Page 46 of Fatal Bonds

As soon as we’re through the doorway, Lindsey takes a sharp left turn, dropping my arm, and I gesture for Liam and Alexey to follow her.

Lucian’s eyes track her as well, noting as she bursts through the swinging doors. “Everything alright?” he asks.

“She’s not going anywhere,” I state flatly, working to keep the tension from my voice.

“Oh, I know. I have men posted at all the exits.” Lucian gives me a flat smile. “I hope you don’t mind, but it’s a lot easier to trust when I don’t leave room for error.”

“She’s just—going to find the minister.”

“Mm,” he says, sounding unconvinced.

“I’ll look this way,” I state, shoving open the doors that lead into the chapel. The pews are empty, and my steps echo through the vaulted space as I make my way up the aisle.

Early-afternoon sun filters through the stained glass windows, casting a soft, colorful glow in the air. Someone’s practicing the pipe organ—a towering monstrosity that sits at the back of the choir loft.

“I think I found your priest,” Lucian says from several steps behind me as the minister opens the side door to join us.

“Welcome,” he says. “Please, take a seat.”

Lucian and his men do, taking the front pew on one side of the aisle while my men take the other. Joining the minister before the altar, I glance toward the doorway for Lindsey, and wait. I’m not sure how long she needed me to stall, but if she intends to take much longer, we’re going to have bigger problems on our hands than whether she can stomach the thought of marrying me. The organ player finishes their song, and the long, deep chords fade, stretching the moment until it feels like a painfully long time to wait. Several of our wedding guests glance over their shoulder, checking to see if Lindsey will reappear, and the longer she takes, the more certain they seem that she’s not going to show.

“Your bride is here?” the minister asks, leaning toward me to keep his voice low.

“Yes, she’s?—”

Hurried footsteps stop me from having to lie to his face, then Alexey appears, making my stomach sink.

“Sorry. She said something about flowers and it being bad luck to not have them—” He throws his hands up in an expression of exasperation as he joins the rest of my men. “She’s coming now.”

As if on cue, the organist begins their next song—a slow, mournful hymn that seems darkly fitting for the occasion, but when Lindsey appears a second later, my heart skips a solid beat. Her hand is tucked into the bend of Liam’s elbow—for support or for the sake of tradition, I don’t know—but as he walks her down the aisle, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything so beautiful. Lindsey looks near angelic when the sun hits her hair, casting a golden glow off her silk dress. Somewhere in this goddamn church, she managed to find a handful of flowers, and she holds them like a bridal bouquet before her. Her big blue eyes are round, a smile carefully placed on her lips, and if I didn’t know Lindsey better, I could almost believe it’s real. She and Liam don’t bother matching the organ’s slow pace as they stride toward the altar, and he passes her off quickly to me as soon as they reach the stairs.

“You okay?” I mouth.

Her coloring looks much better at least, and when she nods, that vice grip around my chest loosens just enough that I can breathe. But as the minister begins the ceremony, “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today,” filtering through to me as if from far away, a deep ache settles inside me. Seeing Lindsey all dressed in white, clasping a bouquet of yellow, blue, and pink flowers as she stands across from me, makes me want this. It makes me wantherin a way I never thought I could want a woman before. She deserves a proper wedding—to a proper groom. But I’m all she has right now, and it makes me realize how, even if she deserves so much better, she’s all I could ever want and more.

“Do you, Lindsey Payne, take Maksim Yashkov to be your husband, to have and to hold…?”

My ears ring with the minister’s words, like my hearing is just returning after a concussive trauma, but when Lindsey speaks, it all comes back into sharp focus. Somewhere along the line, the organ stopped playing, and the silence in the church only emphasizes the slight tremor in her voice.

“I do.”

“And do you, Maksim Yashkov, take Lindsey Payne to be your wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do you part?”

I hadn’t picked the ceremonial words. I let the minister use whatever must be standard, but each line feels like a punch to the gut as I say them—to have and to hold, to love and to cherish until death parts us.

In my experience, that death could be much sooner than expected. It’s the reason I never wanted to do this in the first place, but for Lindsey, her death would come a lot sooner if we didn’t get married.The rest of it, though?Fuck, I want to have and hold her more than I want my next breath, and against all my wishes and despite my better judgment, regardless of the massive effort I’ve put into convincing myself otherwise, I’m dangerously close to falling in love with her. I already cherish her. It’s the reason I’ve gone to such lengths to keep her alive—why I’ve tried to keep her safe and happy. I might be failing miserably, but that doesn’t make it any less true, and that makes the words taste like acid as I say them.

“I do.”

“Do you have the rings?” the minister asks.

Lindsey’s lips part, a soft “Oh” rushing past them, as if she hadn’t even thought about that part. Thankfully, I did, and I dig into my pocket to pull out the three carat diamond ring that belonged to my mother along with a simple gold band for me. Lindsey gasps as I open my fist, holding the rings out to her, and her hands shake as she turns to set her bouquet aside before plucking the gold band from my palm.

The minister tells us to repeat after him, and I go first this time, taking Lindsey’s trembling fingers as I slide the ring onto her left hand. It fits well for such a last-minute solution, sliding over her knuckle and onto her ring finger like it was made for her. My pulse quickens at the sight of Lindsey wearing my mother’s wedding ring. I shouldn’t like it as much as I do, and an unexpected sense of satisfaction swells in my chest before I crush it down. This is temporary, and I can’t lose sight of that.

Lindsey sounds breathless as she holds my gold band near my ring finger, and her nerves make the meaning behind her words stand out all the more. “I give you this ring as a symbol of our marriage, for today and tomorrow, and for all the days to come. It is a symbol of the vows I have made to you and a reminder that our lives are forever joined together.”

Her hand twitches as our fingers brush, and I shift quickly to snag the ring with the appropriate fingertip before it falls. Lindsey licks her lips and swallows hard, her eyes flicking up to look gratefully past her thick lashes before she slides the wedding band the rest of the way onto my hand.

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