Page 70 of Brutal Union
The chapel reeks of myrrh, Latin prayers hanging in the air like smoke. Candlelight throws dancing shadows that look like reaching hands, and somewhere a small murmur. One of the soldiers praying we don't all die tonight. Christopher walks me down the aisle, his grip on my arm restrictive rather than supportive. Only a handful of witnesses fill the pews: Irish soldiers who've seen too much, their faces carefully blank as they watch another woman traded like currency.
"Your mother would be proud," Christopher whispers, his breath hot against my ear. "Dying for family tradition."
Liam waits at the altar in a black tuxedo, trying to look powerful but only managing desperate. The way he watches meapproach, like a prize he's finally won, makes my skin crawl. But I keep my expression neutral, my hand steady, already imagining how his blood will look spreading across white marble.
The priest begins in Latin, the old words that bind without consent, that trap without keys. My fingers drift toward my thigh, finding the knife's outline through layers of fabric. Time slows. I note everything: the angle of his body, the weight of the gun at his hip, the way his attention splits between the priest and his men. Three seconds. That's all I need. Mother's voice whispers in my memory: 'Never let them see you break.' But she never taught me what to do when breaking them becomes the only option.
"Do you, Liam, take this woman…" The priest's voice drones on while I practise in my mind. The knife is short. I'll need to get close, need him to lean in for the kiss. My wrist will have to turn just right to catch his throat at the correct angle.
"I do," Liam says, his eyes gleaming with triumph.
"Do you, Valentina, take this man…"
I open my mouth to say yes, to spring my trap, but Liam's hand suddenly clamps down on my wrist with bruising force. Not reaching for my hand, but reaching for where the knife hides.
"I think not, wife," he says, his grip tightening until bones grind together. "Did you really think we didn't know?"
Christopher laughs from behind us. "We found it hours ago during the fitting. Let you keep it to give you false hope. To see if you'd actually try."
The betrayal of it, the calculated cruelty of letting me plan, letting me hope, makes my vision blur with rage. They played with me like a cat with a mouse, knowing all along I was trapped.
"Say yes," Liam commands, his fingers digging deeper into my wrist. "Or I'll have men collect sweet Alice from wherever shethinks she's safe. The credit card we gave her? Tracked. The taxi? Our driver. She's never been free, just on a longer leash."
"You promised."
"I lied. Just like your precious Marco lied about your mother. Just like every man in your life has lied to you." His smile is cold. "Now say the words, or your sister pays for your defiance."
The threat hangs between us, Alice's safety balanced against my freedom. Always the same choice. Always the same cage.
The chapel doors slam open with the force of a hurricane.
Marco stands silhouetted in the doorway, and for a moment I think I'm hallucinating. But no, that's real blood covering his white shirt, dripping from his knuckles, splattered across his face like war paint. None of it his, from the way he moves.
My body betrays me instantly. My nipples tightening beneath the hideous dress, that familiar ache pooling low in my belly. Even seeing him covered in blood, even after his betrayal, my body recognizes its master.
"That's my wife you're touching."
The words drop into the chapel like grenades. Liam's grip on my wrist tightens reflexively as every eye in the chapel turns to Marco Rosetti standing in the entrance. The Irish scramble for their guns, the chapel erupting into shouted threats and cocking hammers.
But I barely register the chaos because Marco's eyes are locked on mine across the space. Those dark eyes that have seen me at my worst, at my best, that have watched me break and rebuild. Even covered in blood, even surrounded by violence, he came. The man who signed divorce papers in the rain still came.
"She's not yours anymore," Liam snarls, pulling me against him like a shield. "You signed the papers. You let her go."
"I signed nothing that matters." Marco takes a step forward, and every Irish soldier tenses. "Death is the only divorce I recognize."
The violence in his voice, the promise of it, makes something crack in my chest. He's killed to get here. Left bodies in his wake. All for a woman who walked away from him at her mother's grave.
"You're mine. In blood, in darkness, in whatever hell we've created. The papers meant nothing. You know that."
The words hit like bullets, each one finding marks he left on my body, in my heart. My traitorous pulse responds to his claim even as my mind screams rejection. This is what he's done to me: made me crave my own destruction.
But I don't need saving.
The thought crystallizes as Liam yanks me closer, his attention split between Marco and his panicking soldiers. He's made the same mistake every man in my life has made: assuming I'll wait to be rescued, that I need someone else to free me.
My knee drives up into his groin with a lifetime of suppressed rage behind it.
He doubles over with a strangled scream, his grip finally releasing my wrist. I grab for his gun before he can recover, my fingers finding the handle just as he realizes what's happening. His eyes go wide, mouth opening to speak or scream or beg.
