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Salvatore links my arm through his as we walk to the church. I should be embarrassed, knowing what we just did, but I can’t help liking it more than I should. I liked his possessiveness, his driving need to make sure I remembered who I was married to before I see the man who was originally meant to claim my hand. I would rather this than the Salvatore who was consumed by guilt every time he touched me, a thousand times over.
The guests are all beginning to arrive, and we meld into the crowd, moving to the bride’s side of the room and finding a place in one of the pews. My stomach tightens as I see Pyotr standing at the altar, wearing a crisp, bespoke suit, his gaze sweeping over the room. He looks exactly as I remember him, but my heart doesn’t flutter the way it once did when I would see him. I remember what I once thought we were to each other, the days we spent together, and all the once-bright moments of our courtship, but it feels like it happened to someone else.
Like it’s all just a distant dream now.
Even the sting of betrayal is lessened, with Salvatore next to me, his hand on my leg possessively just as he’d said, reminding me of who I’m married to—and what he just did to me. My cheeks heat a little, but the blush is all for him. And from the way he’s looking at me when I glance his way, he knows it.
I glance around the church, trying to distract myself. It’s wreathed in white and pink roses, decked out for a wedding, and as the last of the guests settle into the pews and the priest steps up to the altar, the music changes. We all turn to face the double doors at the back of the room, craning for a glimpse of the bride.
Bella looks beautiful. She’s standing behind her two bridesmaids as the door opens, and I get a good view of her dress as they start to walk down the aisle ahead of her. Her dark brown hair is elegantly pinned up, her eyes downcast on the pink and white bouquet she’s holding, so I can’t tell if she seems happy or not. Her dress is a beautiful, fitted confection of lace and satin, the bodice off-the-shoulder and long-sleeved, lace all the way down to the full satin skirt that swishes over the narrow aisle carpet as she walks. She keeps her eyes fixed on the flowers, all the way to the altar, when her father pauses in preparation to give her hand to Pyotr.
My breath catches in my throat as the priest steps up, and I hear the same words that sealed my fate, barely two months ago.
If anyone has any objection to why these two should be wed…
No one says a word. I let out a slow breath, preparing myself for the rest of the ceremony, my thoughts already dashing ahead to the moment when I can go back to the hotel with Salvatore, and all of this will be in the past.
I hear the doors of the church shut, the heavy thud of the wood echoing through the room. And then, on the heels of that sound, the loud click of an ancient lock.
I twist around, just as Salvatore grabs my hand, my stomach dropping. Ten black-garbed, armed Bratva men coalesce in front of the door, just as more of them spill out from the back of the church, surrounding the altar.
Salvatore pulls me to my feet, as the guests start to surge out of the pews, panic filling the room. I hear Bella scream, hear the shouts, hear Salvatore speaking to me as our security tries to fight their way to us, but it’s all such chaos that I feel like I’m drowning. I can’t hear anything over the pounding of my heart in my ears, think of anything but the terror I see in Bella’s eyes and the smugness in Pyotr’s, as his gaze finally meets mine. He looks past her, and directly at me, and I know.
I know why Igor agreed to this in the first place.
They were planning this all along.
Gunshots erupt, and I scream. A heavy hand closes on my other arm, yanking me backward. For a moment, I’m caught between that hand and Salvatore, dragged in two different directions before my captor yanks me free, pulling me backward.
“Salvatore!” I shriek his name, and he turns, but a wave of guests and security, both mafia and Bratva, have already poured into the space I left, separating us. I scream for him again, and I hear him shout my name, but I’m being dragged back, heavy arms around me as I kick and punch and shriek, twisting to see who it is that’s grabbed me.
A Bratva guard. He could be anyone. His face is set, expressionless, and four more men close around us as I’m pulled back into the shadows of the church, towards a back door that someone is unlocking to let us out. I kick again, twisting, trying to get enough purchase on the floor with my feet to get out of his grip, but he lifts me like a sack of potatoes—like I weigh nothing—and hauls me bodily out of the back door towards a waiting, running car.
I scream again, over and over, until my throat is hoarse, but no one comes. I feel my dress rip as he shoves me into the car, and I nearly fall face-first into the lap of another guard, who laughs and grabs me roughly.
“You make a lot of noise, devochka,” he growls. “Time to do something about that.”
I try to fling myself back, away from his grasp, but the door is closed, and the car is moving, and he boxes me in against the door in an instant. Panicking, I fumble for the handle to open it, preferring spilling out into the street from a moving car to being trapped in here with him. But it’s locked, and there’s nowhere to go.
“Good try, devochka,” he says, grinning toothily. “But there’s nowhere for you to run now.”
I see the glint of a needle in his hand, and feel a prick in the side of my neck. He pulls away, sinking back into his side of the car, and I realize why a moment later as the world begins to spin around me.
I’ve been drugged. I’m about to pass out. And I have no idea where I’ll be when I wake up.
Salvatore.
His face, his name, are the last things that go through my head before the world goes dark.
I crumple onto the leather seat of the car, insensible.
Gia
I have no idea how much time passes before I wake up.
When I do, it’s dark out. I’m in a bed, and it takes me a moment to blink away the sticky sensation from my eyes and crawl up through the fog in my head to realize I’m in a hotel room.
Not my hotel room. A strange one, smaller and much less luxurious. The duvet feels scratchy under my legs, my silk skirt tangled around my knees, and my arms ache as badly as my head does. It takes me a second to realize why—that my hands are cuffed above my head to the headboard, keeping me in place.
