Chapter 2 The Walk to the Wolf

The heavy oak doors of the nave swung open, and the breath evacuated from my lungs in a single, silent shudder.

A wall of heat, organ music, and three hundred pairs of eyes hit me through the Belgian lace. The scent of white gardenias-Seraphina's signature, ordered by the thousands to mask the rot of our family's ledger-was thick enough to taste like powdered sugar and poison on the back of my tongue.

Beside me, Arthur offered his arm. His elbow was rigid as pig iron, his manicured fingers trembling so hard the platinum cufflinks clicked against the stiff starched cuffs of his morning coat.

"Smile," he snarled beneath his breath, his lips barely moving as he pinned a grotesque, frozen grin across his face for the high-society cameras. "Walk straight, Eloise. If you trip over that hem, I swear to God you won't see morning."

I didn't answer. I couldn't.

My fingers slipped into the crook of his arm, cold as river stones. Every layer of the silk gown felt like wet canvas dragged over raw skin. Beneath the veil, the world was a blur of gothic stone arches, pale candlelight, and the distorted silhouettes of Chicago's royalty-senators, federal judges, syndicators in bespoke Brioni, all standing in reverent, terrified silence.

They weren't here to celebrate a union. They were here to witness an execution of debt.

And at the end of the aisle stood the executioner.

Dante Valerius.

Even through the dense mesh of antique lace, his presence warped the air around him. He didn't slouch; he didn't fidget. He stood alone on the raised marble chancel like a monolith carved out of obsidian, hands clasped loosely behind his back, broad shoulders cutting a razor-sharp contour against the cathedral's stained glass.

Six-foot-three of predatory stillness.

Most men standing at an altar checked their watches, smoothed their ties, or cast nervous smiles toward their groomsmen. Dante Valerius had no groomsmen. He needed no buffer. He wore a midnight-black three-piece suit cut so precisely it looked molded to his ribs, a black silk tie pinned with a single silver crest, and an aura so lethal the archbishop standing two paces back looked like an altar boy waiting for a strike from the heavens.

Ten steps.

My knees threatened to buckle. Breathe, I told myself, digging my fingernails into my palms until the pain grounded me. Breathe, or you die on this stone.

I had seen him only twice before in my life, and never this close. Once from the second-floor gallery of the 12th Precinct five years ago-when Seraphina's drunken hit-and-run had been scrubbed from the blotter because Arthur traded favors, while I sat in an interrogation chair taking the heat until dawn. Dante had walked through the squad room that night flanked by half the city's senior detectives, his cold grey gaze sweeping the floor with utter indifference. He hadn't looked at me. To him, I had been vermin in a holding tank.

Now, I was walking straight into his teeth.

Five steps.

The organ hit a deafening crescendo. The vibration hummed up through the soles of my satin heels, rattling my ribcage.

Arthur's hand gripped my wrist like a shackle, steering me up the three carpeted steps to the chancel. Up close, the sheer scale of Dante Valerius was suffocating. He didn't smell like gardenias or expensive cologne; he smelled of cold rain, aged cedar, and the metallic tang of ozone.

Arthur stopped. His voice came out high, thin, and brittle as dried leaves. "Take care of her, Dante."

It was a performance for the front-row pews. An empty, nauseating lie from a father selling his daughter to save his skin.

Dante didn't even look at Arthur. His eyes remained locked on the white shroud covering my face.

"Step down, Arthur," Dante said.

The voice was low, gravel-scraped, and entirely devoid of inflection, yet it carried across the first six pews like a low-frequency hum. Arthur practically recoiled, releasing my arm so fast he nearly backed down the steps on his own trouser hems. He retreated into the front pew, wiping a river of sweat from his forehead.

I was left standing alone.

My chest rose and fell in shallow, jagged gasps. My pulse pounded against my temples-thump-thump, thump-thump-loud enough that I was certain the entire congregation could hear it. I stared at the polished black leather of his shoes, unable to lift my gaze. I waited for the fury. I waited for his guards to draw their weapons, for him to realize the slender frame beneath the veil didn't possess Seraphina's gold-spun hair or her theatrical posture.

A leather-gloved hand entered my field of vision.

His fingers were long, blunt-tipped, and calloused despite his fortune. He didn't wait for the priest to instruct him. He reached out and wrapped his hand around my wrist.

The contact made me flinch.

His grip wasn't gentle, but it wasn't frantic like Arthur's. It was immovable. Absolute. An iron band locking around bone. His thumb slid intentionally upward, pressing firmly against the inner blue vein of my wrist, right over my hammering pulse.

He didn't pull me forward; he anchored me where I stood.

The Archbishop cleared his throat, his parchment shaking in his wrinkled hands. "Dearly beloved... we are gathered here in the sight of God, and in the face of this company, to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony..."

The words washed over me like distant static. All I could feel was the thumb pressing into my artery.

Slowly, deliberately, Dante leaned down. His height cast a total shadow over me, blocking out the light from the stained-glass saints above. His lips parted beside the lace covering my right ear, his breath warm against the chill of my skin.

"Your heart is racing, little ghost," he murmured, so quiet only the lace caught the vibration.

A cold shudder tore down my spine. Little ghost. That wasn't what anyone called Seraphina.

His thumb stroked once over my racing pulse point, a terrifyingly possessive, calculated caress.

"Don't faint on my marble," Dante whispered, the ghost of a dark, cruel smirk riding the edge of his voice. "We haven't even reached the part where you belong to me."