A tear escapes down her cheek. I catch it with my thumb.
"You get my heart, Vittoria. Every dark, damaged piece of it. It's yours. It's been yours since the moment you ran from me and made me realize I would chase you forever if that's what it took."
"You're going to make me cry at my own wedding," she whispers.
"Good." I kiss her forehead. "Because I need you to understand something."
"What?"
"I didn't marry you for the alliance. I didn't marry you for your family's connections or your tech genius or any of the strategic advantages our union provides." I pull back just enough to look into her eyes. "I married you because you're the only person who has ever made me want to be more than what my father created. You make me want to be worthy of something. Of someone."
Her hand comes up to cup my face. Her palm is warm against my jaw.
"You are worthy," she says softly. "You always were."
"No." I shake my head. "But I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to become the man you deserve. That's my vow to you, Vittoria Baganov. Not the ones we said in the church. This one. Right here. Right now."
The music shifts to something slower. More intimate.
"I love you," I say again. "I love your stubborn streak and your brilliant mind and the way you challenge me when I'm being an idiot. I love how you care for your family even when they drive you crazy. I love that you wore that damn vibrator to dinner just to prove you could handle anything I threw at you."
She laughs through her tears. "You're bringing that up now?"
"I'm bringing up everything. Every moment that made me fall harder for you." I spin her slowly. "The way you explained your security systems with such passion I forgot to breathe. The way you held my hand at my father's funeral without sayinga word. The way you activated that tracker when you were kidnapped because you trusted me to find you."
"I did trust you."
"And I will never betray that trust." My voice drops to barely a whisper. "You are my heart, solnyshko. My little sun. The only light in a very dark world."
"I love you too. So so much." she says and she presses her lips on mine.
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CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Bruno
The veil hides her face.
White lace and silk, draped over blonde hair. I can see the shape of her—the outline of features I can't quite make out—but not her expression. Not her eyes.
I saw enough when she first walked through those doors. The moment her gaze found me. Found the wheelchair.
She froze. Just for a heartbeat. Just long enough for me to recognize the look I've seen a hundred times since I woke up.
Shock. Confusion. The rapid calculation of what this means.
Now she stands in front of me, and I can't read her face through the veil. Can't tell if she's horrified or relieved or something in between.
Doesn't matter. I know what she's thinking.
The priest begins speaking. Latin words that wash over me without registering. I've heard them before. At my first almost wedding. The one that ended with bullets and blood and two years of darkness.
My hands rest on the armrests of my wheelchair. Steady. Controlled.
But my eyes won't stay on the priest.
