Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
It must be Esmerelda’s grave. It’s a beautiful spot.
A gust of wind has me shivering.
When Father Emiliano pulls the door open, the scent of incense permeates my senses, and we enter. Inside is a little warmer with the fire in the grate beneath the altar. I stand in the middle of the aisle, my feet seeming rooted to the spot, heart racing, hands clammy. Silas slips the jacket off my shoulders and drops it onto a pew. Candles burn a warm glow along the altar and all around the stone walls, and a recording of devotional organ music plays in the background.
I realize I’m wrong as I watch Lourdes help Father Emiliano into a decorative red and white robe trimmed with gold thread. I realize that this is happening. It is real. Very real.
I am marrying him.
Cool sweat breaks out over my forehead.
I am marrying Silas Cruz.
At the thought, I feel him at my back and when he leans down, his breath is warm against my neck.
“Still think it’s not real, sweetheart?” he asks, sending a shiver down my spine.
6
SILAS
Ophelia shudders at my words. She takes a step away, then turns, looks up at me and, panic in her wide eyes, runs.
I catch her arm, tug her to me. Her breath is ragged, and her pulse throbs at her throat. I can almost hear the blood pounding against her ears. She opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.
Never taking my eyes from Ophelia, I motion over her head to Lourdes and Father Emiliano. They make some excuse about having forgotten something at the cabin and hurry out, leaving us alone in the chapel.
“Tell me.” I lean my face closer to hers. “Is it still not real?”
She sets her hands flat against my chest as she tries to free herself. “Let me go.”
I can’t because the game has changed. The stakes have grown significantly higher. Nigella’s call was to tell me that Hart was attacked in prison last night.
I consider how much to tell Ophelia, how to tell her that an inmate stabbed her father in the gut with a shiv. According to Nigella’s sources, the wound would have been painful, but not deadly.
It was a message.
Hart is recovering at a hospital in Boston now and will remain there for at least the next few days.
I had thought I’d tell Ophelia once this is done and she’s safely my wife and out of harm’s reach. She’ll want to see her father, which I understand, but I have to prioritize now, and Hart can wait.
“Silas, let me go.”
I search her eyes and what I see is a woman cornered, a woman out of options.
Sly, Ethan, and even her own father have done this to her. What about me? Do I not rank among those men who have manipulated her to their own ends? In some way, if I’m honest, she is a pawn to me as much as she is to them. Yes, what I am doing I am doing to protect her from them. But what about me? Will I truly be able to let her go if she does want out when this is done?
I drop my hands and step around Ophelia to go to the altar. I stop before it, the fire crackling, flames casting shadows, the small windows barely letting in light. This place, there’s a feel to it, an almost tangible scent that belongs to it and a deep and complete silence between these stone walls that seem to permeate every pore of my body. I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. I don’t believe in any god. But there is an undeniable presence here.
A golden crucifix stands at the center of the altar. It’s been here forever. The son of God who sacrificed himself to save the very human beings who crucified him, who never wanted to be saved. I remember what Ophelia said to me the night I thought—the night I believed—things had changed between us. The night that was supposed to be a beginning for us.
She told me I was always rescuing her.
I told her she always needed rescuing.
She’s never asked to be rescued though. Never asked for me to save her. I need to be honest with her. That piece of paper she wanted me to sign last night, that’s not going to work. The marriage will need to be consummated. It needs to be real to keep her safe. If I’m not honest about that part, at least, then I am no better than any of the other men in her life.
I run my fingers along the cool stone of the altar before turning back to Ophelia. She is standing where I left her, in the middle of the aisle, in her borrowed wedding dress, her hair wild, looking like a deer caught in the headlights of a fucking bulldozer.