Page 19

Eleven

Maddie

We’ve reached the aquarium. It’s an enormous multi-story shiny black building with sharp triangular planes and jagged pointed edges that reach straight up into the clouds like swords trying to start a war with the sky. If ever there was a symbol of dark foreboding, this is it.

The sky has already started to turn colors for the impending sunset. Streaks of pink look like watered-down blood from where the sharp top of the building pierced it. In less than an hour it’ll be dark, and then I’ll have to face one of many endless nights with this man.

Aidan is out of the car now. Our photographers are at the door snapping away.

And while most of our guests are already inside, a few have lingered, waiting for our arrival—some of them smoking or vaping since it isn’t allowed in the building.

Erica and Stella helped me detach my train after the photos were taken so I don’t have to worry about moving in it at the reception.

The wedding party followed us in two additional limos.

Aidan reaches back into the car, offering me his hand, helping me out.

He’s all smooth smiles now. Laughing. Joking with the photographers.

You would never guess the fucked-up conversation that just happened between us.

You’d never guess he just admitted to being a killer, and practically scolded me for expecting anything else from him.

Did he really kill those guys that night? Or is it all bluster to make sure I’m afraid of him? I knew he was the head of the Stryker corporation, but I thought the boss never got his own hands dirty. I thought underlings did the killing.

I’d been holding out some weird hope that was the case, as though it would make it less scary if he just ordered death with a flick of the wrist as someone else might order another bottle of champagne. If he hadn’t personally killed, then maybe he wouldn’t be capable of the same level of violence.

I’ve decided not to believe him. He’s been lying to me already so why should I believe a word out of his deceiving mouth. He’s already shown me how he’s willing to play this. He didn’t say a word about who he was the night we met in the alley.

He’s been keeping this secret from me, so why would I believe a confession of murder that he probably thinks makes him look like some kind of vigilante hero?

Am I supposed to fall into his arms now that he’s presented himself as Batman?

Those guys would have been long gone by the time he returned after dropping me off.

There’s no way he went after them, let alone found them.

Satisfied with my rationalizing, I return to what’s actually real. He seemed so cold and angry in the car a few minutes ago. I was afraid he’d lash out at me at any moment, but I couldn’t contain the tears.

I was trying to put everything together, make it make sense.

In hindsight, yeah, a guy just happens to be there in an alley to rescue me when I stupidly wander the streets at night?

And that same night I’m handed over to my childhood stalker who clearly is now my adulthood stalker?

The key word here is stalker. So of course he was following me that night.

He’s probably been following me every night.

How long has he truly been surveilling me?

What private unguarded moments has he had access to?

But how could I have known? Aidan looks so dramatically different from when we were thirteen.

And his energy is different. He was awkward and skinny back then, following me around, constantly trying to talk to me.

This time he kept some distance, as though he was barely interested anymore, though the way he’s looked at me every time our eyes have met, leave no doubt that he is fully interested.

This is a grown put-together man. Powerful. Wealthy. Well-tailored. Smelling divine. Dark and dangerous and gorgeous like every fantasy come to life. Except that now that I really am the Captive Bride of the Crime Boss, it’s a nightmare I know I’ll never wake up from.

We’re the same age, but he’s developed a type of poise and confidence that makes him seem at least ten years older.

There is a worldliness I feel like I could never touch.

I feel so much younger and naive standing next to him.

We may have started out at the same school, and both of our families may have had some money, but he’s had a very different life from mine.

And our time away from each other has only made that divide grow sharper and more impossible to traverse.

I can’t reconcile these two images of him no matter how much I try to force my brain to do it, to accept that this man is Aidan Stryker.

I feel like it can’t be real, that this guy is some paid actor and at any moment the real man behind the curtain will show up to give me the ick I always got before.

And that only starts a more complicated swirl of emotions. I was afraid of the stranger from the alley who drove me home, what he might do to me, if he’d hurt me. I knew he wasn’t a good man.

But I still couldn’t help wanting him to touch me.

The ick was entirely absent that night. And when he kissed me in the church?

I tried to resist, but I felt myself melt against him, hoping against every hope that I wouldn’t make some horrifying sound that belongs in a bedroom, not in a church in front of witnesses.

And now that I know these things? He’s still just as beautiful as he was months ago, but my brain is fighting my body on this hard. I can’t let him win. This can’t be how it ends. I’ve never been able to feel fully safe since I met him when we were children.

He created that unease in me, and I thought I’d gotten away.

This isn’t how this is supposed to go. The bad guy isn’t supposed to win.

The stalker isn’t supposed to live happily ever after with his prey.

There has to be a way out, but my hope has long been crushed.

I’m in deep denial now, and possibly the bargaining phase.

Inside the building, Aidan’s hand is still wrapped around mine as he guides me onto the escalator.

It’s the tallest escalator I’ve ever been on, three generous stories high, taking us all the way to the top viewing deck with an enormous floor-to-ceiling glass room, creating a three-hundred-and-sixty degree view of the city.

The photographers stop the wedding party to take pictures with the skyline and the sunset just behind us.

“Oh these are going to be perfect,” a photographer named Giselle says. “We couldn’t have timed this better.”

Erica keeps sending me looks that are a cross between concern and jealousy. If she was horrifyingly fascinated by all of this before, it’s a whole other level now that grown-up Aidan has been revealed to be hot.

“Are you okay?” she mouths. Okay, maybe it’s just concern.

I nod. Aidan spins me and dips me for a kiss that the photographer captures, and I try not to let it catch me off guard this time.

We didn’t do kissing pictures at the church, except for the photographs that were captured with the official kiss.

Once that was done, it was determined that maybe we shouldn’t do any too-romantic pictures inside the church and instead keep them formal and serious.

Fine by me. I didn’t know how many times I could kiss this man who holds my life in his hands in front of other people while pretending we’re in love.

Giselle sighs as Aidan pulls me back up now that the picture has been taken. “To have a man look at me like that,” she says. “You’re a lucky woman, Madison Stryker.”

I flinch at the name. I know the priest announced us as Mr. and Mrs. Aidan Stryker, but without my first name involved, it felt less personal—somehow less real.

She notices my reaction. “Are you okay?”

Aidan’s gaze goes to me quickly, but it isn’t a look of concern—at least not for me. He’s worried what I might say. But I cover.

“Yes, I just got a little dizzy with the dip and the view of how high up we are.” I gesture out the window.

She nods with understanding. We all go through a rotating glass door and turn left down a long dark hallway where a “No Guests beyond this point” sign usually is.

Guests to the aquarium normally take a right and then start a slow maze-like descent through all the aquarium exhibits until they’re finally back on the ground floor again. But we’re in a top floor banquet room.

Everyone else, including the photographers go in ahead of us. We stand outside the doors waiting to be announced. I try again to avoid Aidan’s gaze.

“You aren’t giving a very good performance of a happy bride,” he comments while we wait.

We’re both staring straight ahead at the shiny black double doors in front of us.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know acting was in my contract.”

I hear “Mr. and Mrs. Aidan Stryker” boom out over the loud speaker, and Aidan grips my hand and pulls me into the ballroom with him. He’s all smiles and charm again. The spotlight hits us, and “I Will Possess Your Heart” by Death Cab For Cutie begins to play.

Correction, it already was playing. The insanely long intro in the original version that takes up over half the song was playing while we were waiting.

We were announced as the music built, just about thirty seconds before the lyrics dropped and Aidan swept me out onto the dance floor.

We’re apparently doing the first dance now.

I love this song, but it feels a whole different way in its current context. I glance over to Erica at the bridesmaids’ table to find her mouth gaping open that this is the song Aidan chose.