I look back toward the lawn.
The chairs are scattered. White petals torn into the grass. A veil tangled near the aisle. For one surreal second it looks less like a crime scene than a stage after a performance has gone wrong and nobody knows where to step.
Then I see Viktor again. He’s near the hedge now, one of Yuri’s men just behind him, body angled low as he moves. There’s something terrifying in how calm he looks from here. Not calm in the peaceful sense. Controlled. Focused. As if the chaos has only made him more precise.
He disappears behind the hedge line.
My stomach drops.
“No.” The word comes out before I know I’m saying it.
I push myself higher, needing to see, and the movement pulls harder through my abdomen this time. A sharper discomfort, enough to make me hiss and grab at the stone beside me.
Not now. Please not now.
I close my eyes for one second and breathe through it. When I open them, the lawn seems to tilt slightly, then settle again.
Too much stress. Too much adrenaline.
That’s all.
A hand lands on my shoulder and I jerk violently.
“It’s me,” Nadine says. She’s crouched beside me now, hair half fallen out, lipstick gone, still somehow carrying herself like she’s trying to hold the last pieces of the day together by force. “Are you all right?”
I nod too fast. “Where’s Camille?”
Nadine blinks, clearly not expecting that to be my first question. “Inside, I think. One of the bridesmaids dragged her in.”
I look back toward the house. Good. At least one person in white has some cover.
Nadine follows my gaze toward the hedge. “Is he out there?”
I know who she means. “Yes.”
She presses her lips together and says nothing else.
More shouting comes from the hedge line.
Then, suddenly, silence.
Not complete silence. People are still crying. Someone nearby is praying under their breath. Alina is calling Ethan’s name again, more quietly now, probably checking if he’s still attached to the earth. But from the hedges, from where Viktor went, there’s a break in the noise that feels worse than anything before it.
I can’t breathe around it.
Yuri appears first. He comes back around the hedges with one of the men behind him, moving quickly, scanning the lawn as if he still expects another shot. His face gives away nothing.
Viktor is a step behind.
The breath leaves me so hard I almost choke on it.
He’s alive.
There’s no blood that I can see from here.
And then he looks up and finds me, and everything else drops away for one second.
He doesn’t come to me immediately. He says something to Yuri first, fast and low, then gestures toward the far side of the grounds where two other men are already running. Yuri nods and goes.
