The ring slid onto his finger with a precise fit.
Vincenzo took the smaller band in his hand with the same calm precision he carried in everything.
He reached for my left hand, his touch almost gentle at first, and I shivered at the sensation.
But as he tried to slide the ring onto my finger, it caught, refusing to pass my knuckle.
He frowned ever so slightly, applying a little more pressure.
Still, nothing.
The ring was clearly sized for the original bride—a woman so slender she seemed almost delicate, like a fragile skeleton draped in silk.
I, in contrast, was built differently.
My body had been forged on the run: muscles honed from five brutal years of survival, of endless chases, scrapes, and fights.
I wasn’t fat, but I was strong—solid in the places where strength mattered.
Vincenzo’s eyes flicked to mine, a flash of awareness passing through them, but his expression remained unreadable.
I swallowed hard, keeping my voice steady, “I—I think it won’t fit,” I murmured, barely above the measured hush of the hall.
Vincenzo’s gaze didn’t waver.
“Then we’ll make it fit,” he said simply, the words matter-of-fact, like this was nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
He tried again, more firmly this time.
The metal of the ring bit into my skin, pinching sharply, sending a sting that shot up through my knuckle and settled like fire in my nerves.
I winced, biting back a small sound that threatened to escape my lips.
He had forced the ring onto my finger knowing it would tear and hurt, and he didn’t care.
That realization made fear coil in my chest like a living thing.
My hands trembled slightly—not just from the ring, but from the surreal weight of the moment: standing here, in a hall full of powerful eyes, on the verge of binding myself to one of the most dangerous men in Italy.
Vincenzo’s jaw tightened, the muscles rigid beneath his skin as his dark eyes flicked briefly toward the priest.
“Proceed with the ceremony.”
The priest hesitated, just a fraction, before nodding and resuming the rite as though the moment had been nothing more than a fleeting shadow.
I stood frozen, the ring still burning against my finger, the raw tear where it had been forced digging into my skin with every heartbeat.
Pain radiated sharply, throbbing like fire up my hand, but I swallowed it down, forcing myself to stay upright.
Elena, you’ve survived worse than this,I reminded myself.
And yet... this hurt more than any wound I had endured on the run—not just physically, but deep in my chest.
Because this was not the boy I had known.
That timid, shaking child I had spent fourteen hours with in a cave, whispering promises and sharing secrets—he was gone.
This man, this Vincenzo, stood before me, eyes locked onto mine, utterly emotionless.
