"Let go of me!" I struggled, but his left arm locked around my waist like an iron vice. Terror flooded through me, yet the scorching heat from his palm through the fabric sent an inexplicable tremor of excitement through me.
Every eye in the church was fixed on us.
"Kholod, you've lost your mind! This is your wedding!" I tried topry his fingers loose, my nails leaving scratches on his hand, but he showed no reaction.
Half-forcing me forward, I stumbled past the front rows. I whipped around to look at Mother—Sofia Bellucci.
She turned her face away, lips trembling, avoiding my gaze.
In that moment, my heart plunged into an icy abyss.
She knew. She had always known.
My last hope extinguished. I stopped struggling. The so-called "attending an important wedding," the so-called "seeking opportunities for the family"—it had all been a conspiracy against me from the very beginning.
I was the sacrificial offering.
Kholod half-carried, half-dragged me to the front of the altar, positioning me before the panic-stricken priest. He seized my right hand and raised it, our fingers forced to intertwine intimately, exposed under everyone's stare.
He turned toward the priest, toward the hall full of guests, his voice cold as a blade, cutting through every corner of the church.
"Continue the ceremony." He paused, his gaze sweeping over faces filled with shock or terror before finally settling back on my pallid face, the corner of his mouth curving into an almost cruel smile.
"My bride is Miss Noelle Bellucci."
Chapter Two
Kholod
The car was thick with the bitter aftertaste of cigars mixed with leather—a perfect match for my mood. Outside, Philadelphia's streets blurred past in the falling snow, everything fading to gray and white. The convoy moved silently toward the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, the place that would soon become my battlefield.
Three years had dulled most details of that winter attack—washed away by blood and time. I only remembered the bone-cutting cold, and that single thread of orange blossom scent cutting through the ice and snow.
I survived. Kieran and his crew? I damn near wiped them off the map. People come and go, but this bracelet—it was the only proof that snowy night ever happened.
I had Dmitri tear through every connection, searching Philadelphia and beyond for the bracelet's owner. The trail twisted and turned, finally pointing to the crumbling Bellucci family. To a woman named Noelle Bellucci.
When Dmitri dropped her photo on my desk, something between pure joy and deeper obsession seized me instantly.
The girl in the picture had soft, flowing hair and clear brown eyes like a forest stream. She wasn't smiling—just staring at the camera with distant defiance in her expression.
She was beautiful. And those pure eyes? They matched the kindness I remembered from that beam of light.
I went to see her myself, bracelet in hand. The Bellucci house was a shabby old place, worn thin but still pretending to have class. Her mother Sofia's careful, almost groveling attitude made my skin crawl.
"I want to see Noelle."
"Yes, yes, she'll be right down." Sofia's smile turned even more desperate to please.
When she walked into the living room wearing simple home clothes, irritation flickering across her face at being disturbed, my heart did something it hadn't done in three years—it forgot how to beat steady.
"Is this yours?"
After she sat down, I pushed the bracelet toward her.
She picked it up, studied it carefully, confusion filling her eyes. After turning it over and over, she set it down and gave me a vague answer. "Maybe... I can't remember."
Can't remember?
