Page 152 of Vow to Claim You

Something in my chest, some knot I’ve carried since that powder room in Italy, quietly comes undone.

Because yes, she had him first, but I got a different version of Aric Vold—the version he kept chained under years of restraint, the one hidden under ice and control, the one he’s only ever shown me—and all the firsts that come with it.

“Thank you,” I say, and I mean it.

Chiara nods slowly. “Be good to him.” She manages a tight smile. “He doesn’t know how to ask for it.”

“I know.”

She lifts her glass a fraction—a truce, an ending, a beginning of something that might one day be civil—and she melts back into the crowd toward Hyun-seok.

The night, I think, is almost perfect.

The crowd is beginning to thin. The band shifts into a slower, quieter tempo, a signal that the evening is winding down. Aric reappears at my side and takes my hand.

“They’re leaving soon.” He leans down to whisper into my ear. “We see them out. One more performance, Mrs. Vold, and then I’m taking you to bed.”

Involuntarily, my teeth sink into my lower lip as I bite down, a smile curving my lips.

We walk toward the entrance together, preparing to thank guests, to shake hands, to play the perfect hosts one final time before the night ends.

Two of the quartet’s musicians are by the doors, setting down their instrument cases. But the music is still playing behind us, the same slow strings. My forehead creases because... how does the music keep playing if the musicians are right here instead? Then I notice Aric, and the change in him. His hand goes tight at my back. His head turns—not toward the departing guests, but toward the far wall, where one of his men should be standing. He isn’t.

In the space of a single breath, my husband disappears. Something colder takes his place. His free hand is already reaching beneath his jacket, toward the weapon I know he keeps there when the doors slam open.

Cold air rushes in, and I see men outside. Then I see the guns, and my blood runs cold. Two men. Maybe three. Moving fast. Moving toward us.

No—not toward us.

Toward him.

Toward Aric.

They’re going to kill my husband.

My thoughts are racing, spiraling. My heart thuds in my rib cage.

I don’t think. My body moves before my mind can catch up, years of royal training overridden by something primal—something that doesn’t care about protocol or self-preservation or anything except the man beside me. The man who burned a contract for me. Who saved my life twice. Who trusted me with the parts of himself he’d spent a lifetime keeping locked away.

I throw myself in front of him.

The gunshot cracks through the air, and then I feel pain.

Blinding, searing, consuming. It tears through my side like fire, like lightning, like something that should not be able to exist inside a human body.

Screaming echoes through the room. Maybe it’s mine. Maybe it’s someone else’s. I can’t tell anymore.

The world tilts and spins, then goes dark at the edges. The champagne silk I spent three fittings to perfect blooms red beneath my hand, spreading fast, soaking warm through my fingers. And the last thing I see before I hit the ground is Aric’s face—his usual composure completely shattered—as he reaches for me, falling with me, his arms closing around me before I collapse.

“Ayanna!”

It sounds like a roar, a raw and broken one.

I try to speak. Try to tell him it’s okay. Try to say I love you—because I never have, not out loud, and that seems suddenly like the cruelest thing I’ve ever done.

But the darkness is rising, and then… nothing.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX