I purse my lips. The Chapel Room.
I have never been inside it, but I know what it is— a small chapel on the third floor for members who want to exchange vows in a setting that offers both beauty and absolute discretion, decorated like something out of a gothic fairy tale with stained glass and candlelight and pews carved from wood so dark it looks almost black.
Why would Magnolia send me to prepare a wedding chapel at the last minute?
The question nags at me as I climb another flight of stairs. Something feels different about tonight, a charge in the air that makes the fine hairs on my arms stand at attention. The corridor leading to the Chapel Room is dimmer than the rest of the floor, lit only by wall sconces that cast dancing shadows across wallpaper the color of dried blood.
I push open the heavy wooden door and step inside.
And my heart stops beating entirely.
The chapel is filled with candlelight, hundreds of flames flickering in holders that line the walls and cluster on the altar. White roses cascade from every surface, their sweet perfume mixing with candle smoke to create an atmosphere suspended outside of time. The stained glass windows catch the candlelight and throw fragments of color across the polished wooden floor like scattered jewels.
But none of that is what steals the breath from my lungs.
Rafael Milano stands at the altar in a suit so perfectly tailored it looks like it was sewn directly onto his body. His dark hair is swept back from his face, and the candlelight plays across his features in ways that make him look like something carved from marble and shadow. His eyes find mine the moment I step through the door, and the raw emotion I see there nearly brings me to my knees.
Behind him, arranged in a semicircle like witnesses at a ceremony, stand the five men I recognize from his world. Drake with his silver hair and knowing smile. Konstantin with his ice-colored eyes and the ghost of humor playing at the corners of his mouth tells me he had a hand in this plan. Massimo, Luca,and Rowan, all of them watching me with expressions that range from cautious hope to open warmth.
I take a step back but stop when I hear my name.
"Persia." Rafael's voice is rough, scraped raw by something that sounds like three months of sleepless nights. "Please. Stay."
My hand finds the doorframe, gripping it for support as my knees threaten to buckle beneath me. "What is this, Rafael?"
"A proposal." He takes a step forward, and I see now that his hands are trembling at his sides. Rafael Milano, the man who faced down Magnus Sterling without flinching, is shaking like a leaf in a storm. "A real one this time. Not a contract or a negotiation or a price for a wish granted. Just a man asking a woman if she will give him another chance to prove he can be worthy of her."
Tears blur my vision, and I blink them away because my heart is telling me I need to see him clearly for what comes next. "How did you find me?"
"I have known where you were since the day you arrived in New Orleans." He takes another step closer, and I can smell him now, cedar and smoke and something underneath that has always been uniquely Rafael. "Magnolia has been updating me every week. Not details, just confirmation that you were safe and healthy and building a life for yourself."
I should be angry that he had me watched. But all I feel is warmth spreading through my chest at the knowledge that he cared enough to make sure I was okay without trying to drag me back before I was ready.
"You could have come sooner." My voice comes out smaller than I intend. "You could have called, or texted, or shown up at my door demanding that I come home."
"I could have." He stops an arm's length away, close enough to touch but making no move to bridge the remaining distance. "But you asked me to let you go. You needed time to figure out who you were without someone else defining you. I was not going to take that from you, Persia. Not even when it was killing me to stay away."
A sob catches in my throat, and I press my hand harder against my stomach. There is so much I need to tell him, so many words clinging to the back of my throat, but all I can manage is the question that has been burning in my chest since the moment I walked through that door.
"Why now?"
Rafael reaches into the pocket of his jacket and produces something that makes my heart clench with recognition. The ring I dropped at his feet three months ago, the diamond and sapphires cleaned and polished until they gleam like stars in the candlelight.
"Because three months is long enough to prove that I am not going anywhere." He sinks to one knee on the stone floor, and I hear Drake make a sound that might be a laugh or might be a prayer. "Because as selfish as it sounds, I can't go another day without having you in my arms."
He holds up the ring, and his voice cracks on the next words.
"Because I love you, Persia. Not as an heir-maker or a contract or a solution to my problems. But as the woman who taught me that mercy is not weakness and that love is worth more than anyempire. Marry me. Not because you have no other choice, but because you choose me the way I choose you. Every day. For the rest of our lives."
The tears spill over as I look at this man who crashed into my life with guns blazing and somehow became the only place I have ever felt safe. I think about all the reasons I should say no, all the ways his world is dangerous and complicated.
And then I think about the child growing inside me, the piece of both of us that exists because we found each other in a room full of candlelight and desperate wishes.
"Yes." The word comes out on a breath, barely audible over the thundering of my heart. "Yes, Rafael. I choose you."
He slides the ring onto my finger with hands that are still trembling, and then he is on his feet and pulling me into his arms and kissing me like a man who has been dying of thirst and just found water. I taste salt on his lips and realize that the untouchable mafia king is crying, tears streaming down his face as he holds me close enough to feel his heart pounding against mine.
"Get out," he growls against my mouth, and for a moment I think he is talking to me until I hear the shuffle of feet and the soft click of the chapel door closing behind his brothers.
