But he was grateful all the same.
He’d been able to give Melina her one day to show off the queen she truly was.
It wasn’t a day they would soon forget.
“My feet hurt,” Melina said in his ear.
Mac chuckled, and kissed her temple. “Almost to the car, doll.”
Hopefully, she would sleep their plane trip to Barbados away. A white, sandy beach and private residence was just a few hours away.
After the crazy day and night they had, he couldn’t wait.
“Did you say goodbye to your mother?”
“Fifteen times,” he said, shaking his head.
And everyone else, too.
“Is my bag—”
“Stop worrying, Melina,” Mac interrupted, still keeping her close as they strolled through the throng of people who had come to the front of the Pivetti Mansion to see them off. “Everything is taken care of. Victoria made sure your bags were in the car, and you have an outfit to change into. This is now relax time—so relax, doll.”
She did.
A little.
The guests finally quieted as they reached the Challenger. Mac was just pulling the passenger door open to let his wife slide in the car when the silence was shattered by loud pops coming from the shadows the mansion created near the side of the house.
Where the walkways were …
Where the dogs were …
Melina’s hand on Mac’s wrist tightened, her fingernails digging right through his suit jacket like she was going to keep him right where he was no matter what.
The people began to scatter back into the mansion when more gunshots rang out, and the shouts from the guests almost drowned the pops out.
Almost.
That sound was far too distinguishable to ignore.
While a lot of people went toward safety, others didn’t. Capos, the boss, and a large group of Luca’s security bolted toward the back of the Pivetti property.
Snarling and vicious barking filled the air.
Mac got Melina into the car, despite her protests and clinging and still refusing to let him go. Once he had the door closed, he turned fast on his heel, searching for his friend in the moving crowd.
“Bobby!”
“Right here, Mac,” his friend said, pushing through the wall of people moving toward the mansion.
“What is happening?”
Bobby shrugged, and while he seemed cool and unruffled, fear still colored up his gaze.
Because that was what the sound of gunshots did.
It brought fear.
Even when a man was told to ignore it.
He never really could.
“I don’t know what—”
Bobby’s words cut off as a group of men rounded the side of the mansion.
Luca headed them all—hands outstretched.
“He was on the path,” he heard Luca said. “They didn’t attack—he was on the path!”
Mac heard his boss’s words, but his gaze was stuck on something else. Despite the shadows, he could plainly see the red coating Luca’s hands.
Blood.
But who did it belong to?
Police stations were cold as fuck.
It was even worse when the first thing the cops did when pulling the guests to the wedding into the station was separate them all as much as they possibly could.
Mac watched his wife be shuffled away with his mother, sister, and a few other men and women that weren’t entirely affiliated with the Pivetti Cosa Nostra.
So was the way with the pigs, he knew.
They were far more likely to separate the people they thought were the weakest in the bunch first—the ones they assumed would talk.
No one was going to talk.
Nobody fucking knew anything.
Mac certainly didn’t.
Scrubbing a hand down his face, Mac passed the clock on the wall a look, checking the time. Frustration thickened his blood as he realized they had missed their flight for Barbados by an hour.
And that just pissed him off.
No woman wanted to spend her wedding night in a fucking police station.
Despite his anger, Mac couldn’t ignore the anxiety simmering through his nervous system. He didn’t have a clue where his wife was, and while he knew that Melina was more than capable of handling a police detective’s questioning, he still didn’t like the idea of it.
Simply because she was his wife—nothing more, nothing less—she would be treated like a criminal.
He also wondered where the hell his mother was, and his sister.
Or why the hell he’d been shoved into a room the size of a goddamn sardine can.
Mac briefly considered why his lawyer hadn’t been called as well, but given he wasn’t under arrest, there was no need for the man to make his way down town to the station in the middle of the night. Because even when the man wasn’t doing actual work for Mac, he just had to be thinking of doing some kind of work, and he was charging by the damn hour.
Giving the time another glance, Mac’s back straightened in the hard, metal chair as the interrogation room’s door flew open. A detective strolled in, and Mac looked toward the mirrored window on the left wall.
“Is your partner going to sit this one out to learn, or what?” Mac asked.
Cops didn’t work alone.