"It's not like I am going anywhere." I keep my voice steady, conversational even, as I begin the slow work of sawing at the ropes snaked around my wrists. The movement is subtle, hidden beneath the altar cloth that drapes over the marble. "Why don't you let him go? He's just an old priest, Magnus. He has nothing to do with your obsession with owning me."
Magnus laughs, and the sound echoes through the empty church like something rotten. "Owning you. Such dramatic phrasing."He reaches down and traces a finger along the curve of my jaw, and I force myself not to flinch. "I prefer to think of it as claiming what was always mine. Your father promised you to me long before Rafael Milano decided to play the hero."
The rope gives slightly as the blade finds purchase. I keep my face carefully blank.
"My father is a coward and a criminal." I meet Magnus's dead eyes without blinking. "And so are you."
The backhand comes fast enough that I do not see it, only feel the explosion of pain across my cheekbone and the copper taste of blood flooding my mouth. My head snaps to the side, and for a moment the world goes white at the edges.
But my hands keep working. Sawing. Cutting. Fighting even when the rest of me wants to surrender.
More men filter into the church through a side door, and I hear Magnus issuing orders in low tones that I cannot quite make out over the ringing in my ears. The rope is fraying now, individual fibers giving way under the relentless pressure of the blade, and I force myself to breathe slowly despite the adrenaline screaming through my veins.
One of the goons moves toward the altar, and I know my window is closing.
So I act.
The rope snaps just as he reaches for me, and I come off that altar swinging. My fist connects with his jaw hard enough to send pain rocketing up my arm, and he staggers backward with a curse that would make a sailor blush.
Everything happens at once after that.
I grab the nearest candelabra and swing it like a baseball bat, catching another man across the temple as he lunges for me. Candles scatter across the wooden pews, flames catching on dry wood and ancient hymnals, and suddenly the air is thick with smoke and the crackle of spreading fire.
"Get her!" Magnus's roar cuts through the chaos.
Like hell! I do some major knees to chest and run.
My bare feet slap against marble as I sprint toward the main doors, dodging grasping hands and ducking beneath a fist that whistles past my ear close enough to stir my hair. The fire is spreading faster than I expected, climbing the walls and consuming the velvet curtains near the confessionals with hungry orange tongues.
I am almost to the doors when arms wrap around my waist and drag me backward. I scream, thrashing wildly, but the man holding me is built like a refrigerator and my struggles do nothing except exhaust what remains of my strength.
He drags me through a side exit, and the night air hits my face like a slap.
And there is Magnus, waiting with a gun pointed directly between my eyes.
"You got away from me once." His voice is ice wrapped in silk, and the barrel of the weapon does not waver. "Not again."
He signals to one of his men, who drags Father Michael forward with brutal efficiency. The priest's face is swollen and bloodied, but his eyes are clear as he stumbles to a stop between us.
"Say the nuptials," Magnus commands. "Make it quick."
Father Michael's voice trembles. "I cannot perform a marriage. Not like this. This is not?—"
"You can, and you will." Magnus pulls a folded document from inside his jacket and shakes it open with one hand, the gun still trained on my face. "Now. Or you can meet God and I’ll just find another priest." He pulls out the contract I was forced to sign at my father’s.
I stare at the paper, at the signatures already scrawled across the bottom, and my blood runs cold.
"You already know Genesis won’t take that."
"They will a blood contract." Magnus' smile is the cruelest thing I have ever seen. "Your signature means nothing. But blood? Blood is binding."
Before I can react, he grabs my wrist and drags a knife across my palm. The pain is sharp and immediate, and I watch in horror as my blood drips onto the paper, spreading across the surface like a stain that will never wash clean.
"Harlon and his sanctimonious asshole brothers will have no choice but to give me what I want now." Magnus forces my hand down, pressing my bleeding palm against the document until the crimson seeps into every fiber. "I get this to Genesis tomorrow, and you are mine. The laws of the underworld work differently than the ones you grew up with, my sweet Persia."
The words are a death sentence wrapped in legalese, and I do not understand half of what he is saying. Blood contracts. Genesis. Laws of the underworld.
All I know is that I am trapped again, caged by forces I cannot see and rules I never agreed to follow.
