Second comes Cassidy.
Then Blesk.
Kaya.
Shoshanna…
The cathedral fades away—the murmurs of guests in the mahogany pews, Capos with scarred knuckles, politicians with practiced smiles, women dripping in diamonds, and the soft rustles of silk dresses, all gone.
Irrelevant.
Sunlight breaks through stained-glass windows overhead, blood-red and sapphire light painting the floor, faces, and pews, and yet everything pales because?—
At the far end.
There she appears.
Aurora at her side.
The music peaks—the Wedding March heading towards its inevitable crescendo, each note throbbing in my chest, mirroring my heartbeat.
One.
Two.
She takes her first step towards me. Back straight, her eyes are partly hidden beneath her long white veil, yet I sense them attached to mine.
Seemingly, your life flashes before your eyes moments before your last gasp. I can confirm I’ve witnessed something like this reflected in the men I have killed. The claws of mortality shoving a kind of pure perspective and self-awareness down throats. But here I am. In a cathedral, under God, who I’m certain will send me directly to Hell at my end, being giftedHismost precious creation. Fawn Harlow. Here I am my entire lifeflashingbefore my eyes—the lessons from my mother and Jimmy, the years in boarding school, my kills, my demons, every bullet shot, every trigger pulled, each thrust of my fist and slice of a knife, all my blood-soaked darkness, and then, after all that evil…
Light, beauty, her?—
I am stripped bare.
Unworthy.
Her dress—Christ,the mother of my children in that white silk—cascades behind her like an avalanche of pearls, trailing meters of custom fabric that cost more than most men’s lives are worth to me, and still less than she deserves for bringing me peace and a purpose greater than my empire or Butcher legacy. To be hers completely, to be a father who protects rather than intimidates—that is who I choose.
As she draws closer, her glossy eyes become visible, meeting mine—innocence meeting evil. A flood of emotion punches me in the chest. I lift my hand to cover my heart, almost to soothe the way it responds to her. Her eyes drop to watch my foolish action.
Am I vulnerable?Yes.In this moment, I am the definition of vulnerable, because if she is ever taken fromme, I will destroy heaven and earth, make every place I walk burn. Without her, I will make existence a living hell.
My eyes well up.
Hers flood with tears.
She stops at my side, taking my arm and gazing up at me with that look—the one that screams everything at once.
“Sweet girl,” I mouth.
She sighs. “Sir.”
Fuck me.
I fight to remain smooth, calm, controlled, the Don everyone expects me to be, but for her, a single tear cuts a course down my cheek. It’s impossible to look upon something so beautiful and not want to cry.
Her hands are shaking as I guide her to face forwards, though my gaze beckons to find her, to rest on her face beneath that veil, with that lovely pouty mouth, and pretty dual-coloured eyes.
The priest, a man I have known since infancy, begins, and the rest is history—vows, declarations, lifting the veil, a soft kiss filled with her tears and a deep rumble of emotion from my throat, and it is done. Under God.
