“I love you both. Please don’t worry. I’ll be fine.” I force a weak laugh, trying to make myself believe it. “I mean, he hasn’t killed me yet, so that’s progress.”
“That’s not funny, Fiona,” Dad mutters, hard as stone.
“It’s a little funny,” Mom throws in.
Despite everything, the corner of my mouth lifts. She and I laugh while he groans something about women being impossible. A long pause stretches between us before I speak again.
“I tried on a wedding dress he got for me.” The words come out hollow, like this is someone else’s wedding.
There’s a beat of hesitation on the other end.
“How was it?” Mom asks.
“Pretty. Expensive. Too expensive.”
“You’ll be the most beautiful bride,” Dad says, gentler now. “Even if the groom is a figlio di puttana.”Son of a bitch.
“Tony!” my mother snaps.
“What? It’s the truth! What you want from me, huh?”
She sighs dramatically. “Ignore your father. You’ll be stunning. And if your marriage is not good, I’ll kill the bastard myself, okay?”
I snort, the sound breaking through the lump in my throat. “Okay, Ma.”
They continue to talk, and the conversation stretches long enough that I close my eyes, letting it linger around me like a blanket.
For just a moment, I let myself forget what’s coming.
I don’t tell them I’m scared. I don’t tell them I sit there wondering what it will be like to be his wife. What it will cost me.
Or that lately, when he looks at me…I don’t feel scared at all.
When the call ends, the silence returns, thicker this time, like it’s pressing down on my chest. I stare at the wall for a while, then let my gaze drift toward the closet door where the wedding dress hangs. The symbol of everything I’ve already lost. And everything I’m about to lose.
I press my palm to my sternum, trying to steady the panic rising in my throat.
It doesn’t go away. I think of his hands on my face, the way his thumb brushed my jaw as he told me I was his.
He meant it. Every word. And a small, shameful part of me wants to know what it would feel like to belong to a man like him. Not out of fear, not because of the threat over my family, but because there is a twisted, hungry part of me I don’t know how to face.
“God,” I whisper to the empty room. “What’s wrong with me?”
I have about a week left. One week to make peace with the fact that Fiona Clark is gone.
And in her place, Fiona Marinova will be born. Whether I’m ready for her or not.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
ALEKSEI
I’ve stareddeath in the face. Watched men beg and break. Felt the crunch of bone beneath my fists, the warmth of blood on my hands.
But standing at this altar? This feels far more dangerous.
Because she might not come. Because a part of me isn’t sure she should.
On the outside, no one can tell what is going through my mind. But inside, a sliver of something sharp turns low in my chest.
