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Once she’s gone, I perch on the edge of the bed and pull the ribbon off the box. Does he feel as anxious to see me as I do to see him after all this time? After how things ended that last night? Is this him easing his way into my good graces? Apologizing even?
I glance at my engagement ring, remembering his words when he slid it onto my finger —the warning in them, the humiliation. But I’d done what he wanted, what he’d told me to do. I never took the thing off. Not once.
But his warning about tonight, about my being ready or else… that or else had been spelled out. It won’t be me who bears his punishment. It will be Odin. Santos Augustine knows exactly how to make me bend the knee.
No, he’s not easing his way into my good graces with this gift, whatever it is—if it’s even from him. He doesn’t have to. The threat to my brother will suffice.
I think of the last two years at Sacred Heart School of Art for Talented Young Ladies, rolling my eyes at the pretentiousness of the name. I was enrolled in a local school in Avarice until Santos decided I was no longer safe in my home and sent me away. Would things have been different for me if he hadn’t seen the damage? If he’d let me go to the school I’d intended to attend, I’d still have had my brother in my life.
I absently touch the scar on the palm of my hand, shake my head, and let the ribbon fall away. The box is unmarked, so I don’t know where it’s from, but when I lift the lid off, I smell perfumed layers of white tissue paper. It’s expensive.
Curious, I pull the paper apart and inside, I find a muff. I lift it out, searching for a card, but there isn’t one.
Well, at least it’s not real fur. It’s as white as the falling snow, and I wonder if he sent it at the last minute given the weather? We’ll drive to the cathedral, so I’ll be outside for a few minutes at most. He’s already arranged for a thick white cloak, which is hanging by the door. I won’t freeze. But it’s a nice touch, I guess.
I remember that I’d had something like this when I was a little girl. Uncle Jax had bought it for me one Christmas to go with a matching coat and a pair of warm boots. Odin and I had been allowed to spend Christmas at our uncle’s house. I’d been eight or nine years old. I still remember how happy I’d been when I’d seen the present.
I slip my hands into the muff now and feel the corner of what I assume is the card. I take it out, and am surprised to find it’s not a card at all. It’s a photograph. It’s pretty grainy, and I have to peer close to see it.
It looks like a screenshot, the camera set high like a surveillance camera. There’s a man in a black coat with dark hair, his head turned down. I can’t see his face, but I swear I recognize the gate he’s coming out of.
My heart races as I take in the date and time that are circled in red Sharpie. The digital timestamp in the corner. I know that date. I’ll never forget it. It’s the night my uncle died. We’d gotten the call the next morning when his housekeeper found him. The time is almost midnight.
Nausea has me setting one hand to my stomach. The gate is familiar because it’s the one that leads to the back entrance of Uncle Jax’s house. I think I know the set of those shoulders. And I recognize the stones of the bracelet peering out from under the cuff of the coat.
“Knock-knock,” someone says, startling me as the door is opened.
I stumble to my feet, twisting my ankle in the high heel and dropping the muff to the floor. I shove my hand behind my back, hiding the photograph as I catch myself, wincing when I put weight on my right foot.
“Good lord, you’re not that skittish, are you?” Evelyn Augustine asks me.
“I…” I open my mouth but only stutter because what the hell is this? What is this photograph? The security footage at my uncle’s house had gone out at some point because of some sort of electrical issue. The investigators had confirmed that.
What was Santos doing at his house the night he died?
And who sent me this photograph?
“You look white as a ghost. This won’t do.”
“Excuse me,” I say, unable to process, needing time to understand. I rush into the bathroom and slam the door, locking it. I grip the edge of the sink and try to level my breathing. I’m shaking when I finally sit on the edge of the tub and look at the photo again, really look, because there’s no denying what this means—what someone has gone out of their way to tell me about the man who will be my husband in a matter of hours.
