The music ramps up, and the doors open to the grand orangery transformed for the day into a fairytale of white and green against a backdrop of gray brickwork.
Dino is standing at the far end with Lorcan and Jude beside him. They’re in full morning suit attire—black morning coat, dark gray striped trousers, light blue double-breasted waistcoat, green and white flowers pinned to their lapels. Their faces are grim, like we’re at a funeral, not a wedding. But all three are waiting to catch me. That much is clear.
If I fall, and I will as soon as I let the monster out…
They will catch me.
On the other side of the boys, Quinn and Saskia are standing, waiting, in soft, vintage green dresses with green and white flowers in their hair, with worried looks. Saskia looks like she’s about to fucking cry. I don’t know why. I’m not even getting married today.
As the guests on both sides get to their feet, eyes fixed on me, I finally force myself to walk down the aisle. And it dawns on me, like the bud of a bloom unfurling for the first time, that the man walking next to me—my tormentor, the monster who haunts my dreams, the demon who took me from my life and made me the way I am—is not my father.
He’s nothing but a pathetic, weak old man…
Who stole me from my parents.
Rage, fresh and savage, suddenly chokes me up from the inside.
He’s nothing like me. He didn’t make me. He doesn’t even own me. Not now, or ever again. He deserves to die.
Adrenaline surges as the wedding march begins.
“Breathe, V, breathe,” Dante says in my ear. “You’ve got this.”
My gaze sweeps the room to find D, but he’s not there. He’s in my ear, though, talking me through the kill like it’s my first time. He’s with me the entire time.
I almost snort at that. It’s not my first fucking rodeo.
But it will be my last.
As we get to the end, I give one last look at the boys and nod at them. There are no guns here. Adrien’s men made sure that everyone in the room left their weapons outside of it.
No one is getting in or out.
I was meant to drug him to fake a heart attack and then drag him off somewhere to kill him without an audience. But I can’t be fucked with that.
I want him dead now.
“Kill him. I’ve got you,” Dante says in a smooth whiskey voice right inside my head.
At least, I think it’s Dante. It could also be my darkness.
I lift the bouquet I’m holding that contains a dagger in the middle of it, and with a smile, I yank the old man to me and ram it to the hilt into his fucking heart. I had plenty of training that day with Dante, so I didn’t hit a rib. It slides through like fucking butter.
I cock my head at him and sneer. “That’s for my parents.”
Adrien’s eyes widen as blood fills his mouth, coating his lips in bright, glorious red.
And then…amidst the chaos…
I relish the light leaving his eyes.