“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.”