Page 45 of Till Death Do Us Part

Yulia reached the halfway point, and I felt time slow down as she drew her hand back and launched the knife.

Everything crystallized—one precise throw, and my body wouldn’t move fast enough to get away from it—and I saw the light gleam on the blade in midair, as it sliced straight through the wedding drapery like a bad metaphor, and then—

With a gut-wrenching sensation of skin tearing, a movement flashed, and Vera caught the knife out of midair, just inches from my neck, her hand clasped around the blade, her blood running down the length of it. The officiant’s voice spoke in terror.

“By… by the authority vested in me, I now pronounce you married.”

Yulia staggered, a wild look in her eyes, stopped halfway across the room, breathing hard. Vera dropped the knife, clattering onto the floor, as her blood dripped freely down after it. The officiant spoke like she wasn’t sure of the next part.

“You… may kiss.”

Vera smiled tiredly at me, and she put her clean hand on my back, pulling me into a kiss.

With her blood staining the floor below us, just inches from death, my wife, Vera, kissed me.

And to my surprise as much as anyone’s, I kissed her back. It was the only thing I wanted to do right now—to kiss her, to hold her. In that moment, kissing her was right. Kissing her was perfect.

I was gasping for breath when she pulled back, her eyes gleaming.

“We did it,” she said. I breathed out a quiet laugh.

“Vera…”

“Enough,” Yulia shouted. “I won’t let you do this!”

“You’re too late, Yulia,” Vera said, and she stepped in front of me when Yulia threw down a smoke bomb, bursting out into a cloud of black smog. I choked on it, Caitlyn and the officiant choking too, and I felt movement as a figure lunged for me. Two figures grappling in the smoke cloud before I heard Vera choke out a curse, and a hand grabbed my wrist, tugging me off my feet.

“Vera!” I cried her name by instinct, reaching for her as Yulia pulled me off my feet and dragged me after her. “Vera!” I screamed it now, reaching in the smoke for her, but we got out of the smoke just as a figure lunged in from the front door—Petra, who caught Yulia there in the doorway and threw a vicious right hook, hitting Yulia in the jaw, sending her off balance. Vera caught up to us, lunging out of the smoke cloud towards me and wrenching me back away from Yulia, holding me protectively behind her, as Petra went in for another swing.

“And this is for earlier,” she said, throwing a savage blow, but Yulia caught this one, hit hard but throwing Petra off her feet in the process. Panting and hurt, Yulia staggered past Petra and out the door, one last glare thrown our way.

“We will be back,” she said. “You won’t get everything that easily, Wolf.”

“Try us,” Vera scoffed, holding me closer into her chest. “The next time you get close to my wife will be your last.”

“Don’t you fucking try it,” Petra shouted, flashing a gun after Yulia, but Yulia disappeared—took off around the corner and vanished from view, Petra stumbling after her, cursing the whole way. “Shit,” she shouted. “Got away…”

“Vera…” I looked down at her hand, up at her winded, bloodied face. “Are you okay?”

Just like that, her whole demeanor changed, and she smiled at me. “Of course I am,” she said. “I just got to marry you.”

Chapter 19

caitlyn

Nobody was explaining anything to me. Petra’s answers earlier had only made everything more complicated, more confusing.

I was ready to accept it, to just sit back and let it play out how it was going to, to trust Petra and Vera—the Blackbirds—and trust that they would tell me everything I needed to know in due time.

And then an assassin crashed my sister’s wedding and nearly killed her.

It was a solid hour afterwards where I couldn’t calm down, my memory seared with the image of the blade flashing through the air, the moment where I thought I was going to watch Elaine die. And then Vera’s blood spilling over the floor…

My sister-in-law, now.

And nobody would tell me anything after it happened, either. I could understand why. The others were more focused on each other, and on Elaine. She was the most important one in all this.

But this awful feeling in my chest wouldn’t go away as I sat alone in my room, heart pounding.