Chapter 7
LORETTA
The following day arrived like a sentence being carried out by an unseen judge.
I stood at the altar in a heavy silk wedding gown that whispered against my skin every time I breathed.
It wasn’t a dress meant for comfort; it was meant to be seen, even if I couldn’t see it myself.
The church swallowed sound.
No organ music. No soft murmur of guests. No gentle rustle of celebration.
Just hollow silence stretching through high ceilings, broken only by the faintest creak of old wood as if the building itself was settling into discomfort.
I knew the priest was there because his voice kept drifting through the space.
Ramiro had brought me here.
Now I stood at the altar, waiting for the moment Rafael and I would exchange rings.
He was already beside me. I knew it from the faint scent of cedarwood and leather and the quiet awareness of his presence.
While others relied on sight, I relied on sound, scent, and proximity.
This wasn’t a wedding.
It was a contract being sanctified beneath a church roof.
A transaction dressed in ceremony.
The priest spoke a series of solemn, ritualistic words, welcoming the witnesses gathered before God and affirming the sacred covenant of marriage.
He spoke of commitment, fidelity, and the lifelong bond that would unite two people as husband and wife.
Then came the question I had been dreading.
“Loretta Orsini, do you take Rafael Pérez to be your lawful husband? Do you promise to love him, honor him, and remain faithful to him in times of abundance and hardship, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?”
My heart nearly stopped.
For as long as you both shall live?
What the hell?
For one terrifying second, the word ‘no’ hovered on the tip of my tongue.
Then I remembered Zara.
“...Yes,” I heard myself say.
The answer came out far too quickly.
Not because I wanted this marriage.
But because some rituals demanded sacrifice.
The priest turned to Rafael.
“And do you, Rafael Pérez, take Loretta Orsini to be your lawful wife, to love and cherish her, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?”
A beat of silence followed.
Then Rafael answered.
“Yes.”
The word was immediate.
As though he had been waiting for the question.
As though there had never been another possible answer.
The priest continued with the ceremony.
“May we have the rings.”
A faint rustle followed as the rings were brought forward.
“Wedding rings are a symbol of eternal love and unbroken commitment,” the priest said. “A circle with no beginning and no end, just as the vows you make today.”
I nearly laughed at the irony.
The priest guided us through the exchange.
“Rafael, place the ring on Loretta’s finger.”
A large hand closed gently around mine.
My breath caught.
His touch was firm and deliberate as he slid the ring onto my finger.
The ring was heavier than I expected, or maybe it only felt that way because I knew what it meant.
I flexed my hand once instinctively, already aware that it wasn’t something I could take off easily—not legally, not socially, not safely.
Then the priest turned to me.
“Loretta, place the ring on Rafael’s finger.”
Someone guided my hand toward his.
I felt the rough warmth of his skin before my fingers found the ring.
Slowly, I slid it onto his finger.
And just like that, the final lock clicked into place.
The priest allowed a moment to pass before continuing.
“Having witnessed their vows before God and the congregation, and by the authority vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife.”
The words hit me harder than I expected.
Husband and wife.
The title settled over us with terrifying permanence.
Just like that, it was done.
Loretta Orsini was gone.
I was now Loretta Pérez.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to present to you for the first time, Mr. and Mrs. Rafael Pérez.”
A brief pause followed.
“May God bless this union and guide you both in the years ahead.”
The guests began to clap.
The sound filled the chapel, surrounding me from every direction.
The ceremony was over.
There would be no second thoughts.
No taking it back.
I was married.
“Congratulations, Rafael,” Ramiro said from somewhere behind me.
His tone was respectful, but there was something guarded beneath it—like even he understood the weight of what had just been sealed.
“Congratulations, brother,” Bruno added, voice drifting with detached amusement. “Didn’t think I’d live to see you chain yourself again.”
A faint pause followed.
Then Rafael replied.
“Thanks.”
Only that.
No laughter. No celebration. Just a single word placed carefully into the air and left there to mean whatever it meant.
His large, warm hand settled at my waist.
The contact burned through silk and straight into awareness.
I stiffened immediately, my breath catching before I could stop it. For a split second, I considered pulling away, but I knew better.
His grip wasn’t rough. It was controlled.
“Come,” he said simply.
Just one word. A command softened into something that almost passed for guidance.
Still, I followed him without hesitation.
He guided me down the aisle, his hand steady at my side as if he had already decided the pace of my body.
My steps faltered slightly in the heels, each uneven contact with the floor a quiet betrayal of my composure, but he did not loosen his hold.
The church doors opened ahead of us, and the air shifted instantly—cooler, cleaner, stripped of the heavy incense and enclosed silence that had pressed in on my lungs.
Outside, the world expanded in a single breath, vast and bright.
Rafael helped me into the car, his hand briefly steadying my arm before I sank into the seat.
The leather was smooth beneath me, unfamiliar luxury pressing against the reality of everything I had agreed to without fully understanding how far it would reach.
The car door shut with a heavy click that landed too final.
I turned my head slightly, searching for any sense of direction, as if instinct alone might map the space around me, but there was nothing to anchor to except him—his presence, close and unavoidable.
Then the engine started, breaking the silence in a low, controlled growl that made the enclosed space feel even smaller.
The vibration hummed through the seat, through my bones.
The silence that followed pressed in from all sides.
I could hear him beside me—Rafael. The steady, controlled rhythm of his breathing.
The faint, almost imperceptible shift of his hands on the steering wheel as if even that small motion was calculated.
He was contained in a way that made my skin feel too tight.
I stayed still, fingers curled tightly into the folds of my wedding gown.
I wondered why he had not said a single word to me.
The silence between us did not feel accidental—it felt deliberate, as if even sound had to be permitted in his presence.
All I could think about was Tess. The image of her lingered behind my thoughts like a wound that refused to close.
Would I see her when we reached his apartment?
Since yesterday, since he had taken Tess away from me at the office, something in me had not settled back into place.
I moved through moments without fully arriving in them—eating without tasting, breathing without noticing, existing in a strange, suspended state where my mind kept drifting back to her absence.
The car continued to move for a long while, the city slipping past in blurred fragments outside the window, and I began to wonder—quietly, unwillingly—if this marriage would always feel like this.
A burning silence.
Time stretched in a way I couldn’t measure.
Nearly an hour passed before the vehicle finally slowed.
Then stopped.
Gravel crunched sharply beneath the tires.
The sound alone told me everything I needed to know about where we were not.
No pavement.
No distant horns or restless traffic bleeding through the air.
No familiar pulse of a city pretending to sleep.
Just stillness.
Heavy, uninterrupted stillness that made my awareness sharpen as the car idled, as if the world itself had stepped back.
“Step out of the car,” Rafael said.
His voice was dangerous in its restraint.
Cold enough to make obedience feel like instinct rather than choice.
The door opened on his side first.
I heard him step out.
I hesitated only a second longer before reaching for my own door. The air that met me when I stepped out was different immediately.
Dry and heavy in a way that had nothing to do with weather.
My shoes sank slightly into uneven ground, gravel shifting beneath my weight.
The hem of my wedding gown dragged along with me, collecting dust and grit, the fabric no longer something elegant but something burdened.
My breath slowed without permission.
My head tilted slightly as if sight might return through sheer will alone—an old, useless habit I never quite managed to abandon.
“Where are we?” I asked quietly.
I turned my face, searching without seeing.
My senses stretched outward—sound, scent, anything to anchor me. But there was nothing familiar.
Only dry earth beneath my feet and something faintly metallic and old in the air, like time itself had settled here and refused to move on.
“A cemetery,” Rafael answered.
The word didn’t register at first.
Then it did.
My stomach dropped so sharply I had to steady myself against nothing.
“A... cemetery?” I repeated, slower this time, as though the syllables might change if I gave them space.
He didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, I heard his footsteps move—right side of me, slow and deliberate, closing distance not in haste but in intention.
Then he spoke again.
“Right here,” he said, voice lower now, stripped of its earlier sharpness and replaced with something heavier, “is where I buried Zara.”
My breath caught.
Zara.
His late wife.
The silence around us seemed to deepen further, as if even the wind had paused to listen.
He continued anyway.