I run to the pedestal. The glass case has its own lock—another antique, probably installed when the pendant was first hidden here. No time for picks. No time for finesse.
I wrap my jacket around my elbow and smash the glass.
The Swan is heavier than I expected, the ruby catching the emergency lights, seeming to pulse like something alive. Inside the stone, that impossible swan frozen in flight. Even in this moment of chaos, its beauty stops me cold.
"PAUL!" Merlin shouts.
I pocket the pendant, and we run. Back through the corridor where the bumblebees are already falling, their power exhausted. Back past the ancient door that we don't bother to close. Through the wine cellar where bottles rattle from our passing.
"Security converging on the house." Sam reports. "They know about the vault breach."
"Ceremony is in chaos." Jenny adds. "Complete pandemonium."
We burst from the wine cellar into blinding sunlight. The estate is in uproar—guards running toward the house, guests scattering, and somewhere in that chaos, Vivianne is either free or more trapped than ever.
"Van!" Merlin shouts, pointing.
CJ has brought it around, tires screeching as he slides to a stop beside us. We dive into the back, and he's moving before the doors close.
"Did you get it?"
"Yeah." I'm still gasping. "We got it."
"Our team is extracting the bride." CJ takes a hard turn that sends us sliding. "Complete chaos at the ceremony site."
On the monitors, fragments—white dress disappearing into smoke, guards with guns drawn, an elderly woman fainting into her chair. But no Vivianne. Can't tell if she's safe.
"Where is she?" The demand comes out raw.
"Charlie has her." Jenny's voice, steady despite the chaos. "Moving to extraction point two."
"Negative." Sam cuts in. "Father's blocking the route with security."
My hand goes to my gun. "Turn around."
"No." CJ's voice is firm. "This was the plan. You get the Swan, they get Vivianne."
"Turn the fucking van around!"
"Paul." Merlin's hand on my shoulder. "Trust them."
Trust. The hardest thing in the world when everything you love is on the line.
On the monitors, smoke grenades bloom like flowers. White dress flashing through the chaos. Guards converging. And somewhere in that beautiful catastrophe, Vivianne is fighting for her freedom while I sit here with a stolen ruby and a breaking pulse.
"Charlie's clear!" Brett shouts through comms. "They're at the van!"
"Moving to rendezvous." Another voice confirms.
I close my eyes, the Swan warm in my palm, and pray to every god I don't believe in that we haven't just traded one treasure for another.
That we've saved them both.
TWENTY-NINE
Vivianne: Vows and Violations
The aisle stretchesbefore me like a guillotine's scaffold, every step taking me closer to my execution.
