Chapter 52 - Serafina
SERAFINA
Iblinked, and now we’re here.
Wedding day. Also known as the final day Alessio Vitale will breathe.
None of it feels real, and we haven’t even begun yet. It sets the day up for every way this will go wrong.
Vanessa, Anastasia, and I are locked in a back room of the church to get ready. The hairdresser and makeup artist Alessio hired recently left. He’s covered every basis when it comes to my appearance, accepting nothing less than his version of perfection.
The reflection in the mirror is a stranger.
A girl—a woman, I suppose—on what should be the happiest day of her life, except she’s actually minutes away from a death march.
Despite the dark colours the makeup artist framed my eyes with ‘to brighten the blue’, they’re dull.
The soft pink she painted my cheeks was meant to make me a blushing bride, but my miserable expression counters her effort.
Vanessa comes up behind me, dressed in a slinky black dress, and skates her hand through the curls the hairdresser insisted on, loosening them into something more natural, something the hairdresser flat-out refused to do, even after Vanessa threatened her.
Apparently, Alessio already did that enough for us all, and he won.
She shifts my hair back, bringing attention to the teardrop jewellery: the earrings that hang two inches from my ear, the necklace adorning my chest, drawing a line to where the sweetheart neckline of the dress begins.
“Despite everything, you do make a beautiful bride.”
Anastasia joins on my other side, also dressed in black. They collectively agreed to treat the ceremony as Alessio’s funeral the other night, for their own amusement. I wish it’d be enough to force a smile.
“Van’s right. Dress looks great on you, even if you hate it. Perhaps without the lace, it’d be more you. Anyway, you remember how to reach every weapon?”
“Two thigh holsters, a knife in each,” I recite what they’ve told me a million and one times. “And at my right hip.” Courtesy of Anastasia’s unexpected sewing skills. She made a small pocket in the skirt to hide another knife beneath the top layer.
Vanessa reaches into her red clutch, where she’s presently storing my cell, and pulls out a small baggy of crushed pills. “First chance you get.”
She slips it in the space between my breasts, the tight bodice holding it in place. I push it further down, ensuring Alessio won’t see. Lights catch on the diamond engagement ring as I do—yet another reminder.
“Make sure you use them before he tries to undress you,” Anastasia reminds me with a frown. “If there’s no opportunity to drug him, hide them. Toss it beneath the bed if you must. Flush them. Anything that’ll save you.”
The two women glance at one another, sharing identical concern that speak volumes. They’re afraid Alessio will spot the drugs before I get to use them, and he’ll punish me.
Vanessa changes the subject by spinning me away from the mirror, her eyes darting to the clock on the wall. “You still have twenty minutes until that shrew of a wedding planner comes to harass you. Want me to grab Zeno?”
“Not yet. Can I be alone?”
She nods, her eyes sweeping me again. Her arms come around in a half-hug—a middle ground. A friendly hug from my sister should be a normal thing on any woman’s wedding day, but this isn’t a normal wedding, and we’re not regular siblings.
After a moment, she pulls away and heads for the door, which Anastasia opens. A figure suddenly looms, and I tense, assuming it’s Alessio come to lord more of his power, but Ana’s sigh tells me it’s not. “She asked to be alone.”
“Too bad.” The familiar rumble breaks through every barrier, and my anxiety melts away almost instantly. He’s all I want. All I need.
“It’s fine,” I murmur to them.
Anastasia frowns. “Okay, well, I’ll stand guard.”
The door shuts behind Vanessa and Anastasia, leaving me alone with Lev. With them gone, I give him my attention, hands grasping the edge of the thin veil. Never would I have thought something given by Alessio would be the thing to ground me from Lev’s intensity.
But here we are.
He’s staring at me like I’m a stranger. Like nothing will ever be the same again. Like everything changes with his look. Like the ground is shifting, propelling him forward, and yet, I can’t move.
“I know,” I break the terse silence with a grimace. “The dress is a bit much. I’d choose something slimmer.”
“Ty idealen.”
Even without understanding the translation, it makes me blush.
He crosses the room, stopping short. His hands lift but immediately drop. He glances at his fists, brows furrowed, and tries again, but he still doesn’t reach out to me.
“Touch me,” I whisper, tilting my face to catch his shadowy eyes. “I want you to.”
“I can’t,” he breathes “Look at you… I’ll break you.”
“You can’t break what’s yours.”
His eyes glint with something delicious and dangerous, like my words have snapped him from the invisible cell he’s locked himself within. He grasps my hips and hauls me against him, the buttons of his tux biting into my skin.
“How is it,” he starts, voice low, “that I can hate you in this dress and want to worship you all the same?”
“It’s just a dress.”
“No. It’s all you, Fina.” He strokes a hand around my side, sliding up my back and towards the end of my curls. “You’re fucking gorgeous. The fact you’re about to walk out there, looking like this, to him…” The hand fists, catching the ends of my hair in his grip.
“But thinking of you,” I remind him softly, touching his black tie. “You look handsome.”
He scowls. “I’d much rather be lounging with you, watching our shows.”
Our shows.
“Me too. This will be over soon.”
His next breath shudders, and he trails his hands up my side, fingers barely caressing. He reaches my back, comes around my shoulders, and stops to fiddle with the veil before his fingers link into my waves. He tilts my head up, controlling my every movement, my every breath.
“Second row, closest to the aisle. That’s where I’ll be. When you’re walking down the aisle, that’s where to find me.”
I would have found him no matter where he sat.
“Zeno—after he finishes walking you down the aisle—Vanessa, and Nero will be in the front row,” he adds. “Anastasia and I, along with Dimitri and Katya, claimed the second row behind them. Do you have everything you need?”
“Three knives, one on each thigh, one on my hip. Vanessa gave me the drugs. They’re in my bodice.”
His eyes dip to the crevice. “Don’t miss, Fina. I swear to fuck, if anything happens to you, I’ll slaughter him myself, consequences be damned.”
“I’ll be fine.” Hopefully, that’s the truth.
Our limited time remaining taunts me with the truth also swelling within me, right alongside that emotion I think I’ve known for a while. If, for any reason, tonight goes badly, he has to know.
“Lev—” I swallow, dabbing my bottom lip and reaching for his hands, for something to hold. “Lev, I have to admit something. Something you should know before the wedding begins. I lo—”
His hand presses against my mouth. He shakes his head, a touch of a smile gracing his frown. “Don’t say it. You can’t. If you do, you won’t leave this room. I’ll kidnap you, hide you, protect you from this. And we can’t do that to our families, so please don’t put this on me.”
“Maybe you should,” I whisper. “End this another way. Maybe I’ve been a hopeful idiot.”
“Believe me, I wish I had.” He grasps the side of my face and slashes his mouth against mine, tilting my head as he walks me backwards, hitting the wall. He pins my hands against the wall, limiting how much he touches while robbing me of the same ability.
He breaks away from my mouth and, with a playful wink, drops to his knees, lifting my dress and tossing the massive skirt over himself as he ducks beneath. I watch us in the mirror right before the room fades, the promise of pleasure shutting my eyes.
His touch trails up each thigh, where he checks the holsters. He dips between my thighs and lifts one over his shoulder before sliding aside the lace Alessio insisted I wear, sinking his tongue deep inside.
“Lev—” I bite the edge of my hand, ensuring my moan doesn’t carry out of this room. What we’re doing is unholy—according to the priest out there, anyway—but fuck, if his mouth isn’t taking me to Heaven.
“Watch us,” he orders. “Open your eyes and watch us in the mirror. Watch yourself come, Fina. This is what I want you to remember. This is your reason to return to me.”
As though I needed another. His tongue sinks back inside, and my eyes open to obey his command. The woman in the mirror looks happy, all things considered. Not because of the man whose ring she wears, but because of the one on his knees.
His tongue skirts around my clit once, twice, and pleasure uncoils inside me. It’s appropriate that the silk Alessio bought as part of my wedding attire will be wet after this, from actions by another man.
The pleasure, the heat, it keeps building and building until exploding and keeping my eyes open isn’t possible. Sanity isn’t possible as the orgasm bonds me to him in yet another way. Recalling where we are, I muffle my moan by biting my hand again.
When my lungs function once more, he ducks from beneath my skirt but stays on his knees, peering up at me. His lips are wet, and his tongue traces his bottom lip. “Fucking divine.”
I want him to fuck me, to ensure that when I walk toward him, it’s with another man’s cum dripping down my leg. A silent fuck you to Alessio for trying to rob me of this.
But the door opens, and Anastasia pokes her head in, hand clamped over her eyes. “Hey, um, please tell me it’s safe. You should know that Zeno looks seconds away from coming to collect you, so you two may wanna wrap this up.”
Lev gets to his feet and smooths my curls and fixes my skirt. He takes my hand—my right hand, the one without the ring—and presses his lips to my knuckles. “Until next time, printessa. Your lipstick is slightly smudged. I’ll get you something for it.”
“Leave it. Let him assume what he wants. I don’t care.”
“Two minutes,” Anastasia singsongs from the door, earning an acknowledging grunt from Lev as he crosses the room, only to stop in the doorway.
Gripping the edges of the door, he glances back. “That thing you started to tell me earlier… Me too, Fina. Me fucking too.”
Then, he leaves, and Anastasia’s glancing between us, but I’m stuck on the fact he admitted his feelings, something I know to be huge for Lev.
He loves me.
He said my love makes him want to save me.
His love makes it possible for me to leave this room.