Page 17

He is cold. Sociopath , my mind supplies.

I have never been more sure that there is nothing inside a person than in this moment.

It is a husk. On the outside, he looks like a man, and he could probably be very charming if he wanted to be, but the reality underneath is just cold terrifying emptiness.

Is that what Aidan is? Is that what I’m about to be bound to forever?

The man smokes a cigarette, and those coal black pits of despair he probably thinks are eyes bore through me as if he’s assessing prey.

I actually feel my blood run cold. I really just thought that was a metaphor, but I’m telling you right now…

it is not. It is an actual real thing. My heart beats hard in my chest as I start to back away.

He gives me a long slow once over and takes another drag on his cigarette as he advances.

“Nice dress,” he says.

“Ummm, thank you,” I squeak out. I assume he’s on Aidan’s side of the church. There’s no way my family knows a guy like this who seems like Death himself has come to visit my wedding.

“Ummm are you… uh… do you work for Aidan? Or ummm part of the family?”

Does that sound like I just asked if they were the mob? Is someone going to whack me for that? I don’t know the protocol.

He just chuckles. “No, sweetheart. I’m the man who made Aidan who he is today. I’m Brian Sloan.” He says it like it’s a name I should know. Like he thinks he’s famous or something. I have no idea who this guy is.

This is the point at which a normal person offers their hand for a polite handshake, but happily Brian doesn’t seem to engage in such formalities. He just takes another drag on his cigarette and stares at me.

My gaze darts around the grounds, searching for an escape that doesn’t have me running right back into my cage like a little idiot.

“The last time I saw you… was a Valentine’s Day party. You were six. You were a cute fucking kid, but you broke his heart. It was really hard for me to let that go.”

A slow awareness dawns on me, and I realize why this guy seems familiar. He was the angry dad who looked so scary after I laughed at Aidan. But he can’t be Aidan’s dad. I thought he died? I can’t remember all the details, but I knew Aidan had a weird living situation back when we were kids.

“Are you the uncle he lived with?” I ask, continuing to make hysterical small talk because there is a part of me that thinks this guy might be about to kill me right now, and I’m living in the delusion that if I keep him talking, he’ll somehow magically grow a heart, see my humanity, and let me go, rather than pull my arms off and let me flop around until I die which honestly feels like his actual plan right now.

“No, no actual relation. I’m like a father to him, though. I’m sure you and I will see more of each other in the future.”

The absolute last thing I ever want is to see this terrifying wraith of a person again.

A woman approaches us, and I feel relief at no longer being alone with this man.

She has long dark flowing hair, an olive complexion, and sharp cat-like green eyes.

She isn’t dressed like normal people dress for weddings.

She’s dressed like an assassin from a spy movie.

Black leather pants, spike-heeled boots.

Black leather corset. Around her throat is a platinum band with black and white diamonds.

“Those will kill you, my love,” she says.

Brian, looking momentarily human, drops the cigarette on the ground and grinds it down under his boot. “Mina, what are you doing out here?”

She wraps her arms around him and turns to look me over. A long slow once over, much like Brian’s, only slightly less predatory.

“Nice dress,” she says.

“Thank you,” I say again, less squeaky this time.

“The bride here is trying to escape,” Brian says, conversationally to the woman who is his… girlfriend? Wife? Partner in crime? It’s hard to tell.

“That’s so cute,” she says. Then she turns to me, her tone more serious. “I would advise against it.”

So maybe Aidan didn’t fuck up and he did think of everything.

I can’t have bad enough luck that this guy just happened to be standing out here.

I glance wistfully off toward the parking lot, praying for a moving car that I can just…

I don’t know… jump into the passenger side of as its trying to leave?

But no one is leaving, apparently including me.

“You wouldn’t get very far in those shoes,” Mina says. I know she can see the desperation in my eyes as I pray for a rescue that isn’t coming.

She can’t even see my shoes, but she’s right.

“You don’t want us to chase you. You’ll mess up that stunning couture gown. And it will just be more embarrassing for you,” she says. “Let’s try to do this with some dignity.”

Brian takes a good hard look at me. “She’s not going to run. She’s going to be a good girl, aren’t you Madison?”

It feels like he’s pried into my mind and is going through all my file cabinets of secrets—not that that’s a lot of paper to sift through.

I’m backing away again, only half-conscious of my actions. I stumble over a tree root, but before I can fall and get grass stains all over the dress, Brian is there, and now this cold terrifying man’s hands are on me as he helps me right myself.

He has a firm grip on my upper arm, so I have no illusions that he’s going to let me go. No, he plans to hand deliver me to my father at the back of the church.

“Check the dressing room for her flowers,” Brian says.

Mina nods and leaves me alone with him. When we get to the back of the church, Erica, the rest of my side of the wedding party, and my father are all back there. I can’t believe he’s walking me down the aisle. It really is the most vile thing in the world.

He’s the one forcing me to marry Aidan instead of agreeing to help me run away.

Even after everything else this past year, I’ve never quite seen my dad as a coward before now.

How could he just let this happen? How could he literally escort me to this man and hand me over, and with hundreds of witnesses? It’s so gross.

This is a debt being paid, a financial arrangement. A property transfer. How traditional .

A few minutes later, Mina returns with my bouquet—off-white roses and pale pink lilies. She hands them to me, and for a moment I see the barest amount of pity in her gaze, as if she could ever understand me and what I’m going through.

Then this strange woman moves in close. She feigns a hug like we know each other and whispers in my ear. “Give it a chance.”

She doesn’t say give him a chance. Just it. This whole fucked-up situation. As though I could ever just accept this.

Then she joins Brian in their seats at the back of the church. The place is packed with everyone Aidan and I know. How mortifying. I have to keep reminding myself that none of these people—well definitely none of the people on my side of the church—knows what’s really happening here.

For all they know, I’m in love. But surely eyes widened and whispers commenced when they saw his name on the invitation. Surely they realized he was “that Stryker”.

There are multiple photographers who have been snapping away this whole time. Candid photos, photos of the enormous church with all its stained glass, the guests. And now they turn their focus to the bridal party as the string quartet begins to play and bridesmaids start moving down the aisle.

My ears are ringing. This is really about to happen. The aisle is too long and from the back of the church, I can’t see Aidan yet. I don’t want to see him. I just want to run away.

There are six bridesmaids, not counting Erica, and I don’t know a single one of them.

They’re Aidan’s family or friends of Aidan’s family.

My mother suggested I should include some of my sorority sisters in the bridal party, but we’ve fallen out of touch, and if they were included, I would have had to have a bachelorette party and pretend I was happy about all this.

The flower girl and ring bearer walk down the aisle next.

She’s got a tight grip on his arm and half drags him down the aisle like this is her wedding and she’s not letting this one get away.

He carries an ivory satin pillow on which our rings have been carefully secured.

Nina, the flower girl is Aidan’s cousin.

She flings the rose petals creating erratic pink carnage all the way down the aisle.

All the appropriate ooh’s and aaah’s happen in response to the kids, and then the music and energy of the room changes, everyone stands, and I start down the aisle. About halfway down, my heart stops as the groom comes into view.

No, it can’t be . This cannot be happening.

I spent weeks stupidly fantasizing about the stranger in the alley, about him somehow rescue-kidnapping me and whisking me away from my sad situation. The betrayal of it all cuts through me as I take him in.

He’s wearing a very nice suit but not a tux. It’s all black. Jacket, shirt, vest, tie, shoes, pants. He is making absolutely no attempt to not look like a nicely dressed criminal. He hasn’t even bothered to cover the tattoos on his fingers, or the snake slithering up the side of his neck.

His intense gaze locks on mine, and I don’t know what to feel. Lust, anger, betrayal, and fear all compete for dominance. I can’t reconcile that this is the man Aidan grew to be, and suddenly I’m even more afraid of him and what he’s capable of.

My father hands me off, and Aidan takes my hand. We turn to face the priest and there is the collective sound of hundreds of people sitting down all at once as the music concludes.

I want to scream for help. He’s too close to me, that woody green scent enveloping me like a thick fog. He feels terrifying and wild like the forest, and right now I am Red Riding Hood about to get lost in the dense trees with only the wolf for company.

And yet none of our guests seem alarmed. No one objects. No one stands and rides to my rescue, certainly not the “stranger from the alley.”

This is the guy who made me feel so unsafe for so many years. This is the man who has kept me on a knife’s edge of fear about my future for the past three months, and I just can’t do this. I’m about to bolt, screaming from the church.

What will he say? What will he do to me for this embarrassment?

For revealing the truth of what’s happening right now?

Will anyone help me? Will anybody care? Or will they all turn their heads politely away and pretend they aren’t seeing it as I’m dragged kicking and screaming back to the volcano I’m about to be tossed into.

The virgin sacrifice.

Does it even matter that my dress isn’t white?

As though sensing my thoughts, or feeling a shift in my body language as I poise to run, he grips my hand far too tight for me to slip away.

The priest instructs us to face each other, and now there’s nowhere to run from those eyes.

He is the opposite of Brian. Whereas Brian’s eyes were soulless, Aidan’s seem to contain too much of every emotion that exists.

And somehow that scares me even more. Anything that happens with this man is not going to be carefully calculated.

It’s going to be wild and animal, and I don’t know if I can handle it.

I’m torn between my body’s demented demand that he be inside me, and my mind screaming that I can’t allow this to happen, I have to get away to safety, because the one thing I am one hundred percent certain about, Aidan Stryker is not by any definition, safe.

His thumb begins to stroke softly over the back of my hand as the priest coaxes me to repeat vows.

I almost recoil at “honor and obey.” And there is an unconscious collective gasp from our audience at these words.

The one thing nobody consulted me on, the one thing that I was shoving all the way back to a dark hole in my mind was the vows. I didn’t know these would be the old-fashioned vows that nobody says anymore. How could I?

Aidan squeezes my hand—a warning—and I can’t look away from his demanding gaze.

I repeat the words, and I feel his body relax. I’m numb as a ring slides onto my finger. I can’t even look down at it. I’m just trying to get through this.

The priest asks if there are any objections. No one saves me. This is really happening.

He pronounces us married and tells Aidan he may kiss the bride.

Then that same hand that stroked the side of my throat and ran through my hair the night he drove me home, that warm hand I’ve had dreams about for months, once again, moves through my hair, stroking the back of my neck, pulling me close.

And then his lips are on mine. I gasp as his tongue invades my mouth for the first time.

This is not a sweet polite public kiss. It’s a claiming.

It’s the kind of kiss that should only happen behind closed doors.

He’s devouring me, giving me a preview of what’s coming very soon, and god help me, but a part of me wants to fall into it.

A part of my body that has been denied so long wants this man to touch me, while the sane part of me screams from behind locked sound-proofed glass. No, no, no! No!

But it’s done. It’s too late.

“I present to you, Mr. and Mrs. Aidan Stryker.”