The other man snarls and points his gun at me, pulling the trigger before I can swing my gun around at him.

I hear Yelena’s scream at the same time as the gun fires. She slams into me, knocking me backward. My bad knee folds beneath me, and we both go tumbling down. It’s only when I try to shove her off of me, and I feel how limp she’s become, that I realize she’s been shot.

Rodion is hit in the shoulder, and another of Yenin’s soldiers fall—the baby-faced driver called Timur. I realize that Jace is shooting back, and Dante too. They weren’t stupid enough to come unarmed like I did.

But Dante’s been hit himself. He stumbles toward the triptych, bleeding from the leg and hand.

Snarling, Yenin tries to shoot at Dante in the back. It’s too late—Dante has braced himself against the massive wooden triptych and he’s shoving it with all his might. With a strangled roar, Dante manages to tip the two-story screen. It falls toward the seats with sickening force. It must weigh two thousand pounds, like the front of a house falling down—anyone beneath it will be crushed.

The shooting stops as everyone scatters.

I grab Yelena’s limp body and fling her over my shoulder. Camille is dragging Nero, her teeth bared and the tendons standing out on her neck. Dante has grabbed Greta, who alone seems unharmed.

The triptych crashes down with a thunderous impact like a bomb exploding, shards of wood shooting off in all directions. I don’t know if it hit the Russians or not, because there’s no time to look back. We’re fleeing out the back of the cathedral, Dante limping on his injured leg, but still helping Camille to support Nero’s bleeding body, me trying not to trip over the long train of Yelena’s gown as it hangs down over my shoulder.

In the darkened apse, I hear footsteps pounding after us.

I spin around, Adrian’s gun still clutched in my hand. I can barely see, and my finger jerks convulsively against the trigger. Right before I fire, I realize it’s only Jace.

“Don’t wait for me or anything!” he pants, highly incensed.

I have no words to answer him.

I just turn around again and run from the church, leaving my father’s body behind.

16

Yelena

I wake up, cold and stiff, in a dark room.

It smells damp in here, and a little bit like diesel fumes.

When I try to move, I hear a clinking metal sound, and the rustling of fabric. My whole body feels heavy and aching, the throbbing pain seeming to radiate from my left shoulder all the way down to my toes.

My head is heavy and dull. I can’t seem to understand what the fuck is happening.

And then it all starts to come back to me.

Sebastian, standing at the altar, looking the most handsome I’d ever seen him in that perfectly-fitted suit.

His family, arranged in the tall, high-backed chairs, looking pleased and expectant.

And then my father and his men. He brought Rodion, Timur, Vale, and Kadir. Other than Rodion, the bratoks were technically related to me, Vale being my uncle through marriage, and Timur and Kadir distant cousins. Still, it felt strange to have my side of the wedding party staring at us so coldly, without any hint of happiness. Only a kind of stiff expectation.

Then there was Adrian, who looked strangest of all. As he lead us through the ceremony in his position of koumbaros, I kept thinking how pale he was, and wishing that he would look me in the eye and give me one of his irreverent smiles, to let me know that he wasn’t taking the whole thing too seriously. I’ve never seen him stand inside a church without a single eye roll or wink in my direction when the priest is droning on.

At the very least, I thought he’d hug me that morning, and tell me that he loved me. That he’d miss me, but he hoped I’d be happy with Sebastian.

He did none of that. When I went to his room early in the morning to try to speak to him, his bed was empty. Usually it takes a brass band to wake him up.

I felt a prick of unease, but I told myself it was nothing. I tried to look only at Sebastian, at his handsome face and his excited expression. I looked at his height, his broad chest, and his air of utter confidence, and I told myself, “Seb will protect me. His family will protect me. Once we’re married, nothing can hurt us.”

Then at last the ceremony was over, we were man and wife with rings on our fingers, and he kissed me . . . The warmest and happiest kiss of my life . . .

And then . . .

It all turned to blood, and terror, and misery.

That perfect moment shattered like glass, splintering into a thousand pieces that cut every part of me as they tumbled down.

My father betrayed the Gallos. He betrayed me, too.

And my brother tried to kill the man I love.

He put a gun to Sebastian’s head. He tried to pull the trigger.

And the rest of them . . .

I don’t know how many died.

My hand flies to my mouth as I realize that I don’t even know if Sebastian is alive. The last thing I remember is my Uncle Vale pointing his gun at my husband, and me jumping between them . . .

I touch my shoulder, which is so stiff and aching that it feels like stone. Again I hear that clinking sound that follows me every time I move.

I feel a thick bandage wrapping from my chest all the way over my shoulder to my back. Also, the tattered and filthy remains of my wedding dress. And then, encircling my wrists and my ankles . . . manacles. Iron bracelets, attached to chains.

I lift my wrist again, tugging.

I only have limited mobility, because these chains are apparently bolted in.

I let out a little moan. It sounds very pathetic in this dark, gloomy space.

I have no idea who’s put me down in this dungeon and chained me to the wall. I don’t know where I am, if I’m even still in Chicago. I can barely see the room in which I’m contained—I sense the walls close around me, more than actually perceiving them.

All I know for certain is that I’m sitting on a mattress, with a single thin blanket over my legs.

I’m still wearing my wedding dress, but the tiara I wore in my hair, the one that belonged to my mother—that’s gone. So are my shoes.

Feverishly, I feel my left hand with my right.

My ring is still there, at least. I touch that little circlet with its beautiful diamond, twisting it on my finger.

I don’t know what I would do if I’d lost that, too.

I want to cry, but I won’t allow myself to do it.

I don’t know who could be watching, or listening.

So instead, I curl up in a ball, feeling the relentless throb of my shoulder, and hoping against hope that Sebastian is still alive.

I don’t know if I lay in the dark for hours or days.

I know that I slept several times and became very thirsty.

Finally, after what seems like forever, the door scrapes open and a light snaps on.

I sit up on the mattress, blinking against the blinding glare.

Standing in the doorway is a figure I recognize immediately: my tall, strong, immeasurably handsome husband.

I try to jump to my feet so I can run to him, but the chains tangle me up, and my legs wobble beneath me. I feel a spike of pain in my shoulder and a thick wave of nausea that makes me sit down hard on the mattress.

It’s better for me that I can’t throw myself into Sebastian’s arms, because he’s already cringing away from me with a repulsed expression on his face.