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Oh God.
My skin turns to ice as my heart crawls in on itself and the bile rises in my throat. There, on individual holders in neat little rows, is the collection Bianca mentioned at lunch.
Rings.
Five of them. Little golden rings with carved lions’ faces in them, set with blueish-white diamonds for eyes. And right there in the middle of the row is the worst of them: the ring I watched from barely two feet away as the hand wearing it tightened aroundNina’s neck. As it squeezed and squeezed as she tried to get him off her.
My whole body goes cold as I lift it from the case and stare at it, transfixed. This one is slightly different from the others from that night. Maybe that's why I remember it the sharpest. Instead of two blueish-white diamond eyes, one eye of this ring is a blood red rub, as if its owner lost one of the eyes and decided to replace it with something sinister.
Part of me wants to scream until my throat bleeds. Part of me wants to hit something until I feel nothing at all.
But then, the biggest part of me turns to stone.
Dante rubs shoulders with dangerous men daily, and has the criminal underworld at his fingertips. His entire circle is men who are used to getting what they want regardless of who says no. Or who screams at them to stop.
I’ve been an idiot. I was hoping for access when I inserted myself into Dante’s world, but now that I’m in…
…I might be in a hell of a lot deeper than I ever wanted to be.
A knock on the door has me leaping out of my skin and dropping the ring onto the closed lid of the box.
“Ms. Black?” Lorenzo calls through the door. “It’s time.”
My heart hammers against my chest as I back away from the box.
“Ms. Black?”
“One second!”
Holy shit.
Dante is connected to the men who hurt me and killed my best friend. Fucking hell, he may even be theleaderof those men, given how many of these fucking rings he’s got in this box. And now, I’m about tomarrythe motherfucker? I’m about to spend what little time I have leftchainedto one of the monsters who destroyed me?
I’m going to be sick.
“Ms. Black, I’m sorry, but?—”
“Be right there.”
My voice is cold and sharp, my eyes laser focused on something sitting on Dante’s desk: a display case with a wooden base and a crystal clear, domed glass lid.
…And an ancient-looking metal dagger carved with runic letters sitting on a stand under that lid, labeled “Norse, 1107 AD” on a small brass plaque beneath it.
The door to the office starts to creak open. And by the time Lorenzo steps inside, the glass case is empty, and there’s something cold and metallic hidden in the folds of my wedding dress.
Lorenzo smiles a small smile at me. “Time to go, Ms. Black.”
All I can do is nod, numb, as I follow him out.
Alistair and Gabriel floated walking me down the aisle in lieu of our father. But I opted for a solo walk. My heart thuds with every step as I move down the aisle on autopilot. I don’t even see the faces of friends and families. All I can do is stare straight ahead, my eyes locked ono the man waiting for me.
The devil who I’ve just realized is even more a demon than I ever imagined.
But there’s an out here. There’s one play I, and I alone, can make.
Because I have nothing to lose.
I’m numb as I stand facing Dante, listening to the priest drone on. The man in front of me with the lethal blue eyes and the sharp jaw frowns slightly at my silence. The priest has him recite his vows. Somehow I manage to recite my own, in a fog, the fingers of my right hand curling around the hilt of the dagger in my gown.
