The car stops. The driver gets out, opens father's door, then comes around to ours. I take what I hope is a deep, steadying breath and step out into the cool air, and immediately I feel it.
Eyes.
So many eyes.
Goodness.
They're watching from the church steps, from beside the cars, men in dark suits and women in designer dresses, all of them turning to look at us. At me. Four years is a long time to disappear. Long enough to become a ghost story. Long enough that my return feels like an event people will gossip about for months.
The Ghost Heiress is finally back.
I keep my gaze forward, my shoulders back.
Laura stays glued to my side as we walk toward the church entrance. I can feel her trembling and I want to scoop her up and run, want to tell her it's okay, that nothing bad will happen. But I stopped making promises I can't keep the day I learned what men like our father are capable of.
As if I summoned him, his hand settles on my shoulder, heavy as a threat. "Head high."
I don't respond. I just walk.
The church doors stand open. Inside I can see pews already filled, ceremony preparations centered at the far end. Flowers everywhere, white and pale pink, the kind of arrangements that cost a fortune and say nothing about the people getting married.
We step inside and the temperature drops ten degrees. Stone walls. High ceilings. The smell of incense and wood polish and something older underneath, like centuries of prayers that went unanswered.
Guests go quiet as we enter. I keep walking, Laura beside me, father's hand on my shoulder steering me like I'm a car he's driving.
And then I see him.
At the altar.
Waiting.
Rafael Caruso.
I know him. Not well. I've seen him maybe half a dozen times over the years, always from a distance, always beside Matteo Romano or one of the other Brotherhood men. Older than me by more than a decade.
But I've never seen him this close. And up close, Rafael Caruso is a problem.
He's over six feet of pure, rogue sex on legs, in an Italian suit, the kind of body that doesn't come from a gym but from a life where violence is just a normal Tuesday. The suit is black, tailored so precisely it looks grown rather than made, white shirt open at the collar because he clearly doesn't care enough about this event to bother with a tie. Dark blond hair worn a little too long, like he cut it himself with a knife six months ago and hasn't thought about it since. There's a scar that cuts through the left side of his jaw, thin and pale and old, the kind of mark you only get when someone means it.
He's sexy the way a loaded gun is beautiful. You don't want to touch it, but you can't stop looking.
And then there are his eyes.
Green. Not soft green. Not kind green. The flat, calculating green of someone who has looked at a man and decided what to do with him before that man even opened his mouth.
They're brutal and sexy and?—
They're fixed on me from across the length of that church. The weight of them hits me somewhere low in my core, something I haven't felt in four years, something I do not want to feel right now, something I am furious at my own body for producing.
Absolutely not. No. We are not doing this.
This man looks like violence, roughness, and uncivilized sexuality wrapped in one. The way he stands is the thing that gets me most, perfectly still, no shifting weight, no checking his watch, no performing patience the way nervous men do. He just stands there like he has already decided how every single thing in this room is going to go. Like he decided before he walked in.
My mouth goes dry at the sight of him.
Then I push myself back to reality.
Because there’s a man at the altar and he's looking at me like I'm expected and my father's hand is on my shoulder and the church has gone silent and something is very, very wrong.
