Chapter 14 Till Death Do Us Part
TILL DEATH DO US PART
DANI
Seventy-two hours.
That’s how long I’d had to get used to the idea I was about to marry a man who’d executed someone in front of me between rows of Christmas trees.
A man who kept a stainless-steel horror room behind a coded door.
A man whose enemies wanted me dead and who called someone kroshka on the phone like he didn’t already have a fake fiancée locked in his glass box.
Fake wedding, I kept telling myself. Fake, fake, fake. Say it fast enough and maybe my heart wouldn’t beat quite this hard.
The mirror wasn’t helping.
Valentina had called it a “wedding gown” with the same tone people used for “national treasure.” I called it obscene.
Ivory silk poured over me like liquid sin, clinging to every curve.
The neckline dove to my navel, the back was almost nonexistent, and the skirt hugged my hips before flaring just enough to pretend at modesty.
This wasn’t a dress.
This was branding.
“Breathtaking,” Svetlana said from behind me, in that flat way that somehow still managed to sound like a verdict. She flicked a speck of lint off the cathedral-length veil, then adjusted it so it spilled down my back in a waterfall of tulle.
It felt less like a veil and more like someone had draped a net over me.
“You look like you could destroy men,” she added.
“Working on it,” I muttered. “One in particular.”
Svetlana’s mouth quirked—almost a smile, almost pity.
“He is making statement,” she said. “This dress says, ‘Touch her and you lose hand.’”
“Funny,” I huffed. “To me it says, ‘Touch her and you smudge the merchandise.’”
“Time to go.” Natasha’s voice came from the doorway, dry as ever. She’d traded her all-black uniform for a dark wool coat, but she still radiated unimpressed executioner. She checked a thin silver watch. “Mr. Zverev does not like to be kept waiting.”
Of course he didn’t.
Control freak.
The car ride to St. Bartholomew’s felt like being wheeled into surgery.
Snow blurred the city into streaks of white and sodium orange. The dress pooled around me on the leather. The veil itched the back of my neck, a fancy leash pinned to my skull.
Outside, people hurried along the sidewalks in coats and scarves, arms full of shopping bags and coffee cups. Christmas Eve.
I was on my way to marry a liar with a body count.
The church rose out of the snow like something from a Gothic postcard. Stone spires stabbed at the gray sky, stained glass glowed faintly from within. In another life, it would’ve been romantic.
Tonight it looked like a warning.
Even God knows this is wrong.
Inside, the air was cold and thick with incense. Candles lined the aisle, flames shivering, throwing long amber shadows that hid more than they revealed. Evergreen garlands wound around pillars, white lights draped across the altar rail like twinkle lights could fix anything.
There weren’t many people, but every single one mattered.
Maybe twenty men, all in tailored suits cut to hide metal. Holsters under wool and cashmere. The faint bulge of pistols at ribs, knives at ankles. Scarred knuckles. Watchful eyes.
Bratva leadership. The “council” he’d mentioned in his office, now in the flesh.
Natasha’s hand settled—light but insistent—between my shoulder blades, steering me toward a side entrance. The music swelled—organ and choir, like this was any other Christmas Eve service.
It wasn’t.
We stepped out at the front of the church, near the altar. Every head turned. Every gaze measured.
Assessing. Calculating. Weighing whether I made him weaker, or more dangerous.
Livestock at auction.
Konstantin waited at the altar like a dark idol in a perfectly cut black tux. Snow still clung to the dark hair at his temples, melting slowly. A white rose sat in his lapel, its innocence obscene.
His face was a mask. Calm. Remote. The softness I’d seen in bed, the heat from the shower, the momentary cracks when he’d bandaged my hand—gone.
There he is.
The man from the tree lot.
The one who’d checked a pulse and made a decision about my life in a heartbeat.
As I walked toward him, his eyes locked on mine.
Possessive. Assessing. Like he was making sure the package he’d ordered had arrived undamaged.
My skin crawled.
My treacherous body warmed.
The priest looked like he wanted to be anywhere else. His hands trembled as he opened his Bible, incense burner clinking beside him. Smart man. He probably agreed to this under violent duress.
“Dearly beloved,” he began, voice cracking like a teenager’s, “we are gathered here tonight, on this Christmas Eve, to witness the union of Konstantin and Daniela.”
Daniela.
My full name landed heavy. It sounded like it belonged on a saint’s statue, not on a girl whose last three days had been sex, murder, and Stockholm Syndrome Lite.
He droned on about love and honor and cherishing. Words that had never set foot in this building when it came to these men.
All I could feel was Konstantin’s hand closing over mine.
Firm. Unyielding. His thumb settled on my pulse like a man checking property, not a groom.
A shackle disguised as affection.
“The vows,” the priest said, glancing nervously at the first pew, then back at us. “Konstantin, do you take Daniela to be your lawful wedded wife, to have and to hold, for better, for worse…”
“I do,” he said.
No hesitation. No warmth.
He might as well have been saying, I accept the terms.
The priest turned to me. “Daniela, do you take Konstantin to be your lawful wedded husband, to have and to hold—”
Till death do you part.
Very on-brand for this guest list.
Run. Say no. Spit in his face. Throw the bouquet, not the first punch.
His fingers tightened just enough to hurt. Thumb pressing into the frantic flutter of my pulse.
A reminder.
He could end me right here with a twist.
My mouth went dry. The words clogged behind my teeth like glass.
Silence stretched. Long. Thin. I felt all those guns shift imperceptibly in their holsters.
Predator-still, Konstantin watched me.
Waiting to see if his little Christmas bride was about to set the room on fire.
I didn’t say “I do.”
But I didn’t pull away either.
I forced my head to move in a nod that barely counted, my throat refusing to cooperate.
My silence is compliance. And he knows it.
His thumb eased off my pulse. The pressure of his hand slid from restraint into something that would look, from a distance, like steadying.
The priest seemed satisfied enough not to die over semantics.
“Then by the power vested in me…” he shuffled pages, desperate to get this over with. “You may now—”
Konstantin leaned in, breath hot at my ear, whisper threading under the priest’s words.
“Smile, kotyonok,” he murmured, the Russian endearment curling like smoke. “You’re mine now.”
Not baby. Not love.
Kitten. Something you pet. Keep. Own.
The command slithered down my spine.
I hated that a part of me wanted to obey.
“You may kiss the bride,” the priest managed, definitely not paid enough.
Konstantin’s hands came up to frame my face with deceptive gentleness.
Then his mouth slammed into mine.
This wasn’t a kiss.
This was a press conference.
His tongue pushed past my lips without asking. His hand slid into my hair, tightening just enough to angle my head where he wanted it. The other hand splayed over my lower back, dragging me flush to his chest.
Everyone saw.
The priest. The council. His men. The enemies masquerading as well-wishers.
This is mine.
I should’ve felt humiliated. Reduced to something decorative and useful, like the floral arrangements.
Instead, heat roared through me, awful and familiar. My body remembered every wall he’d pressed me against. Every time his mouth had done this in private.
I hated him.
I hated that a kiss in front of an audience could still short-circuit my brain.
When he finally pulled away, my lips tingled, my lungs burned, my heart hammered.
His face had already cooled. Mouth back to a line, eyes back to ice, as if what he’d just done was a minor formality instead of setting me on fire in front of a room full of killers.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the priest said shakily, “I present Mr. and Mrs. Zverev.”
Mrs. Zverev.
The name hit like a slap.
Not Dani Morales, girl with $87k in loans and a radiator that sounded like it murdered squirrels.
Not the mall elf. Not the witness.
His wife.
His property.
His problem. His leverage. His shield.
“Come,” he said under his breath, fingers tightening around mine. “We say hello, then we talk business.”
The sacristy behind the altar smelled like old stone and cold incense.
It also smelled like power.
Six men stood waiting. Older, heavier, in suits that probably predated the iPhone. Faces like weathered granite. Their eyes went from me to Konstantin like I was a question and he was supposed to provide the answer.
“Pakhan,” Konstantin said, inclining his head slightly to the one in the center. “You look well.”
The old man—Baranov, from the whispered intel I’d half-overheard earlier—snorted.
“I look old,” he said in Russian-tinted English. “You look stupid. Marrying for heart.” His gaze slid to me. “American one, even.”
His accent was thicker than Konstantin’s, vowels flattened by decades.
“She is not for heart,” Konstantin replied. “She is who I want.”
Pakhan’s gaze sharpened.
Konstantin’s thumb brushed my knuckles once, hard. “You know rules.”
He switched to Russian. The words rolled too fast for me to catch more than fragments, but I heard my name. Nevesta. Zhena. Wife.
Baranov grunted. “If she dies now, it is as if they kill you,” he said in English, for my benefit or just to twist the knife. “That is what you want, boy? To tie your throat to a stranger?”
Konstantin’s jaw flexed. “She is not stranger.”
Could’ve fooled me.
A voice to my right cut in, smooth as silk over a blade.
“Or maybe she is,” it said. “Maybe that is the problem.”
Maksim.
Of course.