When she straightened, her knuckles were white around the band.
She reached for my left hand.
Her skin was ice-cold. Not metaphorically—physically. The tremor in her fingers traveled up her arm, vibrating against my wrist as she slid the ring over my knuckle. It caught for a heartbeat, resisted, then slipped into place at the base of my finger.
Heavier than any shackle I had ever worn.
I took the second ring without ceremony.
She extended her hand.
Not confidently. Not willingly.
Like a condemned woman offering her wrist to the executioner.
I closed my grip around her fingers—hard enough to feel the small bones shift beneath my palm. Not enough to break. Not yet. Her breath stuttered, but she didn’t cry out. The ring scraped over her swollen knuckle, catching briefly on torn skin before settling into place.
A perfect fit.
Of course it was.
Fate had always enjoyed cruelty.
“I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the priest whispered, barely audible, as though speaking any louder might summon lightning from the vaulted ceiling. “You may... kiss the bride.”
I didn’t move.
Neither did she.
The air stretched tight, brittle.
Yannis tugged at the hem of her ruined gown, his small fingers clutching the torn satin as he looked up at us with bright, hopeful eyes—utterly convinced he had fixed something broken. That this was how wounds closed. That vows could stitch the world back together.
Something twisted painfully in my chest.
I took Elena’s hand.
Firm. Possessive. Inescapable.
And turned away from the altar.
Yannis immediately slipped his small fingers into her other hand without hesitation, as if this arrangement had always existed, as if she belonged there beside him. To anyonewatching, we looked like a family framed in sunlight and sacrament.
We were a funeral procession.
I matched her step for step until the chapel doors burst open, and California sunlight poured in—white, brutal, without mercy.
Heat washed over us.
Outside, my convoy waited at the curb—four black SUVs humming softly, engines purring like restrained predators.
Petros stood beside the rear passenger door, face carved into something unreadable. His eyes flicked to the ring on my hand. Then to hers.
Understanding passed between us without words.
Whispers spilled out behind us as guests poured onto the steps.
“That’s the Vasquez girl... with Baranov?”
