42. Anastasia
Jacob had my attire sent to the rooftop restaurant for me to collect yesterday. I sit cross-legged on the bed staring at the elaborate white box while Rhett showers after me and my hair air-dries.
“I already opened it to check it won’t detonate,” Rhett says, approaching me with a towel slung low on his hips while he dries his hair with another.
I forget all about the stupid measure of possession from Jacob in a flash of pure lust at the godly sight of him. His tanned skin glistens with droplets of water over his impeccably toned abdomen. I shift to my knees, crawling across the large bed until I can hook my fingers around the waist of his towel, drawing him closer.
“We could be late,” I say enticingly.
Rhett’s blue eyes flash with desire as he drops the towel for his hair. His hand curls under my chin.
“We’ll miss the whole thing if I start with you now.”
He leans down to kiss me, and it’s just as well he has more restraint than I do to pry my fingers from his towel. Rhett smirks at my pout, circling around the bed to where his all-black tux hangs. My makeup is done, my hair won’t take long, but I’m dreading having to wear what Jacob wants.
I think Rhett feels it too, the power move of it.
With a sigh, I pry the magnetic clasp open with the bow already undone, throwing the lid open. I’m horrified to see all the white.
“Why white?” I wonder aloud, irritated and trying to figure out what message he’s trying to send.
“I’m not sure,” Rhett says, detached, like he’s trying to pretend it’s just clothing.
There’s a box inside, which I pick up.
“It’s a pearl necklace,” Rhett informs me before I can open it. “There are also matching bracelets and earrings.”
“I don’t want to wear any of it,” I mutter.
Rhett’s expression falls. He’s wearing a pair of sweatpants as he comes over.
“I know, baby. You’re mine no matter what. After this night, we’ll have the peace we’re owed.”
It feels so close, so hopeful, and that also makes our peace terrifyingly fragile.
“Well, after we figure out how the hell we’re getting out of the kidnap fiasco too,” I say.
It’s completely insane, and I’m surprised my dad let it out when he’s always tried so hard to keep our doors closed and any scandals under the radar. I’m partially furious, because I’m certain he knows I’m not kidnapped and that I left willingly. He’s striking out at me for keeping Rhett a secret and still choosing him.
“Maybe I can get emancipated. Then I’ll make a public appearance and give a statement that I’m in love with a criminal and I chose to be with him.” I crawl over to where he’s sitting with his back to me.
“Then what? Leave everything behind? You may think you can live with never seeing your parents again, but I will not take that from you. Eventually, you’ll resent me for it. Maybe not so clearly, but it will always linger under the surface.”
He’s probably right, but I’ve lost all sense of reason and judgment in my desperation to keep him. My hands trail up his back, stopping on the scars that are new to me with a growing ache as I discover more. I kiss between his shoulders, then I kiss his nape. Pushing up on my knees, I kiss the side of his neck and drape my arm over his chest.
“We’ll figure something out, but if it really becomes a choice, I’ll choose you. I won’t resent you for it. I’ll resent my dad for letting me go because he couldn’t put my happiness and wants above his own for once.”
Rhett takes my hand, kissing my knuckles. Then he turns, hooking an arm around my back, and I smile as he leans in, climbing over me.
“Changed your mind?” I say, hooking my knees around his hips.
“No, little bird. Only because I’m desperate to get this night over with so we can come back triumphant, and then I’ll celebrate every piece of you for endless hours. Then we’ll sleep, with our monsters killed and the world ours to claim.”
My brow pulls together with emotion. I want it so badly it hurts. Our peace. My fingers trace down his chest, and my face relaxes in surprise. I run my index finger along the horizontal line like I have done countless times, except this time I follow it up then down before it tapers off a little. A single beat.
“You,” he says. “You’re the reason it beats, Ana.”
I’m so choked with love and gratitude that my mouth flounders with what to say.
“When?”
“We had a few hours to kill while waiting for your great escape, and there happened to be a late-night parlor across the street.”
“Rhett . . . I?—”
He kisses me, stopping a likely incoherent, blubbering mess of all my emotions.
“It’s you and me, baby.”
I nod, and as he pulls back he takes my hands, so I sit. I’m ready, with more determination than ever to see this through, and I glance at the box holding the white dress with spite and hidden victory. Jacob will get me in white, but I plan to leave in red.
Rhett pulls up on a street that confuses me with its dark abandonment. I glance back, then around, trying to find something that might look like a venue Jacob Forthson would buy. But even if there was one here, I doubt his patrons would show up given the roughness of the rest of the block.
“There’s no way I’m getting out of the car if we’re here,” I say.
When I look at Rhett, I don’t expect his slow grin of amusement as he cuts the engine and gets out before I can protest.
“This is a small stop. We’re early,” he says when he opens my door.
I slip my hand into his awaiting palm apprehensively. “A drug deal? A hit? I don’t think Jacob will appreciate me ruining his pristine image of me.”
“None of those. And I truly don’t care. Ruin the dress if you want. I’d actually like to see his abhorrence.”
I realize I’m a complete mindless fool for this man as I’m allowing him to lead me without question or even fear up a set of steps toward a clearly long-abandoned chapel. There’s graffiti on the outside, some messages making me particularly uneasy, such as “Hail Satan”in blood red.
We slip inside the pried-open door, and it’s cold, dark, and ominous as fuck.
Until we get past the small entryway and moonlight floods in through the stained-glass windows, some of them shattered. The space is hauntingly beautiful, though it’s not what slows my steps.
“About time!” Rix says from a bench near the front. “I’m beginning to feel a possession taking hold in this creepy-ass venue. You couldn’t have picked somewhere better?”
Adam is beside him, and he casts me a smile over his shoulder, but I’m shocked, trying to figure out what’s going on. They’re dressed in tuxes for Jacob’s event too. There are a few others I recognize from the Den, far more casual.
I’m confused even more when a cloud of smoke catches my attention.
Silas leans with an arm hooked over the back of his bench at the back. Some of his men linger around him.
“What is going on?” I ask.
Then a weight slams into me, and maybe it’s the fact I’m dressed entirely in white and that this is a chapel, even though neither of us is religious ...
No, he wouldn’t?—
“When I marry you, it most certainly will not be in some drug-den chapel,” Rhett says, maybe feeling me turn utterly stiff with a reluctance to go down the aisle any further.
I relax. Thank fuck.
“Good. Because I’m still missing that ring,” I say.
Rix gets up, heading to the shallow platform, where there’s an old stone podium.
Passing Silas, I meet his eyes and say, “I’m surprised you didn’t burst into flames past the threshold.”
I don’t think I’ve ever heard him genuinely chuckle without any edge of taunting or teasing. It sheds a new light on him, and just for a flicker, I see the human under the wicked devil.
“I did feel the heat, but it seems I’m spared another day considering my charity in being part of this sad audience.”
“You can’t miss your last ever graduation,” Rhett says.
My head snaps up to him, then I look around and it settles, the realization of why everyone came. Even Silas.
“Oh my god,” I whisper, stunned and overwhelmed by the thoughtfulness.
“I think this is the only place you’ve called for him where he might approve.”
I whack my purse against Rhett’s chest for his deviance.
Rix is holding my diploma, and I shift a look at Adam as we pass, having no doubt he’s the reason they got it. Our eyes speak of all the friendship and gratitude between us.
I flush as Rhett helps me to the side of the small platform, and even though everyone here is a friend in some way or another, I’m awash with nerves at the attention. At the fact they all showed up to this ridiculous place for a mock graduation just for me.
“This is too much,” I say. It comes out as a croak through the marble in my throat.
“Nothing is too much for you,” Rhett says.
A cap is placed on my head from behind, and my hand reaches to steady it in place. I turn to find Adam holding a gown too.
“I’m guessing this is not a rental,” I muse, sliding my arms into the sleeves.
“I’m sure they won’t miss one gown,” he says deviously.
I smile, so full of joy, and wordlessly step into it. Adam’s embrace is slightly tense, and I can only imagine Rhett’s frightening stare on him from behind me.
“All right, take your places, and let’s get this ceremony on the go,” Rix calls.
Rhett plants a kiss to my head before stepping down and sitting in the front row. He’s so devastatingly handsome, and the most caring, loving, and darkly alluring man I’ve ever known. Getting to call him mine explodes my chest every time.
“We’re gathered here today?—”
“Wrong opening line,” Adam calls. “Not a wedding.”
“Fuck you, asshole. This is my graduation setup,” Rix bites back.
I giggle, my eyes blurring with tears of glee that tremble me. Rhett watches me as if I’m the only thing in the world to him. He’s utterly lost to me in this moment, and it steals my breath.
“We’re gathered here to celebrate the underdog of the class of 2024,” Rix goes on. He casts me a prideful smile. “I never thought I’d hold one of these in my life,” he says, holding up the blue diploma. “And honestly, it might be making me jealous. Ana, I haven’t known you that long, but I plan to know you for a lifetime.”
My first tear spills, and I have to bite my lip to keep myself together. Adam comes back up, taking the diploma from Rix, who comes over to hug me tightly.
“I may have a little brother, but I’ve always wanted a badass little sister,” he mumbles into me.
I chuckle through my tears. Rix is the big brother I never had, and he is more than worth the wait.
He steps down and sits next to Rhett, who’s still smiling fondly.
Adam is at the podium to speak. “Ana, I’ve been a huge dick to you, but I’m not sorry, because jealousy is a bitch. I may have one of these diplomas we’re delusional to believe will help us figure out our shit, but I think we both know we might be toasting by a bonfire made of them some day. At the end of these six years it took to get it, all I really want to keep is you. As a friend, to be clear, before Kaiser has my balls.”
“They’re still not safe,” Rhett mutters.
I’m chuckling and choking and trying helplessly not to ruin my makeup too much, but they’re making it impossible.
To my surprise, Silas saunters up the aisle, taking a last drag of his cigarette before he stubs it out on the front bench. He takes the diploma from Adam, who then crosses the stage, and I hug him tightly.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“Anytime, little A.”
“I still hate that name.”
He pulls back with a bright grin. “I know.”
Silas takes a deep breath, examining the diploma before leaning in with one hand braced on the podium. “I don’t know why the fuck I’m here,” he says, but when his eyes slip up to me, we both know why. “Except to say, to find a rose that looks like glass but is really made of steel is rare, and this diploma is a key to your unexplored potential. I say we have that bonfire sooner rather than later. I might have had my doubts about you, but I need you to remember you’re no fool, Anastasia.”
To my parents, to society, even to Riley, who I miss so much, everything they’re saying would be an outrage and bad influence. To me, I’m standing in a room full of people who finally see me. The way Rhett always has, from the first day he met me.
Rhett stands next, and my eyes fill as he takes the diploma from Silas. He doesn’t come to hug me, but his eyes give the same effect anyway.
The silence that falls as Rhett is last to speak cracks my composure. He could just stand there with his eyes of adoration, not saying a word, and I’d be a complete mess.
“I disagree,” he says at last. The room starts to tunnel away from me until only the two of us are standing there. “I think this diploma is the first trophy of your resilience. To have endured the years it took to get it without a light at the end of the tunnel. Teach, perhaps. Research, perhaps. What I do know is that you don’t fear uncertainty anymore. You don’t fear being you. Taking what you want. I met you as Miss Kinsley, a little bird in cage, and I’ll go out with you as Mrs. Kaiser, the little bird who broke it.”
I walk across the stage, barely holding my tears back. Rhett hands me the diploma, but he doesn’t let go; his arm draws me to him instead.
“I don’t think this is how the ceremony goes,” I say quietly.
He kisses me anyway, as if there isn’t an audience of our friends, some of whom start to whoop and holler.
“Sure starting to feel like a wedding,” Rix comments.
They clap, and I’m bursting with euphoria, pulling out of the kiss.
“I love you, Rhett Kaiser.”
His blue eyes sparkle, and I’m staring at my entire future in them, not the piece of paper between us.
A loud, slow clap echoes out of cadence with everyone else. As soon as my sight finds who the attention-demanding sound comes from, my smile is wiped immediately, and my happiness frozen entirely.
I barely hear Rhett and the others pull out their guns, but I feel it when Rhett’s hold tightens, pushing me a fraction behind him.
Then the wicked voice drawls in mock endearment, “What a lovely little ceremony.”
Alistair Lanshall.