He leaned against one of the stone pillars flanking the altar, arms crossed, sunglasses catching the last bit of dying sun.
“Gotta say, man…” He glanced around. “It’s almost romantic. You’ve got the flowers, the candles, the creeping sense of dread. It screams die pretty.”
“Touching,” I muttered, deadpan.
He smirked. “Hey, next time you’re throwing a cursed union, let me plan it. I’ll bring the champagne and the body bags.”
“Tempting,” I said. “You always were good at staging a bloodbath.”
He tilted his head. “Nothing says love like a little mayhem.”
I let the silence stretch.
He didn’t break it.
Because for all his irreverence—for all his teeth and theatrics—Gideon understood something most didn’t: beneath every joke was a blade. And mine was always sharper.
Still, his presence chipped at the anticipation tightening in my chest. Gave the moment a flicker of levity before the storm hit.
And the storm?
She was coming.
Wrapped in white silk.
Laced with resistance.
Dripping in denial.
Soon, Persephone would walk through that garden gate.
And when she did, this place would shift from setup to sentence.
Because Gideon could joke all he wanted.
But when she stood across from me under that arch?
There’d be no punchline.
Just the sound of something sacred breaking.
And me, smiling through every second of it.
Gideon leaned against the stone pillar, arms crossed, that signature smirk clinging to his face like it always did. But beneath it?
Something colder.
Sharper.
He watched me—not like a friend cracking jokes, but like a man cataloguing the fault lines in a crumbling monument.
And I knew what he saw.
Not the suit.
Not the smirk.
The hunger.
