My Sister Is the Warlord Queen novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Janitor at the Gate
Shea arrives at Roisin's engagement party in janitor's coveralls, Thayer dumps Roisin on stage for Carina, and Shea puts him on his knees; in the truck Roisin says she's pregnant and he told her to end it.
The girl at the Ellery gate looked at my coveralls and laughed so hard she spilled her champagne.
"Oh my God," she said. "Roisin's sister came to clean."
I was still wearing the gray uniform with HARBOR GRAND stitched over the pocket.
Three months I'd mopped that hotel's floors at night.
At six o'clock that evening the man I'd been watching went into the back of a van in handcuffs.
At six-fifteen my sister texted me a photo of her dress and the words "Where are you???"
I didn't stop to change.
"I'm on the list," I said. "Shea Keane."
The girl was Roisin's roommate from college.
I'd met her once, at graduation, and she'd asked me to take a picture of her family.
She held up her phone now and took one of me instead.
"Service entrance is around the side," she said. "Bins are by the garage."
A woman in cream silk came down the brick path behind her.
Silver-blond hair, pearls, a face that didn't move when she smiled.
Marguerite Ellery, the groom's stepmother.
She looked at my boots, then my hands, then my face.
She held on my face a beat longer than she needed to.
"The staff door is by the kitchen," she said. "Please don't track anything onto the terrace."
"I'm the bride's sister."
"I know who you are."
She turned and walked back to her guests.
I went around the side anyway.
I'd been going around the side of things my whole life.
The garden was strung with white lights and full of people in good shoes.
Two hundred of them, maybe.
A string quartet was playing something I didn't know.
Roisin stood on the stone terrace in pale blue, her curls pinned up, a glass of sparkling water in her hand.
She saw me and her whole face opened.
Then it closed again, because Thayer had taken the microphone.
Thayer Ellery had a good suit and a better smile.
He'd used it on my sister for eight months.
"Thank you all for coming," he said. "I owe you honesty tonight."
The quartet stopped.
"I won't be marrying Roisin Keane."
Nobody breathed.
Then somebody near the bar giggled.
"I'm marrying the woman I actually love."
A brunette in a red dress climbed the steps and slid her hand into his.
She held her phone up in the other hand, filming the crowd.
"Carina Whitlow," Thayer said. "Some of you know her father."
Half the garden knew her father.
They started clapping.
Roisin didn't move.
Her glass was shaking so hard the water sloshed over her fingers.
"Roisin's a sweet girl," Thayer said into the mic. "But let's be honest about what this was."
He reached over and pulled the ring off her hand.
She let him, because she was too stunned to close her fist.
"She's a baker from a three-decker in Dorchester," he said. "Her sister's a janitor. Look, there she is."
Two hundred heads turned toward me.
Somebody whistled.
"I'm not blaming them for trying," Thayer said. "I'm just done paying for it."
He dropped the ring into the champagne bucket on the table beside him.
It went in with a little clink.
The laugh that came out of that garden was the ugliest sound I've ever heard, and I've heard men die.
Marguerite stood at the edge of the terrace with her hands folded.
She wasn't laughing.
She was watching Roisin.
Thayer put the mic down and took Roisin by the upper arm.
"Let's get you to your car," he said, smiling for the room. "Don't make a scene."
His fingers dug in.
Roisin flinched.
That was all I needed.
I walked up the terrace steps.
Nobody stopped me, because nobody stops the help.
I took Thayer's wrist off my sister's arm and turned it over.
He went down on both knees on the flagstones.
His face went red, then white.
"Let go of me!" he screamed. "Somebody get her off me!"
"Say sorry to my sister."
"Are you insane?"
I turned the wrist another quarter inch.
"Sorry!" he squealed. "Sorry, sorry!"
Carina's phone was still up, still filming.
Good.
I let him go and he fell sideways into the champagne table.
The bucket went over, and the ice and the ring went across the stones.
I didn't pick the ring up.
"Roisin," I said. "We're leaving."
She looked at me like she'd forgotten I could do that.
Then she put her glass down and took my hand.
We walked down the steps and through the middle of them.
Nobody laughed now.
One man at the back of the garden wasn't holding a drink.
Dark beard, charcoal suit, no tie.
He was the only person there who hadn't laughed at all.
He walked ahead of us to the side gate and opened it without a word.
"Thanks," I said.
"Don't," he said. "I'm his brother."
He shut it behind us.
My truck was parked in the street between a Bentley and a Tesla.
I got Roisin into the passenger seat and buckled her in.
I started the engine.
She didn't cry.
That scared me more than if she had.
"Talk to me," I said.
She stared at the dashboard.
"Shea," she said. "I'm pregnant."
My hands went still on the wheel.
"He knows," she whispered. "I told him this morning."
"What did he say?"
She finally looked at me.
"He said to take care of it before the party."
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