Page 89 of Vow to Claim You

Ayanna sits with her spine straight and her hands folded in her lap, and she is, without competition, the most dangerous thing in this garden. A black dress sits off her shoulders, baring the gold of her collarbones. Two strands of pearls trace the line of her bare back like small moons against her skin. Her hair is swept high, leaving the whole length of her neck exposed—which is its own quiet problem for me. She looks like a woman who knows exactly what she’s doing to the room and has decided the room can suffer for it. It’s working. It’s been working since she stepped out of that suite and I briefly forgot the mechanics of breathing.

I have looked at a great many beautiful things in my life and felt nothing. I look at my wife and feel like a man holding his hand over a flame to see how long he can stand it.

At the front, Hyun-seok takes Chiara’s hands, and I make myself look. Part of me owes them that much. It feels like the last thread tethering me to the man I was before all of this, cut clean and drifting loose somewhere out over the sea. Chiara’s safe. She’s in Hyun-seok’s hands now, and whatever I owed the past, watching this pays it in full. Nothing back there belongs to me anymore.

The relief of it is so complete that for a moment I lose the garden entirely. I go somewhere behind my own eyes, and when I surface, I catch her watching me.

I noticed every time she looked at me. Every glance that lingered a fraction too long. Every time her gaze drifted my way, searching my face for something I couldn’t name.

The priest lifts his hands. Applause breaks over the garden.

It’s done.

The reception spills onto the terrace, music drifting through the evening air as servers weave among guests, carrying champagne and trays of Sicilian seafood.

From a distance, it looks like any other celebration.

But most of the people gathered here belong to the same world I do. Two hundred of the most powerful criminals alive pretending to be everyday people at an ordinary party.

Ayanna stands beside me, making small talk with Zahra and Marcelina while Bobby tries to talk to Alexei, who’s clearly annoyed by his presence, to say the least.

And I can’t bring myself to tear my gaze away from her. My wife. She fits into this world better than she realizes. Graceful yet sharp. Dangerous in ways she hasn’t discovered yet.

Eventually, a man in staff black slips up to my shoulder and lowers his voice to almost nothing. “Mr. Vold. Mr. Romano would like a word. In private.”

I glance at Ayanna—she’s caught it—and give the man a short nod.

“I’ll be a few minutes,” I tell her.

“Go.” Marcelina touches Ayanna’s arm, easy and kind. “I’ll keep her company. She’s perfectly safe with me. You can go be terrifying somewhere else for ten minutes.”

The corner of Ayanna’s mouth twitches. I leave her laughing at something Marcelina says as I make myself walk away from the sound of it.

Nikos waits on a balcony above the terrace, forearms braced on the stone balustrade, looking down at the party.

“Vold.” He doesn’t turn. “Drink?”

“I’m fine.”

“Of course you are.” A dry breath that does the work of a laugh. He nods at the scene below. “Quite an evening for you. The woman you nearly married, marrying your closest friend. And you down there with a wife on your arm, holding it together like a professional.” He glances sideways. “Most men would have invented a reason not to come.”

“I’m not most men.”

“No.” He takes a sip of his drink. “You’re not. Which is why I’ll say this plainly. There’s a great deal of expensive history in that garden tonight, and countless people who’d enjoy watching it catch fire. I’ve buried enough this year. I’d prefer no one dies at my wife’s cousin’s wedding.”

“No one’s going to die, Nikos.”

“Good.” He turns to me, glass still in hand. “I heard about Monsera. The funeral.”

“Word travels fast in our world.”

He turns his glass slowly in his hand as a deep hum rumbles in his throat. “A scene like that, around an alliance this young, is the kind of thing that gets noticed at the table. So tell me one thing, and I’ll trust your word on it. Is it handled?”

“It’s being handled.”

He nods, slow, watching my face the way I watch everyone else’s. “Then it’s handled. But if you need men, or reach, or a door opened that won’t open for you—you come to me.” He looks back out over the party. “An alliance the Council blessed doesn’t get threatened in private. Noise around Monsera isn’t only your problem, Vold. It’s The Gods’ concern as much as yours. Don’t carry it alone out of pride.”

It’s the closest thing to an offer of protection Nikos Romano has ever extended me, and I don’t take it lightly. “Understood.”