It’s too early!
“Donatella, you’re supposed to marry the handsome prince after you kill the wicked witch not before,” I said to her. Then again, she was hell bent on breaking all the rules. God only knows how she pulled that off. Princes had rules, didn’t they?
“Says who? Disney?” She gave a very un-princess-like grunt. “If the handsome prince needs my help and wants to screw me while he gets said help, then handsome prince needs to be my legal husband because there is no way in hell I’m fighting for a future possibility and not a sure thing.”
I frowned at that. “You could have at least done a video call, so I could have seen. I swear everyone is doing this just to stop me and my mom from planning your wedding.”
“Oh, I’m still having a massive wedding. It hasn’t leaked here that we are already married. The wicked witch has her hands in the media here. So as long as you’re still my family, you’ll be planning my wedding.”
“What does that mean?”
Dona was always clear with her words. She didn’t throw cryptic messages out there without a reason.
“A little birdy told me you ran away from home.”
I rolled my eyes, rolling back onto my side. “Let me guess, Nana.”
“Who else? It isn’t so funny when she’s talking about you, now is it.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “I didn’t run away from home. Okay, I did run, but only because I just needed…I needed space.”
“You hate space, Helen.”
“I do not hate—”
“You hate space so much you cried when your parents told you that you couldn’t sleep in their bed anymore…so you started to sleep in mine. When I left for school, you slept in anyone else’s bed but your own—”
“Okay, I fucking hate space! I still needed time to think.” Jesus Christ, give me a break.
“You think best when you’re talking to people, which is why you hate space—”
“Wow, you must be super bored if you’re picking on me this much.” There was a long pause. I grinned. “Do you miss us, princess?”
“In all honestly, no.” she said, her voice much more serious and cold…a.k.a. the Donatella I knew. “I’m not calling because I’m bored. Believe me, I have more than enough on my plate here.”
“So, you’re calling because—”
“Because I need you to get your shit together.”
“Excuse me?” I asked, no longer willing to joke with her.
“I’m sure you don’t need a reminder of the current within our family. Someone took a shot at you all. I am on the other side of the globe fighting my own goddamn battles against people I can’t even understand. I do not have the time nor the energy to worry about Chicago or you all, nor do I want to. You and I both know running this family is a two-person job. My parents made it that way. Every Ceann Na Conairte needs a strong wife beside him. Until she comes along, her duties fall on the strongest woman of the family. After me, that’s you. So, get your shit together and help my brother, Helen. I don’t give a shit about whatever your crazy mind is trying to make sense of. You don’t get to take a me-day until the family is stable. Wyatt can’t do this alone.”
“Aww, I’m flattered, Dona,” I said on as if I didn’t hear her little speech. “I didn’t know you thought so highly of me. When did I become the strongest woman of the family?”
“I said after me.” Of course. “And don’t play coy with me. I know you. You don’t give a damn about your biological father, and if Wyatt hadn’t killed him, you would have done it eventually.”
“No, I would not—”
“Catherine Zane.” The moment she said that, all of me shivered, as if she’d dumped ice water on my head. I tried to reply, but the words wouldn’t come out of my throat. So, she went on. “Helen is the nice one. Helen is the good one. Helen doesn’t get involved—bullshit. You are nice to the people you want to be nice to. Good to the people you want to be good to. But deep down, you’re just like the rest of us. A manipulative, selfish, violent murderer. After all, how could you have tricked me into killing her? You didn’t care that I was only twelve. You didn’t care what type of ramifications that would have on me…taking a life for the first time. Or that she herself was a mother. You just wanted her to go away. You wanted to stay with us, and she kept trying to put you with your biological family. So, you used me to get rid her.”
I remained calm, forcing myself to smile as I spoke back to her. “You know last night I was thinking I had Stockholm syndrome. Now I’m quite certain…no reasonable person should give any fucks about you, Dona.”
“But you do anyway because the Callahan family does not raise reasonable people. They raise warriors. Kings. Future queens, in fact. They raise the next leaders of the world. You were raised Callahan, you are a Callahan...and one of the strongest of us, no matter how much you pretend otherwise. What right do you have to get angry at anyone? To walk out on anyone? You need space? No. You need a wakeup call. Congrats, I’m taking time out of my very busy schedule to give you one. So, get your shit together, go home and help because the longer it takes for you all to settle this clusterfuck, the longer I have to wait to have my goddamn wedding. And the very thought of me having to postpone my wedding for dead, Ivy is more than enough punishment for the year.”
“Ethan is hurting—”
“Not because of Ivy,” She huffed. “I know Ethan, I’m sure he’s more upset because he feels like he failed his duty as man or whatever than because he actually misses her. It’s a wound to his pride not his heart. He’ll live.”