Chapter 42: Wedding Bells

“Where are your parents?”

Raven answered, “I don’t know. They said they’d be here.”

She was regretting her decision to invite her parents. They had disowned her for marrying Lenny and then had dumped on her when she divorced him. They hadn’t talked in years and the recent exchanges had been less than positive.

Alice said, “You’re a lovely bride.”

She fussed a bit more with the wedding dress. She wanted this wedding to be perfect. She had waited too long for Andrew to get married.

“You’re not upset that I’m wearing blue instead of white,” Raven asked.

“No. I’m fine with your decision. You’re right. You were married before. If you aren’t comfortable wearing white, then there is no reason to wear white,” Alice said.

“I was married wearing white the first time and that was horrible. I guess I don’t want anything that will remind me of that day. Maybe I’m being superstitious.”

“I told you. I’m happy with your decision,” Alice said. “Now stop worrying about me. You’re the bride. This is your day.”

“Thanks. Where are my parents?”

There was a knock on the door. Sue Ellen stuck her head in the door. She said, “I’m sorry. The wedding is going to be delayed about an hour.”

“Why?”

“Your ex came here with your parents. He said he was here to take you home.”

“Oh my God!”

“Oh no!” Alice said.

“Don’t worry. Everything is okay. Dave and a couple of his friends are taking care of him. They were smiling from ear to ear when they trussed him up and carried him out to the SUV.”

“Smiling?”

Knowing what they had planned, Sue Ellen said, “Dave was kind of hoping that he’d show up. He and his friends have been planning this out for a while.”

Trussed up and blindfolded in the back of an SUV, Lenny couldn’t believe what was happening to him. He’d come to stop his ex-bitch from getting married and to take her back home to where she belonged. She might not be the best looking woman, but there were a lot of guys who would pay good money to be with her. Too bad she was such a lousy fuck.

The guys who jumped him had to be professional. They took him down like he was a little girl, tied his hands together, blindfolded him, and threw him in the back of an SUV. He hadn’t gotten a good look at them, but his impression was that these were really mean looking sons of bitches. They had that look in their eyes like stone cold killers.

“What does the boss want done with him?”

“He wants him cut from crotch to top.”

“Chainsaw?”

“Of course. I don’t want to try doing that with a knife.”

“It’s going to be bloody.”

“That’s what we get paid the big bucks for.”

“Why are we coming out here?”

“He wants to fuck with the guy who slapped and kicked his sister.”

“Shit! Is Lefty still alive?”

“Yep. We’ve got him chained up in the barn, although we call him Stumps, now.”

Lenny flinched when the SUV came to a stop. He knew they had been driving along a dirt road. That meant they must be getting close to this barn place they were talking about. He figured they were going to kill him now. He was about to piss himself.

He heard the doors of the SUV open and close. Then the door to the back was opened and the ropes around his ankles were cut. He was roughly pulled out of the back of the vehicle. His legs threatened to give out on him.

He screamed hoping to get the attention of anyone who might rescue him.

One of the men said, “You can scream all you want. There’s no one to hear you.”

“Why are you doing this?” Lenny asked.

“You tried to fuck up the wedding of the boss’s best friend. He doesn’t like it when his best friend is unhappy,” one of the men said.

Lenny was dragged along to an old barn. Once inside, his blindfold was removed. He looked around and spotted a naked man chained to the wall. The guy was filthy, but that wasn’t what scared Lenny. The guy was missing one of his legs and one of his arms. How could he have kicked anyone with just one leg? Then it dawned on him what had happened.

“Hey, Stumps. We brought a little entertainment.”

“What?”

“You get to watch us take care of this guy. It’ll give you a chance to see what we’re going to do to you one day.”

“I’m sorry about what I did to Mr. Intaglio’s sister.”

“Not half as sorry as you will be when we’re done with you.”

“Please, I’m begging you. Let me go!”

“Nope. No one treats a family member or friend of Mr. Intaglio with disrespect and gets away with it. He takes it very personally.”

“I’m not going to prison for your sorry ass.”

“I won’t tell the cops anything.”

“Bullshit. You’ll be screaming like a baby to the cops that we turned you into stumps.”

Lenny couldn’t take his eyes off the guy’s stumps. He couldn’t believe they cut off a left arm and leg for slapping and kicking some bitch. These were some very scary guys. He realized that he’d pissed off someone very important. How was he supposed to know that the bitch was getting married to someone connected to the mob? This wasn’t fair.

“How do you want to do this?”

“We’ll just hang him spread legged upside down from the rafter and cut him from crotch to the top of his head.”

“Why don’t you get the ropes hung up? I’ll take care of getting the chainsaw ready.”

“I’ll get out the barrel to burn the coveralls.”

“I didn’t bring a coverall.”

“You dumb ass.”

“How was I supposed to know this idiot would show up?”

“We’re supposed to be like boy scouts and be prepared for anything.”

“Just take off your clothes and work naked.”

“I’m going to get sprayed with bone and shit.”

“Next time you’ll know to keep a coverall in your car.”

“We were in your car.”

“Quit bitching. We’ve got some carving to do.”

Lenny stood there with his bowels close to letting go. He watched one man go into a small stall in the back of the barn. Another of the men went over to the corner and started searching through some junk that was piled there. The third man left the barn.

The man who was searching through the junk suddenly shouted and, while hopping up and down, shouted, “Shit! I think I broke my foot!”

Lenny didn’t wait a second. He knew that staying there wasn’t going to save his ass. His only hope was to run like hell. He was through the barn door and headed across the field in the flash of an eye.

Once the barn door slammed shut, Dave stopped jumping up and down. He shouted, “He’s getting away!”

Ken took off the chains and said, “I wish I could run that fast.”

“That was priceless,” Dave said.

“I haven’t had that much fun in ages,” said Amber’s husband, Jim, while coming out from the stall in which he’d been supposedly getting a chainsaw ready to be used.

Steve, Kate’s date for the wedding, returned to the barn. He said, “I can’t believe you really did this.”

Jim said, “You didn’t see Raven when I picked her up. She had taken a real beating.”

“I’m kind of surprised that he didn’t recognize you.”

“So what if he had? I’d have just told him that I was there to pick up Raven on the boss’s orders.”

“That would have worked.”

Steve looked over at Ken who was still naked and sitting in the dirt. He said, “Why don’t you get dressed before Kate comes in here?”

“I need to clean up first,” Ken said gesturing down to the dirt that covered him.

Jim brought over a chair. He and Steve helped Ken get into it. Climbing off the ground and into a chair is rather difficult with one leg and one hand. Dave put a bucket and wash cloth down next to Ken. He stood there holding a towel for the man to use in drying off. Ken started taking a whore’s bath.

“Do you think he’ll ever come after Raven again?” Dave asked.

While moving a bale of hay, Steve said, “No. He’s history.”

“I wish we could have done more to him,” Dave said.

Steve picked up the stack of clothes and returned to stand by Ken. He felt a little weird standing there like some sort of valet. He decided he’d hit Ken upside the head if he made any comments about needing help putting on his underwear.

Ken asked, “Did I miss anywhere?”

“You got a bit of crud on your back.”

Handing the wash cloth to Dave, Ken said, “Wash my back.”

“Yes, Sir.”

From outside, Kate shouted, “Is that half legged son of a bitch decent yet?”

“No!”

“Well, hurry up. We’ve got a wedding to get to,” Kate said.

Steve shook his head and said, “You two sound like a married couple.”

“Jealous?”

“Hell no. I figure that as long as she’s nasty to you, that she’ll be nice to me.”

“Asshole,” Ken said. “Would someone hand me my arm?”

Raven and her mother were hugging each other. Raven’s mother, Cynthia wasn’t crying despite the fact that it had been years since she’d seen her little girl. In fact, it had been years since she had heard from her. Raven was a bit more emotional than that.

Raven sniffled and asked, “Have you met Andrew yet?”

“Yes. We met outside after his friends grabbed Lenny. I don’t know why they did that. Lenny never did anything to them. All he wanted was a chance to talk to you.”

“I like Andrew’s friends,” Alice said beaming.

“Lenny was not invited,” Raven said coldly.

“He was your husband. He deserves a chance to talk you into coming back.”

“I don’t want to talk to him,” Raven said.

“You could have just talked to him.”

“His idea of talking is slapping me and then dragging me off by the arm.”

“You aren’t being far to Lenny.”

“As far as I’m concerned, Lenny can rot in hell,” Raven said.

“I’m worried about your friends. They’re scary people.”

“Don’t worry about them. They’re heroes.”

“You didn’t see the looks on their faces.”

Raven explained, “All of my friends are veterans. They are heroes.”

Alice said, “We raised Andrew to be respectful of men who serve in the military.”

“I don’t know,” Cynthia said. “It looks to me like you’ve traded in one bully for another.”

“They don’t need to beat up on women or other people to feel like they are tough. They are tough men who’ve been through hell. I know they’d die to protect me. They already offered up their lives on behalf of the country.”

“Amanda, you aren’t the best judge of character,” Cynthia said.

“Raven is a very good judge of character,” Alice said.

“Who is Raven?”

“I am, Mom. Nobody calls me Amanda.”

“She’s a raven haired beauty, hence – Raven,” Alice said.

“Oh. I guess that makes sense.”

“Where’s Dad?”

Alice said, “Al grabbed him. Since he’s Raven’s father, it’s his role to walk her down the aisle. He should practicing with Sue Ellen, since you missed the reversal yesterday.”

“Who are you?”