by Zavi James
Father Duffy started the ceremony, but Luc’s eyes didn’t move from me. Despite the fact there wasn’t a spare seat in the room, it felt like it was only the two of us. It was a miracle that we’d made it to this point and surreal that after everything we’d been through, both of us had maintained a deep love for each other.
I shifted nervously and Luc rubbed his thumb across my hand. I’d never liked attention. I wanted to elope to avoid all of the pomp and circumstance that a wedding brought to the table, but I agreed to it to keep Luc happy. He’d given me so much that this felt like a small compromise.
“Will you, Lucas, cherish Mia as your lawful wedded wife, protecting her and tending to her needs through illness and disappointment?” Father Duffy asked.
Luc had been the one to choose the vows. I’d felt ill-equipped to pick out words that would belong under the eyes of God.
“I will.”
“Will you strive to understand her, giving her comfort when she seeks it from you? Will you try never to say in anger which you would not say in friendship? And when each night comes, will you go to sleep with gratitude for her presence at your side and renewed love for her in your heart?”
My hands trembled in Luc’s. Of all the words he could have chosen, these felt significant to us. He’d chosen perfectly. These were the promises we wanted to make to each other in front of all of our family and friends. Every single day of our lives I would be thankful that Luc chose me when he could have walked away for an easier life.
“I will,” he said, looking me in the eye.
My voice wobbled as I made the same promises, unable to keep myself together. Luc swallowed hard as he carefully placed the wedding band onto my finger and I returned the favour. The weight of the ring felt like it belonged. A physical representation that I was his without question or doubt. I’d waited almost two years for this exact moment.
“I now pronounce you husband and wife,” Father Duffy announced. “Those who God has joined together, let no one pull asunder.”
“Hoo-fucking-rah!” Dante laughed. “Now kiss your wife!”
“Dante!” Tori hissed from her seat.
Luc laughed and I couldn’t help but join in. Dante had so desperately wanted to officiate but even I had put my foot down at that request and he had just proven me right.
“You may go ahead and kiss your bride, Lucas,” Father Duffy told me after shooting Dante a stern look.
“So,” I said, looking up at him with adoration, “are you going to kiss me, Mr Foster?”
“As if I need to be asked, Mrs Foster.”
The apples of my cheeks tingled at the use of my new name. After moving my veil, Luc’s hands went to my waist, pulling me in towards him. One hand snaked up to the back of my neck, bunching the veil, as he leaned down and kissed me deeply. The gesture was filled with a thousand promises of everything to come in our future and a thousand apologies for our past. So much could be said in a kiss that words would never convey.
The sound of whistling, hollering and applause filled the room. When we eventually pulled apart, Luc grinned at me.
“Mr and Mrs Foster!” Dante laughed and stuck his fingers in his mouth and let out an ear-splitting whistle again.
We turned back towards our family and friends, and Luc gripped my hand tightly as we walked between the rows. It was slow and stilted, thanks to his leg, but I took each step with him. This was the start of our journey as husband and wife. Uncertain of what may lie ahead but facing it together and learning from everything we’d left behind in our past.
“I love you, Mia,” Luc told me just like I knew he would tell me every day for the rest of our lives.
“I love you too, Luc.”
Sometimes, I found it hard to believe that there were pockets of sunshine in this life. A life that I hadn’t even been fully aware of until a deal gone wrong. I’d never known what it was like to care for people so deeply that you would do anything for them. Not just words that were carried away in the wind, but truly anything in the world to keep them with you. I never imagined in my wildest dreams that Lucas Foster, the man who I’d hated so fervently when we met, would be my husband and that he’d give me the world.
The beauty of it all was that we’d barely begun. These days would stretch into years and I’d make sure that the good outnumbered the bad. There were constant reminders of what we were forged from; Luc’s leg and my skin that would never quite be the same after the kiss of fire. Things we desired so deeply — power, love, freedom — they’d all come at a cost, but, in the end, they were worth the price.
Epilogue
Eighteen years later
Lincoln
The streets whipped past us as Ezra sped away from the school on Dad’s old motorbike. My younger brother had more of an interest in bikes than the rest of us, and had damn near cried when Mom and Dad gifted it to him on his sixteenth birthday. Now, he was barely without it and that meant I’d had to get over my aversion to the death trap. I much preferred the sleek designs that sat on four wheels.
As we rounded the corner, the house loomed into view and we waited for the gates to open to give us access to the drive. Dad’s car pulled up behind us and we took the route towards our home with the Range Rover a little too close for comfort. There was no doubt in my mind that Dad would have like to have pushed the car an inch closer to knock us off the bike and hammer some sense into us.
Ezra rolled the bike straight into the garage and killed the engine. We dismounted to see that Dad hadn’t followed us in. Ez took off his helmet, revealing a split lip, and placed it onto one of the shelves before looking at me.
“They can’t kill the both of us,” he said. “That’d raise too many questions.”
“I’m not sure they’re going to give a fuck,” I replied, shoving my helmet next to his.
“You’re not going to tell them, are you?”
“Ez,” I said, looking him in the eye. “I’d never do that to you.” My hands went to his shoulders and I shook him gently. “I’ve got you.” He swallowed hard and nodded his head. “Let’s go face Dad.”
As we walked out of the garage, Dad’s voice boomed across the drive. “Oi!” he yelled. “Where do you think you two are going?” The twins, who had made a break for the front door, stopped in their tracks and turned around to face him. “Get in line,” he ordered them. “Now.”
We exchanged a glance before deciding it was better not to push our luck. All six of us stood in a line as Dad surveyed us.
“I’ll tell your mother about this. Not a word from any of you. Understand?” he said. Ezra and I didn’t need to agree. It was our fault we were in this situation in the first place. My fault. “Parker,” Dad called on my baby sister.
She’d kill me if she heard me call her that. At eleven, Parker wasn’t exactly a baby anymore, but I don’t think any of us saw her as anything else. She was our only sister. The final Foster. Everyone doted on Parker and with good reason. Unlike the rest of us, her dark streak had yet to develop properly. She might have known and seen what the family business was about, but she took minimal interest in it, and why should she when she had five brothers who would sort any issue she had? Parker would never need to fight her own battles with all of us around. None of my siblings would as long as I was alive.
Parker looked to Dad, bag slung over her shoulder, hair coiled so she looked like Princess Leia, and hockey stick in hand. Maybe it was unfair to say that Parker didn’t possess the Foster violent streak. She was feral when she hit the pitch, and Dad never looked as proud as he did after a match.
“Head inside. Tell your momma I’ll be in there now.”
Parker broke ranks and walked up the line towards the front door. She stopped near Ezra and hugged him around the middle, and he dropped a kiss on her head. Then she stopped in front of me and I held my arms out but she didn’t move for a hug. Instead, Park popped out the mouthguard that she’d probably been sucking on angrily since she’d been pulled out of schoo
l by Dad.
“You screwed up my practice,” she informed me. “You need to make up for it on the weekend if you’re still alive.” Without another word or a hug, she marched off into the house to find Mom.
“The rest of you,” Dad said once the front door closed again. He ran a hand down his face. “Stay in your rooms until dinner. We don’t need an audience for this one.” The twins started to laugh, and Dad gave them a pointed look. “Don’t think you two are in the clear after this morning.”
Dexter and Rowan had started the day by hiding Dad’s prosthetic leg. The pair of them had always been a little troublesome growing up. Always huddled together in corners having conversations that only they could understand. Mom had said the mischievous streak they held would ease as they got older, but having just turned thirteen, it felt like they had doubled their efforts.
This morning, Dad had point-blank asked Mom if she’d had an affair with Uncle D because he refused to claim ownership to them. I vaguely wondered if Dad would deny fathering me and Ezra after our incident.
“We are though,” Dex told him with a nonchalant shrug.
“Yeah,” Row agreed. “What we did is nothing compared to Link and Ez.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Dad grumbled. “All of you in the house. I don’t want to hear a word out of any of you while I break it to her.”
We traipsed into the house, following behind Dad.
“Luc? Is everything alright?” Mom called from the kitchen and he didn’t say anything more to us as he left to join her.
“When she kills you,” Dex said, looking up at me, “can I have your room?”
I lunged at him but he slipped away, running towards the kitchen laughing again. Rowan followed after him, calling out, “I’ll take yours, Ez!”
“You could always appeal.” Chase was still standing with us in the hallway.
The sound of paws across the wooden flooring got louder until Atlas, our husky, joined us, gravitating towards Chase. Atlas had favourites with the list comprising of Mom and Chase. Everyone else was an inconvenience for our high maintenance pup.
“What would be the point?” I asked him in return.
“It’d probably make Mom happy.”
“You’re going to make an amazing attorney someday,” Ezra muttered. “You know how to hit people where it hurts.”
Chase scratched Atlas between the ears as he responded, “I’ll be the reason none of you end up in prison.”
“And we’ll be eternally grateful,” Ez told him.
If you asked me out of all of the Foster siblings, including myself, who you needed to keep an eye out for, it was Chase. He was a marvel to watch. Three years younger than me, Chase was calculated rather than reactive. He valued Mom’s approach to the business. Book loving and quiet, Chase had skipped a grade and was on the fast track to an Ivy League college. Harvard Law to be exact. He had big dreams that had absolutely nothing to do with fighting for justice. Chase planned to use every ounce of his brains and charm to exploit every flaw in the system and ensure the entire family was kept safe.
I asked him once, why bother with college? It seemed pointless for my genius little brother who seemed to absorb knowledge the moment he read it. Chase had shrugged and said it was because he could. It was about ego rather than hard work. I had a sneaking suspicion it was because Kennedy Silveri had expressed an interest in studying there and my brother would have walked straight into hell if she was leading the procession through the gates. Idiot.
“I’m being serious,” Chase told us. “Appeal if you’re willing to tell them why you got into the fight in the first place.” He looked at us expectantly.
Ezra tensed and I shook my head. “It was over nothing,” I told Chase. “You know what people are like.”
“It’s your funeral,” he responded and led Atlas away, probably into the kitchen to join the rest of them.
“Maybe we should appeal and tell them.” Ezra ran his hand down his face and reminded me of Dad as he did so. “The school board, I mean. Not Mom and Dad and the rest of them.”
“No, Ez.” I dropped my voice. “You’re not admitting—"
“Lincoln? Ezra?” Mom’s voice came through the house again. Dad hadn’t waited to tell her, which was probably for the best considering everyone but Mom was in the loop.
“She doesn’t sound pissed,” Ezra said hopefully.
“Looks can be deceiving,” I reminded him.
Unsurprisingly, the kitchen was filled with the entire family. None of them had cared for Dad’s order about leaving us alone. Privacy was something you learned to sacrifice as a Foster. If it wasn’t one of our siblings, it was one of our cousins, and if it wasn’t them, then it was the wider family.
Mom watched us like a hawk when we came into the room. “The rest of you can leave. I want a word with your brothers,” she told everyone.
“Aww, Mom. Come on. Ezra never gets in trouble,” Row whined.
It took a single look from Mom for Rowan to backtrack at record speed, grab his twin and leave.
Dad might have been head of the family, but Mom was the true commander-in-chief. We’d all realised as we grew up that Momma was the truly terrifying one out of the pair. Dad wore his anger like a badge of pride and most of us took after him but Mom — you never knew what you’d get and that was what made everyone nervous.
“Come on, Park,” Chase said, slipping out of his chair and jerking his head towards the floor.
Parker abandoned all of her things and heaved a sigh. “Mom,” she said. “Can Link take me to the field tomorrow since I missed training?” It was her way of asking if Mom would keep us alive for at least one more day.
“If he’s not at work, then sure. Now, go with you brother.”
Joining Chase at the door, I watched as the last safety net we had disappeared.
“Do you want to tell me what happened today?” Mom asked, taking a seat at the island. She was calm and composed, the way I’d always known her to be.
“We got into a fight,” Ezra told her. He walked around the island and sat down beside her, taking her hand.
My eyes were drawn to the tattoos that decorated her forearm. Six perfectly inked paw prints. One for each of us. The first two, the ones closest to her wrist, were no longer an outline but filled in. Momma had done it at the same time Ezra and I took our vow, flinching less than we did as they modified her art. Five of those prints would eventually be black as we all stepped into the family business.
“Over?” Mom asked him.
She usually melted for Ez. They shared a bond that none of us quite understood. Ezra was the son who stopped her stepping on her dress and topped up her champagne glass. Mom worried about all of us but there were occasions when Ez had come home late or hadn’t checked in and Mom almost lost herself in the stress it induced. Only Dad was able to talk her down in those moments.
“Does it matter?” I asked in return.
Dad, who was stood behind Mom with his hands on her shoulders, rolled his eyes, signalling I’d taken the wrong route.
“Does it matter?” Mom repeated quietly. “You’re half semester away from graduating, Lincoln, and you’ve just gotten yourself expelled. So, yes. Yes, it matters.”
“Mom, you know how people are with us. It didn’t have to be over anything specific.”
The family name came with a lot of whispers. Most people had no clue what we truly did, but they liked to gossip and kept a wide berth. I think that’s the reason we were all so close. Family, you could trust. Strangers? Not so much. For the most part, it didn’t bother us but every now and then someone would try to flex and prove that we weren’t anything special culminating in a hallway brawl. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine that was what had happened again.
“I’ll speak to Principal Slater on Monday morning and see what I can do,” Mom said looking between the both of us.
I supressed the urge to snort at her response. Principal Slater had been desperate to get rid of us the
moment we stepped through the high school doors. It was only thanks to our parents and their deep pockets that we’d lasted as long as we had. No amount of money would buy us out of this one. Causing a senator’s son to swallow his front teeth for throwing a homophobic slur at Ez without warning or basis was a stickier situation than we usually found ourselves in school.
“It was Monty Ford’s boy,” Dad muttered to her.
Her head whipped around to look at him. “You didn’t think to mention that earlier?” Mom asked him, sounding alarmed. “We don’t need to give him any reason to put us under a microscope.”
Monty Ford’s entire campaign had been based on cleaning up crime in the state. It was amusing to watch the promises he made to voters when good old Monty hadn’t managed to pin anything down solidly. Sure, the petty crime rates had dropped but Monty knew there was something bigger and he was out to get us. His golden ticket to the white house. He was fucking delusional if he thought that would ever happen.
“I’ll fix it,” Dad said to her gently. “It won’t be a problem.”
“Fixing it wouldn’t be an issue if you hadn’t removed my contact number from the school. We could have avoided all this because I could have made a case with Monty there and then.” Mom let out a sigh and turned her attention back towards us. “We can find somewhere new for you to start and finish out the year.”
“Momma,” I said, trying to appeal to her gentler side. “It’ll be the same wherever we go.”
“You’ll be the same wherever you go. Stubborn and hot-headed,” she told me, not caring if the character assassination hurt my feelings. She hadn’t. I’d heard it enough over the years. “You’re just like your father.”
“Mia,” Dad said, sounding unimpressed.
There were times I felt for my poor momma. All five sons had taken after Dad in the looks department, and four out of six of us had inherited our personality from him as well. She was fighting a losing battle on a daily basis.
“So, what do you both suggest we do?”