shirt open, buttons flying across the small room until I’m bare-chested in front of him, my lace bra the only garment left intact. My chest heaves up and down as he places the blade to my neck and then lowers it down to my belly.
“No. Please,” I cry out, true fear clawing away at me.
“Your fake tears hold no sway over me, harlot! Jezebel! Witch!” he shouts. “Watch as I cut the devil’s spawn from inside you.” He grins menacingly, making him sound even more mad.
When the tip of the blade pierces through my skin, I scream.
I scream so loudly that it breaks his concentration, and he falls back on his heels.
I only stop when the door to the room flings open, Colin kicking it down. Tears of relief fall down my cheeks, as Colin pushes the priest away from me, his hand wrapped around his neck. Shay runs to my side, agitatedly asking me if I’m okay while untying my binds. Tiernan, however, barely walks into the room, preferring to remain close to its door. My husband looks like Hades himself, ready to raise hell. His rage is so pronounced that I’m actually thankful he doesn’t try to come closer to me right now, for I fear his fury would swallow me whole.
“Petal?” Shay questions again softly after he’s successfully untied me. “Fuck, say something. Tell me you’re alright!”
“I’m okay. I’m okay,” I repeat on a loop, trying to pull my shirt closed as he helps me up to my feet.
“No, you’re not,” he growls, running a soft finger over my swollen cheek and the blood smeared on my lips.
He then looks down at my stomach and sees the small flesh wound the priest was able to make. Shay then turns to his brother, his expression morphing into something one would only expect to find in a nightmare. “He’s hurt her. Made her bleed.”
“Has he, now?” Tiernan states dryly, but I hear the bubbling fury underneath it. “Then I guess it’s his turn to bleed. Bring him upstairs.”
Tiernan then turns his back on us and disappears. My gaze falls on Father Doyle, who is dangerously close to being strangled to death by the way Colin’s gripping him.
“Don’t kill him yet, Col. I’ll be fucking pissed if he dies so easily,” Shay orders, pulling me to his side and wrapping a protective arm around me.
Colin growls, loosening his grip as he pulls the priest by his throat out of the room. Colin only stops long enough in front of me to see for himself the damage Father Doyle has inflicted. I reach a hand out to caress his cheek, gently giving it a stroke so he knows I’m not broken. Relief flashes across his eyes, but then it’s replaced with hatred when the priest starts whimpering and begging for his life.
“Shut him up, Col, or I will,” Shay warns through gritted teeth, pulling me away from the madman who is currently pissing himself with fear.
Colin tightens his hold on the priest’s neck, enough to end his pleas for mercy but not enough to kill him, and pushes him out the door. Shay and I follow him down a long dark corridor and then up a flight of stairs. When we step through another door, my suspicions that I never left the Holy Cross Cathedral are confirmed. However, now the church isn’t as empty as it was when Saoirse and I walked through its doors earlier this morning. Most of the pews are full of familiar faces I recognize from my wedding ceremony. My confusion multiplies when the two wide entrance oak doors are currently being guarded by police officers, standing shoulder to shoulder with Irish made men , preventing anyone else from passing through.
I’m about to ask Shay what’s going on when Saoirse rushes in my direction, pulling me away from her son and hugging me ever so fiercely.
“I thought I lost you, child,” she weeps, tightening her embrace.
Niall Kelly looks just as distraught standing behind her.
“Can you sit with her, Athair , while we deal with this shit?” Shay asks, pulling me away from his mother just to place a gentle kiss on my lips.
“Aye, Shay. Your woman is safe with me.”
I’m at a loss for words as Niall and Saoirse both lead me away from Shay just so we can sit in the first pew of the church. But as I stare at the altar where the jeweled cross I had once admired on my wedding day stood proudly, my forehead creases now that I see it laid flat on the altar’s surface. Only now does it dawn on me that I—alongside everyone else sitting here—am about to witness Father Doyle’s torturous execution. My father and mother-in-law both hold on to my hands, either to comfort, or to keep me from stopping this madness.
If it’s the latter, then their concerns are unjustified.
The man in front of me awaiting his trial deserves my men’s wrath.
He tried to kill our family before it had a chance to bloom.
I don’t pity him.
Nor will I lose sleep over what’s about to go down.
My gaze falls on my husband as he cracks his neck from left to right and orders his men to place the priest on the laid-out cross and hold him down. Shay fans out his razor-sharp blades on the altar and begins to twirl his favorite one in his hand. He then grins as he stands just above the priest’s head while Colin stands opposite him at Father Doyle’s feet.
Tiernan throws the evil man another searing look and then turns his back on him to address his audience.
“You all know why you are here. This man… this pitiful excuse for a human being, tried to kill the woman I married in this church not so long ago. You were all here that day as he pronounced us husband and wife and said those who God has joined together, let no man put asunder. Apparently, he was under the misguided assumption that excluded him.” Tiernan scoffs, his nostrils flaring. “Worst of all, he tried to kill my child inside her.”
The few women in attendance gasp at the statement, but mostly everyone else just remains silent, impatiently waiting on their Irish king to start wreaking vengeance.
Tiernan’s eyes then land on me, giving me a glance at the anguish and fear he must have felt when he thought my life was in danger.
“He deserves what’s coming to him, acushla . But if you tell me this is not what you want, I’ll follow your command. Reluctantly, but I’ll do it. For you.”
Mercy.
That’s what he’s willing to show the monster.
For me.
He’s willing to go against his very nature and give the priest a quick death just to spare me from witnessing what kind of men I’ve fallen in love with and the horrific things they are capable of.
But I already know who I gave my heart to, and even if I didn’t, I’m a Kelly now.
And long before that, I was a Hernandez, my father’s blood coursing through my veins, whispering that I must set an example for anyone else who wishes to do me and my family any harm. On steady legs, I get up from my seat and bridge the gap between us.
His blue eye is almost as black as his heart, compared to the softness of his green.
Two men live inside my husband.
One is capable of kindness and mercy, while the other hungers to swim in his enemy’s blood.
I give in to the one whose bloodthirst will only be satisfied with the screeching howls of pain from my kidnapper and would-be murderer.
“Those who God has joined together, let no man put asunder, husband. Show him what happens to men who are foolish enough to try.”
Tiernan grabs me by the nape of my neck, and crashes his mouth to mine, sealing the priest’s fate with a kiss.
And for the next few hours, I sit back in my seat with my in-laws and watch Shay nail the priest’s hands and feet to the cross with his blades, pulling out each fingernail and then cutting off his fingers and toes as he goes about it. Tiernan takes his time beating Father Doyle’s face into a bloody mess with his knuckles, while Colin does the same with the rest of his body. Once they tire of that, Tiernan grabs hold of Shay’s dagger and starts cutting into the priest’s body, making sure he feels every wound and waking him up every time the pain is too much for him to remain conscious. After Tiernan guts his belly from navel to neck, pulling his insides out while the priest watches in horror, my husband’s men pull the cross back up to its rightful standing position. That’s when Colin brings his blowtorch into play. He lights the priest on fire, his tormented screams sure to give most people in attendance nightmares for years to come.
But not me.
I watch in utter fascination, as the blood of my enemy streaks down my men’s faces, surprised that his burning flesh doesn’t churn my stomach as I thought it would.
I’m suddenly reminded of Alejandro’s words to me as he described the family I was about to become a part of. My brother said that the Kellys were nothing but animals. Filthy, unscrupulous, vicious animals, he made sure to add.
But that’s not what I see here today.
I see men who would do everything in their power to protect those they love.
I see a hand of just retribution for those who decide to take it upon themselves to hurt us.
But most of all, I see love and what they would do to anyone who dared take it away from them.
If this is what my brother meant when he called them savages, then I guess I am one, too.
A vicious savage who couldn’t be more proud to call herself a Kelly.
Come hell or high water, that’s who I intend to be for the rest of my days.