“It’s fine,” I answer. “Dimitri and I have resolved the matter.”
Mason Kincaid moves into the line of my brothers. “We’re taking on a very large enemy with this merger. Tell me it’s all still worth it.”
What Mason wants is stability in Vegas. A safe place to raise his family. Marrying Sasha will accomplish that goal just as well as marrying Katarina would have. “Still worth it.” There is no hesitation in this assertion, and everyone hears it.
I see several men relax.
I don’t hear Killian until he’s speaking close to my ear. “What’s the problem?” Fucker can move like air when he chooses, he doesn’t make a sound.
I turn to look back at him, my scowl fierce enough that it should frighten him off. It doesn’t. “It’s handled.”
“I heard you the first time.” He pokes me between the shoulder blades. “I know when you’re up to something shifty, you little fucker.”
I look forward again, not taking the bait. “I’m bigger than you.”
“Places everyone,” the pastor’s wife claps her hands. “The bride is almost ready.”
“Thank God,” I mutter, moving to my spot to the right of the pulpit. Once the ceremony is done, the trap will be set.
From somewhere in the back, the violin begins to play. I’d chosen the instrument as a softer, gentler option to an organ but as the delicate strings begin, they sing out a vulnerability that makes me shift on my feet.
And then Sasha appears.
She has no veil, so there is nothing to disguise the tears tracking down her cheeks.
And then there is the dress…
It’s too large for her in every metric. Big in the shoulders, the bust, the waist, the hips, it hangs on her, ill-fitted and awkward. It makes my molars grind together.
She holds her bouquet of flowers in the hand meant to rest on Dimitri’s arm, in the other, the hem of the dress.
Judging by the way it drags on the floor behind her, it’s several inches too long.
I look away for a moment, the vision of her tearing at my chest. Fuck.
But it’s Killian, from his seat in the front row, who really twists the knife. He looks at me with hard eyes, like he sees me, knows my plan, and rumbles. “Over the line.”
Killian doesn’t really have lines, at least not before Chloe. So for him to say those words…
My gaze snaps back to Sasha as she moves down the aisle, slowly, awkwardly, her tears punctuated by a small sob. Maybe for the first time, I feel the real weight of my choices. She doesn’t even know the extent of my plan. No one does.
But every man and woman in this room can feel her pain.
She clamps her lips together, her chin notching up in a show of strength that only makes her that much more sympathetic as they reach the last pew.
Then she stops.
Another tear rolls down her cheek as she looks somewhere over my head.
I’ve been in fights before. Physical ones with men. I’ve argued with a screaming woman who wanted from me what I refused to give. Affection. Commitment.
But I’ve never done this. I’ve never blackmailed a woman, watched her fall apart. And it cuts me to pieces.
Her skin is ghostly pale, her eyes red rimmed as she trembles. I know all the reasons I planned this.
And I know I’ve gone past the point of no return.
Deals have been signed. Katarina is already gone. Already part of another man’s plan.
