My Bestie's Dad Likes Me Wet-Chapter 138 Tied To A Chair

NALA POV

I came back to consciousness hearing a man’s voice doing that thing voices do in church, that low practiced holy drone that sits somewhere between reading and boring you out, and my first thought before I even opened my eyes was that I was dreaming about the world’s most boring sermon, I mean this is why I usually avoid churches.

My second thought was that the back of my head was absolutely killing me and my third thought, the one that made everything else irrelevant, was why can’t I move my hands to touch the throbbing spot at the back of my head?.

I kept my eyes shut one more second.

I tried to connect the dots while listening to the voice still speaking loudly.

But underneath it I could hear breathing and low background shuffles, a lot of it like it was roomful.

Then something flickered at the edge of my vision even through closed eyelids, whatever it is, it was warm and orange and unsteady, in addition to that something heavy and uncomfortably structured was wrapped around my entire body that was not what I had been wearing the ;ast time I was awake even though the memory was not very clear.

I opened my eyes carefully, one eye squinting slowly at a time.

Candles.

That was the first thing I saw, an almost offensive amount of candles, climbing the walls, lining the altar and sitting in arrangements along the ends of every pew, throwing the entire space in this warm amber glow that under any other circumstance would have been genuinely beautiful but unfortunately this particular one made my skin crawl because beautiful settings are how people dress up ugly things and make them harder to refuse.

I’m a lover of beautiful aesthetics, I mean who doesn’t love a good thing but this particular one with its High ceiling, old money type of dark woods paired with white flowers everywhere, thick and expensive, all carefully arranged in a way that showed professional and detailed planning.

There was a white runner down the center aisle and on either side of it rows of seated people who looked like they would rather be somewhere else but after a private calculation about the cost of being somewhere else they kind of decided this was safer.

At the end of the aisle was a priest with a huge bible or maybe it was a book open in his shaky hands, sweat visible at his collar from where I was sitting.

He was reading in the shaky voice of a man trying to get through this particular event so he can go home and close the door and pretend this specific evening never happened.

Why, though? Isn’t it in his job description?

But on further observation and looking closely,up close next to him, was one of the tattooed men with a gun pressed into the priest’s ribs. It was done so casually I double checked to be sure I was seeing things right, the expression on the tattooed man’s face was light, like it was a completely normal Tuesday.

The groom stood to my left... I knew he was the groom because, Dark suit, tattoos crawling up past his collar and past his cuffs, mapping his skin in a language I didn’t speak but understood the general tone and dangerous aesthetics of.

His hands were clasped in front of him while he watched the priest with the patience of someone who had never once in his life not gotten exactly what he came for and saw no reason to start doubting himself now.

But wait...

If the man standing to my left was the groom.

Does that mean....?

I was not in any way slow or dumb, but I haven’t or couldn’t picture myself getting married, I couldn’t even survive a one month relationship and now I have to technically spend the rest of my life with someone.. or should I say this.. gangsterman?..

Then I looked down slowly, very slowly.

White dress.

It was then I noticed the heaviness against my body, it was fitted and structured perfectly around my body in the way that things fit when someone has taken measurements you never consented to giving.

I couldn’t feel my hair against my body which could only mean that my hair was bound up, I could feel the weight of it pulled and pinned.

Then there was the uncomfortable feeling of makeup on my face. I hate makeup, I absolutely detested it but obviously someone had done my makeup while I was unconscious and styled me like a doll while I had no say in any of it.

I don’t even know what I looked like.

My wrists were tied to the chair arms. Ankles tied to the chair legs. All with thick strong rope and I was at the altar.

In a wedding dress.

Tied to a chair.

I let that sit in for just one second because that was all I could afford before I opened my mouth just as he was about to slide a gigantic diamond fancy ring on my finger.

"I will burn this building to the ground with every single person sitting in it before I let you put anything on my finger."

The whole room went deathly quiet, like everyone stopped breathing; even the priest stopped reading mid sentence, while all heads turned to me.

Every single person in the room was looking at me.

The groom turned his head more slowly to look at me and the thing that scared me was how unhurried it was.

There was no surprise, no irritation, in place of that was a calculated man who had already fully accounted for something like this.

His smile was even more scary than his usual cold expression. I watched it travel from his eyes to his mouth like something that had taken a long route to get there and enjoyed the journey.

Then his hand connected with my face before I saw it coming.

My head snapped sideways with it and the chair rocked underneath me, even the world tilted briefly while my mouth flooded with the familiar copper taste of blood and my ears went high and distant for a few seconds.

"Spirited." He said it pleasantly and conversationally as if he was describing a wine to the congregation.

He looked at someone behind me and nodded once, before I could pull breath back into my body a cloth came around my face and whoever it was tied it tightly at the back of my head.

I pulled hard against the ropes on my wrists and they held but I pulled again and they still held as if I wasn’t struggling against it. Whichever of the fucker did this, he was deeply committed to his craft and I hated him for it personally.

I looked out at the pews.

Row after row of careful faces. Not a single pair of eyes met with mine, not one person whose expression cracked even slightly into anything that acknowledged what they were watching, all of them were fully into doing that practiced not-seeing that people learn when they live close to dangerous men for long enough.

There was no one in this room for me.

I thought about Ethan for approximately two seconds and then I stopped because thinking about Ethan right now was something I could not afford and also because Ethan had assembled this moment for me piece by piece over years of choices that I had made excuses for and I was done making excuses and I was not spending whatever came next thinking about him.

I thought about the underground building instead and I genuinely almost laughed at myself because I had spent weeks wanting out of that place and now I would have done almost anything to be back inside it staring at that ceiling with Lena somewhere down the corridor and Nova’s sunshine available two doors away.

I thought about a hand flat on a door above my head.

A low laugh against my collarbone.

Familiar infuriating voice calling me Carrot top or Nalayna in full if I frustrated him enough.

I held onto those memories because it was the only warm thing left in the room and the room was getting colder by the minute, it was colder than the cold diamond ring being forced down my ring finger.

The priest found his place again, voice climbing back into that formal register with the specific determination of a man doing his job under genuinely extraordinary circumstances, and I heard the sentence building before he finished it and I knew what was coming at the end of it.

"If anyone present knows of any reason why these two should not be joined in holy matrimony." He paused and I watched his throat move. "Speak now. Or forever hold your peace."

There was silence, no movement, I’m certain they all held their breath so I wont be mistaken as them speaking.

Just when I thought all hope was lost....

The doors burst open.

The set of double doors guarding the church was open all the way with the intensity that brought about sudden rush of outside air rolling through the chapel and half the candles nearest the entrance died immediately.

Followed by the ones further up the aisle, the whole warm amber light of the room shifted and went strange and every head turned. The men with the guns all swung around.

Even I could visibly see the groom went still in a completely new way, that doesn’t fit in the ruthless vibe he has been maintaining, I watched as he brought out two short guns from behind his trousers, arming himself as everyone’s gaze was fixed on the just opened door that was completely empty...

Who could it be?

Who would be stupid enough?

Definitely not Ethan unless he wants to resell me to another client.

Ivin? No. I wasn’t worth that much to him.

Could it be these people’s opponents attacking them?

Why do I always have to be in cross fires like this??