Duty & Death (Foster Family Book 3)

by Zavi James

  Gabe had thankfully kept his head down. I didn’t know what his sudden change in motivation was, but I assumed it had to do with Chastity Perkins. I wasn’t about to take issue with him unless he decided to cause a problem for us. I heard his name when I passed by the room that Mia and Tori were in, but Mia never mentioned anything to me, and I trusted there was nothing to worry about.

  “Let Mia stay,” I said to him, ignoring the comment. “She’s comfortable at home.”

  “It’s one night at Dom’s place,” Dante told me. “You’ll both survive.” I twitched at that comment. “You know what I mean. One night, and then I’m sure you’ll never let her leave your side again.”

  Mia came back down the stairs with her things, including a white dress bag that she handed over to Dom, who took them out to the car.

  “Are you sure you’ll be okay with Link?” she asked me.

  “What more capable hands could he be in?” Dante asked in return, slinging an arm around my shoulders.

  Mia paled as she looked at the line-up of men who had arrived to celebrate my final night as a single man. “Do you really want me to answer that?”

  “Take your smart mouth and leave.” He laughed.

  She smiled and stepped up to me. “I guess we’ll see you tomorrow,” Mia said and reached up to kiss me again. I wrapped an arm around her and heard a few whistles.

  “Mia,” Dante begged. “Put him down. First off, you don’t know where he’s been. Secondly, it’s just a couple of hours, for God’s sake.”

  She pulled away from the kiss. “I know what damage you’re both capable of in a few hours,” she teased.

  There would be no heavy debauchery tonight. We had Link at home, and I was still cycling through medication that wiped alcohol off the table. This was a night to reminisce and celebrate with old friends. A night to breathe and worry about nothing.

  “I’ll see you in the morning,” I told her, kissing her again before Dante pried us apart. I watched as Mia left the house, sinking into Dom’s car and left me for the final time as my fiancée.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Mia

  My party was considerably smaller than the one I’d left at the house, consisting of myself, Dom and Carmen. I didn’t want the fuss and I hated being in the spotlight, so I’d opted for those closest to me. A tame evening of romantic comedies, too much chocolate and face masks.

  I retired to bed early but not because I was tired. The nervous energy kept pinging through me, and I sat in the guest room, swapping messages with Luc. Neither of us were doing well with the separation even if it was a few hours. When Luc stopped replying, I assumed Dante had taken his phone. I plucked a book from my bag and read quietly to myself as the rest of the house fell silent.

  In the early hours, there was a soft knock on the bedroom door, and I waited to hear who was on the other side. It was Carmen’s voice that sounded through the barrier. “Mia? Are you awake?” Her head peeked around the door and I looked at her from where I was sat on the bed.

  “Coming in?” I asked, closing the book and placing it on my lap.

  She walked into the room and closed the door behind her before joining me on the bed. “You should be asleep,” Carmen sternly told me off. “Instead, you’re reading...” She trailed off as she picked up the book and looked at the cover. “Macbeth? Mia, seriously? A tragedy?”

  I shrugged my shoulders at her. “It’s the only thing that Ez seems to enjoy. He stopped his one-man rave when I started reading it to him.” It wasn’t a complaint. I was overjoyed every time I felt a wriggle, every time we heard the heartbeat or saw him on the screen. It was almost as if Ezra sensed all my concerns over him and sent a constant reminder that he was alive and waiting to join us.

  “Two under two.” Carmen clucked her tongue. “You’re a braver woman than me.”

  “This was not the plan,” I reminded her. “I’m not sure how I’m meant to stand in church, in front of Father, in a white dress when I already have a son and am just about ready to drop my second.”

  Carmen stifled her laughter behind a hand. “Makes sense that you and Luc would do everything ass backwards.”

  I huffed and leaned back against the headboard, folding my arms across my chest.

  “Are you nervous?” Carmen asked, tucking some hair behind my ear. I’d kept it trimmed in the bob style rather than grow it back out. It felt like a new phase of my life and I preferred the way it looked.

  “About the wedding or having two heathens in the house? Three, if we include Luc. Twenty, if we account for Dante,” I mused.

  “The wedding.” She laughed.

  “A little,” I admitted.

  “It’s natural,” she said, wrapping an arm around my shoulder, and I leaned against her. “I was nervous before I married Emilio.”

  “I can’t imagine that.”

  “It’s true. I was never sold on the idea of marriage or children until I met him. I was so nervous the morning of the wedding, we had to stop the car so I could be sick.”

  “Carmen,” I said, surprised that it’d gotten to her that badly.

  “I made it to the end of the aisle, didn’t I?” She grinned. “What are you nervous about?”

  It felt safe to be honest with Carmen. She’d always been my closest ally and I never felt judged when I was with her. “I’m nervous about not being enough.”

  “For Luc?” she asked, looking at me.

  “For everyone,” I told her. At every turn, someone expected me to be a certain version of myself and marrying Luc added the title of wife to the roster. It cemented me into the family, and I didn’t know if I could fulfil all the roles that were expected of me.

  “You need to stop worrying about everyone else,” Carmen said seriously. “You’ll never be able to please everyone. Mia, let me be honest with you.” She took her arm away from my shoulders and shuffled on the bed so she could look directly at me. “The men will tell you that business comes before all else, but they don’t understand what it’s like for women. We have a family to raise, a house to run and they expect us to know what is going on around us at all times. The church will expect you to be sweet and your enemies will expect you to be sharp. Your boys will want you to be loving and your patience will wear thin. Be kind to yourself, Mia. This life is not an easy one.”

  Carmen had always offered me advice and I’d always listened. We came from the same world. A world that we were blind to until we’d been pulled into it.

  “You’ve done more than prove your worth. I should apologise,” she told me. “I told you once that you weren’t made for our world, but you are, Mia. Probably more so than some of the men we know.” She laughed to herself. “You don’t need to be anyone other than who you want to be. Get married in a few hours. Become a Foster and spend some time just figuring out what that means to you.”

  I beckoned her forward, knowing that my bump wouldn’t let me rock forward. When Carmen came near me, I pulled her into a hug. “Thank you,” I whispered into her hair. “For being here when I needed you. For your friendship.”

  Carmen pulled away and looked at me. “You will always have me in your corner. Do you know how much it means having an ally I can trust?”

  “It’s a relief,” I said. There was a bond between us that was solid and unwavering. Our families were entwined by our children and Luc and Emilio’s history. It felt good to confidently say that I had a friend that I could trust. Someone who wasn’t on Luc’s payroll.

  “This is the beginning of the rest of your life, Mia,” Carmen told me with a glint in her eyes. I knew she wasn’t on about being a married woman. Carmen believed that women ran the world and didn’t need a man, but they were nice to keep around. Sometimes I wondered how she and Emilio kept their relationship successful with so much ego between the pair.

  “Everything I wanted.” I laughed and felt my eyes sting with tears.

  “Everything you wanted,” Carmen said, leaning forward and kissing my forehead. �
�Get some sleep now. You’ll be grateful for it in the morning.”

  I nodded and as Carmen left the room, I switched off the lamp and shuffled under the covers. When I eventually fell asleep, it was dreamless and peaceful for the first time in months.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Lucas

  “Today’s the day, bro! How are you feeling?” Dante asked, bright-eyed as he walked into the room. He’d be lucky if someone didn’t take a shot at him for the noise he was causing this early in the morning.

  “Fine.”

  “Not nervous? Not cold feet. Well, cold foot.”

  “Fuck you.” But I laughed because Dante continued to act as if my missing limb meant nothing. Next to Mia, he was the only one who behaved like normal.

  He grinned in return, already fully dressed and handed me my prosthetic. “You want my help or...”

  “Yeah.” I wouldn’t refuse the extra help today. Mia would kill me if my pride made me late for the wedding.

  “I’ve got you.” There had never been a point in which he hadn’t. For our entire lives, Dante had been unwavering by my side and there was yet to be a situation where he’d turn his back on me.

  After I showered, Dante helped me into my suit. Maybe it was a small lie that I wasn’t nervous. I was nervous as hell and anxious to get to the church and see Mia.

  “Will I do?” I asked, finishing the last of the buttons on my jacket.

  “Eh.” He shrugged. “She’s seen you in a worse state.” I was debating my decision on best man and whether it would be too late to call Emilio and have him take the spot when Dante produced two small bottles of whiskey from inside his jacket. “Mia would kill me if I got you drunk but this is just a bit of Dutch courage.” He handed me one and I contemplated the consequence of taking a drink. Deciding it couldn’t do much harm, we knocked them back together. “Look, Luc,” Dante rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. “I know Charlie isn’t here, but I just wanted to say he’d be so fucking proud of you. He always was but I know he wanted you to find someone the way he found your mom. I bet he’s fucking grinning at the fact you found Mia.”

  The mention of Dad brought a lump to my throat. Marriage had never been on the cards for me until Mia stepped into my life, and it gutted me that my old man wouldn’t be here to watch me eat my words.

  “I know I’m not your blood and you have plenty of family around you now,” Dante told me, referring to the Moretti side of my genes and the fact that Mia and I had started our own pack. He dropped his eyes to the floor. “But I’ll always be there if you need me.”

  “Dante,” I said with a sniff. “Are you fucking breaking up with me on my wedding day?”

  His head snapped up. “What? No. Wait, what? No. I just meant that you have a lot of people that you didn’t have before...”

  “D.” I sighed. I was fully prepared for Mia to be soft today, but I hadn’t expected my idiot brother to get caught up in his feelings. But this was a milestone for us. We were no longer two lost kids who looked out for each other and said to hell with the consequences. We were men who were starting a fresh chapter in our lives with wives and children. There was an inevitable shift in priorities and it begged the question where we sat in each other’s lives. “After Mia and the kids, it’s you,” I assured him. “Blood doesn’t mean shit. You should know that by now. Pull yourself together. Trying to break up with me on my own wedding day.”

  I staggered past him and a few moments later, he joined me as I made my way down the stairs. “You know,” he said, catching up to me. “You’re never allowed to complain about me ever again.”

  ∞∞∞

  The church was packed with people when we arrived. More than the usual Sunday service drew in. It was a sea of familiar faces, not just from our family but friends from all over. They’d rearranged their plans without question when they learned of the situation with only a few unable to make the new date.

  “Mom,” I greeted her as I got to the front of the church after being stopped multiple times.

  She rose carefully from her seat. “My boy.” She pressed a kiss to my cheek. “I’m so proud of you, Lucas.”

  “About time,” I replied. I never thought I’d hear those words come from her. Mom sat back down next to Lydia, who had Link in her arms. He stared up at me with wide eyes as I came into view. “Not long, cub,” I said to him. “Momma’s going to be here, and I finally get to make an honest woman out of her.”

  “Dom’s said they’re almost here,” Dante told me, clapping a hand on my shoulder. We walked to the altar, and I nodded at Father Duffy.

  “Who’d have thought all those years ago, when I told you off during Mass, that I’d be seeing you getting married?” Father Duffy asked.

  I smiled at the memory of how Dante and I met, under the eyes of God, bickering until Father Duffy could no longer ignore us. “I’m sure you’ll be conducting my children’s weddings.”

  “You’re a relic, Father,” Dante chimed in.

  The smile dropped from his face. “And you never knew when to quit when you were ahead, Dante.” He rolled his eyes and turned away from us.

  “One day, he’s going to kick you out of this church,” I muttered to Dante.

  “He wouldn’t dare.” Dante shot a lopsided grin at me. “He can’t turn away sinners. We’re the ones that need God the most.”

  “He’s not kicking us out of the faith. He’s just going to make us find a new church.”

  “You’d leave the church with me?”

  “No, you dumbass, but somehow I always get stuck with you, don’t I?”

  “Lucas, don’t be saying things like that on your wedding day. You don’t want Mia getting jealous.” Dante was almost giddy with excitement. It was tipping into downright hysterical and the feeling was infectious. I gave him a shove and he knocked into Emilio.

  “A single day,” Emilio said, pushing Dante off him and straightening out his suit jacket. “Why can’t we get you both in line for a single day?”

  “Because hell would have frozen over by that point,” Dante said loud enough that Father Duffy shot him a look. “Sorry, Father!”

  I ran a hand down my face trying not to laugh as the antics took the edge off my nerves. When I looked out again at the sea of people, it felt good to have so many here wanting to support me and Mia.

  “They’re here,” Tori said, coming towards us. She paused briefly to straighten out Dante’s bowtie before looking at me. “Good luck,” she said.

  “Thanks.”

  The nerves hit me hard once again as I pulled at my cuffs and waited impatiently at the top of the aisle for Mia to enter.

  “Holy shit.” Dante said it loud enough for the congregation to hear, and everyone, including myself turned around and I saw in an instant what Dante meant.

  Mia stood at the other end of the aisle with Dom, and I felt my heart thud unsteadily in my chest. She looked perfectly dressed in white and a veil partially shielding her from view. The dress draped over her bump, making her look a little smaller than we knew her to be. She fiddled with the bouquet of calla lilies in her hands nervously as Dom said something to her.

  “You’re one lucky bastard,” Dante told me.

  His comment barely registered as Mia looped her arm through Dom’s and they walked up the aisle towards us. Something wet fell down my face and I lifted a hand to find I was crying. The effect she had on me was beyond what anyone else could reach.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Mia

  The morning of the wedding, I thought I wouldn’t make it out of the house with the way the nerves twisted my insides. Anxiety spread through my body and made me shake so badly that it took longer than expected to finish my makeup.

  Dom and Carmen helped me into my dress once my hair was pinned up and veil was in place. All of the previous designs had been abandoned, uncooperative with my blossoming baby bump. The white, intricate lace of my gown flowed from my middle, around my legs, making me look smal
ler than I was, and I’d kept the lace sleeves that I’d fallen in love with.

  “You look so beautiful, Mia,” Dom told me in the car when we were alone. His eyes had misted over, and I blinked back my own tears.

  “Don’t start or I’ll start, and I want everyone to appreciate this face before I mess it up,” I teased him. He pressed a kiss to my temple, and I held his hand as we rode to the church.

  By the time we arrived, I started to shake again, and Dom led me carefully through the hallways. I suppressed the urge to chew on my bottom lip as the doors opened and I took in the amount of people who had turned up for the ceremony. Luc had promised a large affair but part of me thought he was joking. I should have known better.

  As my eyes landed on Luc, I lost my breath. Standing at the front of the room, a short walk away from me, with his mouth open was the man who would become my husband.

  “You feeling okay?” Dom asked me quietly.

  I turned my head towards him. “Yeah. I just can’t believe it.” I looped my arm through Dom’s, adjusting my bouquet, and the sound of music filled the room. The walk up the aisle was the longest walk I’d taken, and I wasn’t able to take my eyes off Luc.

  When we finally made it to him, I gave him a nervous smile, eyes glassy from the tears. I didn’t trust myself to speak because I knew I’d end up blubbering.