Page 3 of Vows in Violence

“You are not marrying a kind man tonight,tesora. He’s not the man I would have ever chosen for you. But we can’t control everything. Just…be a good wife to him. Don’t tempt his anger. You were trained for this. As much as he hates me, he needs you for his plans.”

Despite my earlier bravado, a sob rises up in my throat. My brother is here, someone stronger than I am. I can lean on him, if only for a few minutes. “I’m scared, Angel.”

Leaning forward, he kisses my forehead. His voice is stern when he answers me. “You are a Valachi. We do what we must, even when we are scared.”

As if in response to some silent signal, the priest emerges from a door behind the chancel, dressed in robes and carrying a Bible. At the altar, he signals to me, and a slightly hysterical giggle escapes.

Does Ivan mean for us to marry without even being here?

Angel picks up the petunia bouquet and presses it into my grasp, squeezing my hand closed around it. “You can do this.”

I can’t.I shake my head. Even to me, the gesture feels frantic. “I can’t do it, Angel, I can’t—”

He puts his hands on my shoulders and turns me toward the priest. “You must.”

He kisses me once again before he sits down in the first pew. From the corner of my eye, I see him wince as he makes himself comfortable on the wooden bench.

I face the priest and wait, my eyes darting between the various doors at the back of the church.

I have seen Ivan three times a day, every day, for the past several weeks. He has kept me in a gilded cage in his home when he is not there and sometimes even when he is.

I should be accustomed to the cruelty that swims just beneath the surface with him, but I have never been more afraid of him than I am right now.

But he doesn’t appear. Time ticks by, and the doors do not open. My fingers on the petunia bouquet cramp, and my lower back begins to ache from standing so still. Even the sentries start to shuffle in their places, their legs no doubt getting numb from the wait.

I can’t look at the priest. I keep my eyes focused on the nearest candle, watching the wax melt and slowly gather at the base.

Hope mixes with disappointment and puddles in my stomach, slow and warm, like the wax. Maybe he changed his mind. Perhaps he rethought everything and realized that he didn’t need to marry me in order to get what he wanted. Maybe I’m not good enough, and he doesn’t want me after all. Maybe Angel and I can leave…leave New York and start a new life somewhere where even the Commission can’t find us.

We could live a simple life. Have normal jobs. Support each other and finally figure out who we might have been if we had never been born Valachis.

A boom of sound breaks me from the dream—the double doors to the front of the church crashing open. I jump, spinning around to see Ivan storming in like some marauding berserker, his face a thundercloud. He strides boldly through the inner doors I left open earlier and down the aisle.

As he nears, the man becomes a monster. The flickering light of the candles reveals dirt on one shoulder, his collar completely undone, a tear in the sleeve of his shirt.

None of that matters. The blood splattered across his chest, up his arms, and even on his face matters, though. Who did he kill before he came to marry me?

If any of it offends the priest, he says nothing. He’s not stupid.

Ivan stops next to me, smirks at Angel, and grabs my hands in a rough grip. Some of the blood on his hands is still wet, and I watch with a kind of horrified fascination as the fabric of my sleeve absorbs it.

“I’m so glad you could make it, Angel,” Ivan says. My gaze flashes up to be pinned by his amber-eyed stare as he turns his attention fully upon me. “Let’s get on with it.”

Chapter 2

Ivan

Time gets away fromme, just like life had gotten away from the man who had the unfortunate luck to cross paths with me. Azrael's on the hunt, itching to put an end to me, which means I've been restricted in my usual activities—the kind that satisfies my bloodlust. I call it "therapy" because it does more for my mind than any fool with a notepad ever could.

Tonight, though, I get my chance: a secure place, a moment to practice my kind of therapy. The man was a nobody, street scum who tried to step into my territory. Normally, I wouldn't waste my time. But oh, how I've missed it.

The blood was sticky on my hands and clothes by the time I reached the altar.

I wanted this done and over with, but I also was a man who never missed an opportunity.

“I’m so glad you could make it, Angel,” I say, wiping a bloody cufflink on the leg of my pants.

I glance up and grin at Angel. Like he had a choice. He's my prisoner.

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