“This is your duty, Persia.” My mother moves closer, and the scent of her gardenia perfume mingles with the heavy sweetness of roses that seems to permeate every inch of this church. “Daughters make their families strong. It’s what we do. It’s what I did when I married your father, and it’s what you will do today. And one day when you have a daughter, you will do the same.”
“Never. I will never use another human being, especially one I brought into this world for gain.” I inhale sharply and try to fight back some level of control over my emotions. “Not too long ago you told me you married for love. Are you saying you lied to me?” The words taste like ash on my tongue, bitter and gray and utterly without substance.
Her laugh is soft and sad and tells me everything I never wanted to know about her marriage. “I married for survival, just like you’re doing now. The sooner you accept that, the easier this will be.”
My head throbs like I have it pressed against the handles of a jack hammer. I blink twice and try to push through the pain but I already know this headache won’t be going away anytime soon. Maybe ever.
Mother reaches past me to adjust the veil that cascades down my back like a waterfall of white tulle, and I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the ornate mirror that dominates the wall. The woman staring back at me looks like a ghost draped in silk and lace, her violet hair pinned beneath a crown of white roses, her aqua eyes empty of everything except despair.
I look like a fucking sacrifice.
My gaze drifts to the single red rose tucked into the corner of my vanity case, hidden beneath a fold of tissue paper where no one will find it. I brought it with me because I couldn't bear to leave it behind, this last fragile connection to a night that feels more like a dream with each passing day. Rafael Milano's rose has wilted in the week since he pressed it into my hands, its petals curling at the edges and its crimson color fading to something closer to dried blood, but I've kept it on my nightstand like a talisman against the darkness closing in around me.
He promised we would meet again.
He lied.
The door opens and my father steps through, his round spectacles catching the light as he surveys me with the cold assessment of a man examining merchandise before a sale. He’s wearing his best suit, the charcoal gray one he reserves for political victories and public appearances, and the sight of it makes my stomach lurch with a fresh wave of nausea.
“It’s time.” His voice carries no warmth, no fatherly pride, nothing but the flat efficiency of a man completing a transaction. “The guests are seated. Magnus is waiting.”
I rise from the vanity chair on legs that feel like they might collapse beneath me at any moment, and my father offers his arm with the mechanical precision of a man fulfilling an obligation rather than a privilege. The white silk of my wedding gown whispers against the floor as I move toward him, and I can feel the weight of my mother’s expectations pressing against my spine like a physical force.
“Please.” The word escapes my lips before I can stop it, small and desperate and utterly pathetic. “Please don't make me do this. There has to be another way.”
My father's jaw tightens with irritation as he guides me through the door and into the corridor that leads to the main sanctuary. “The deal is done, Persia. You are protecting your father. Do this and you are set for life. Why can't you appreciate that?”
“What I am is a pawn in your game of power and wealth.” I keep my voice low, aware of the guards stationed at regular intervals along our path, their hands resting on weapons that would be turned on me in an instant if I tried to run. "You're selling me like cattle to cover your gambling debts."
“Silence.” His fingers dig into my arm with bruising force, a warning wrapped in the gesture of a father escorting his daughter down the aisle. "Do what you are told."
The doors to the sanctuary swing open, and the pipe organ erupts into a wedding march that sounds more like a funeral dirge to my ears. Hundreds of faces turn toward us from the flower-draped pews, Chicago's elite gathered to witness theunion of Governor Fiore's daughter to his oldest friend and most powerful ally. I recognize politicians and businessmen, society wives and criminal kingpins, all of them wearing expressions of polite interest that mask whatever they're really thinking about this farce of a ceremony.
And at the head of the church, standing before an altar drowning in white roses, Magnus Sterling waits for me with a smile that makes my skin crawl.
He’s wearing a suit so dark it's almost black, and his silver hair is swept back from his face in a style that emphasizes the predatory sharpness of his features. The pinky ring on his right hand catches the candlelight as he adjusts his cuffs, and I remember with sickening clarity the way that ring cut into my skin when he grabbed my face a week ago, leaving a bruise that my makeup artist had to cover this morning along with my tears.
My stomach gurgles with a sickness that has nothing to do with nerves and everything to do with the knowledge of what awaits me in this man’s bed tonight. I can taste bile at the back of my throat, acidic and burning, and I swallow convulsively as my father guides me down the endless expanse of white carpet toward my doom.
Every step moves me closer to the altar.
I feel my future narrowing into a corridor with no exits. The faces in the pews blur together into a sea of indifferent witnesses, none of them willing to stand up and object, none of them brave enough to question why a woman with tears in her eyes and misery on her face is being walked down the aisle.
I catch sight of a bodyguard near the end of the pew to my right, his suit jacket open just enough to reveal the gun holstered at hiship. The weapon gleams in the candlelight like a promise, and something desperate and wild rises in my chest at the sight of it.
I could grab it. I could put it to my own head and end this before Magnus ever gets the chance to touch me. I could?—
The church doors explode inward with a crash that sounds like the end of the world.
Screams erupt from the pews as armed men pour through the entrance, their movements precise and coordinated in a way that speaks of military training and absolute confidence. Gunshots crack through the sacred space like thunder, and the bodyguards who were supposed to protect this ceremony drop one by one, their weapons never even clearing their holsters.
My father’s grip on my arm goes slack as chaos erupts around us and he takes cover, leaving me fully exposed. Another moment where he could earn father of the year and he fails miserably.
I stumble forward on my ridiculous heels, my heart pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat.
Fucking coward.
All around me guests scramble over each other to flee, their expensive clothes tearing and their carefully styled hair coming undone as they fight toward the exits like animals fleeing a fire.
