Gunshots ripped through the private garden.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
Men fell.
White chairs shattered. Glass exploded. Blood sprayed across marble that had been meant for vows, not death.
I gasped, spinning toward the chaos—and my heart stopped.
Kieran.
Kieran.
He stood at the entrance like a storm given flesh, dressed in black, gun raised. His men flooded the grounds behind him, moving with terrifying precision, overtaking the guards in seconds.
Everything inside me broke at once.
Dante froze.
For the first time since I had met him, real horror flickered across his face. His eyes were wide, darting between the door and the woman he had tried to force into a life of misery.
"No," Dante hissed, his voice cracking. "Not like this."
He didn't surrender. Instead, he lunged backward, dragging me toward the private room behind the altar. Dante was a man of shadows; he never entered a house without knowing exactly how to disappear from it.
If he reached the hidden escape hatch behind the passcode-protected wall, we'd be gone before the smoke cleared.
"Let go of me!" I screamed, digging my heels into the marble.
"Shut up, Aurielle!" he snarled, throwing me toward the private room.
Outside, the chaos intensified. Dante's remaining loyalists were desperately throwing themselves in Kieran's path, buying their boss seconds to flee.
He slammed me against the wall, the impact knocking the air from my lungs. His hand flew to a hidden panel. Numbers lit up faintly as he entered the code.
"Almost," he muttered. "Just—"
He never got the chance.
The heavy door didn't just open—it burst off its hinges.
Kieran stood in the frame, his suit jacket gone, his white shirt stained with the dust of battle. In his hand was a Glock, leveled directly at Dante's heart. His eyes were ice, his expression a mask of cold, concentrated rage.
"Dante," Kieran's voice dropped, vibrating with a promise of death. "Let go of my wife."
I looked at Kieran, and despite the tears streaming down my face, I smiled. It was a broken, relieved thing. He was here. He had found me across oceans and borders.
But Dante held my wrist possessively, anchoring me to him.
Kieran's gaze softened for a fraction of a second when it landed on me, his eyes taking in the white lace of the wedding dress. When he looked back at Dante, that softness turned into a blade.
If he'd been one minute late, we would've finished those vows.
"Your time is up. My men are outside. They've dealt with your guards. You are outnumbered, outgunned, and out of luck."
Dante gave a hollow, desperate laugh, trying to regain some shred of his pride. "But cousin... I'm not even armed. Shooting an unarmed man? Isn't that cheating? We could always fight man to man, like we used to."
"I'm not here to play fair, Dante," Kieran whispered. "I'm here to take what belongs to me. Give me my wife before I decide that a bullet is the only way to make you listen."
Instead, a sadistic smirk played on his lips as he slid his arm around my waist, pulling me flush against him. He used me as a human shield.
"Go ahead, Kieran," Dante challenged, his voice dripping with venom. "Shoot. But we both know you aren't a good enough shot to hit me without putting a hole through our precious wife."
Kieran's jaw tightened, the muscle pulsing with a murderous rhythm. He was a predator who had been denied his kill. He wanted to pull the trigger—I could see it in the way his finger twitched—but the risk was too high.
"Man to man, then," Dante provoked, leaning down as if to mockingly peck my cheek.
Kieran's control snapped. With a roar of pure, unadulterated rage, he didn't just lower the gun—he threw it. It sailed through the open window, disappearing into the brush below where neither of them could reach it.
"I don't need a weapon to break you," Kieran snarled.
Dante finally released me, shoving me aside toward the corner of the room. I hit the wall, my hands flying to my mouth to stifle a scream. "Kieran, Dante—please, stop!" I sobbed, but the air was already thick with the sound of violence.
They collided like two freight trains.
Kieran led with a brutal left hook that connected with Dante's jaw, sending him stumbling back into the mahogany desk. Dante scrambled, using the momentum to tackle Kieran around the midsection, driving him back against the wall with a bone-deep thud.
"I'm going to kill you today!" Dante spat, blood blooming at the corner of his mouth. "You've taken everything! The title, the D'Angelo throne, the empire... and now her? You take every scrap that should have been mine!"
Kieran caught Dante's throat, his eyes flashing with icy contempt. "You always look at things that belong to others, Dante. Why don't you find your own life instead of trying to steal mine?"
"Dante….Kieran, please stop this madness." I cried, but they didn't listen.
Dante laughed, a jagged, broken sound, even as Kieran's fist slammed into his ribs. "Steal? You think I'm the thief? You're sitting on a throne built on lies, Kieran. Has Elias ever told you the truth? Or did he think you were too weak to handle it?"
Kieran paused, his fist pulled back for another strike. "What are you talking about?"
"You aren't the heir," Dante wheezed, pushing Kieran back and wiping the blood from his face. "You're an illegitimate mistake. You aren't even the firstborn of the D'Angelo bloodline."
Confusion flickered across Kieran's face, a moment of vulnerability that Dante seized.
"Go ask Elias," Dante sneered, circling Kieran like a vulture. "Ask him who your real mother was. You aren't the son of a queen, Kieran. You're the son of a maid—a common servant your father knocked up because his wife couldn't give him what he wanted."
Kieran stood frozen, the words hitting him harder than any physical blow.
"Elias had daughters," Dante continued, his voice rising in triumph as he saw Kieran's distraction. "He killed them because he deemed them 'useless.' He wanted a male heir so badly he took the bastard child of a maid and put a crown on its head. You took my position! You took my life!"
Before Kieran could process the truth, Dante lunged. He caught Kieran with a heavy blow to the temple, then another to the gut, the distraction of the secret giving Dante the upper hand. Kieran fell back, the world spinning as the foundations of his entire life crumbled in a single sentence.
Dante saw his opening.
Dante reached for a heavy, solid marble bust sitting on the edge of the shattered mahogany desk. He lifted it high, his muscles straining, his face twisted with the intent to crush Kieran's skull and end the D'Angelo legacy right there on the floor.
I couldn't just watch.
Moving on pure instinct, I lunged. My fingers wrapped around a heavy brass floor lamp that had been knocked over in the struggle. I didn't think. I didn't breathe. I swung it with every ounce of strength I had left.
CRACK.
The metal connected with the back of Dante's head.
The marble bust slipped from his fingers, thudding harmlessly onto the carpet. Dante stumbled, the impact vibrating through his frame. He didn't fall immediately. Instead, he slowly, painfully turned to face me.
I expected rage. I expected him to strike me.
But as our eyes met, my heart stuttered. There was no anger in his gaze—only a look of betrayal. It was the look of a man who realized the only person he had ever truly wanted had just chosen his greatest enemy over him.
He didn't move toward me. He just stared, his eyes glassy and hurt, until Kieran surged back to life.
The distraction was all Kieran needed. He scrambled to his feet, a primal roar escaping his throat. He delivered a brutal blow to Dante's midsection, followed by a flurry of strikes that sent Dante spiraling backward. Kieran was a machine now, fueled by the pain of the secrets and the adrenaline of the rescue.
Thud. Crack. Thud.
Dante fell against the wall, blood spray painting the expensive wallpaper. His suit was ruined, his face a mask of crimson, his breath coming in ragged, wet gasps. Kieran reached down, grabbing the heavy lamp I had dropped, his knuckles white. He raised it, his eyes dark with the intent to kill.
"Kieran, no! Stop!"
I threw myself in front of Dante, my arms spread wide. Kieran's arm froze in mid-air. The lamp hovered inches from my head.
"Move, Aurielle," Kieran hissed, his chest heaving. "He tried to take you. He tried to destroy us."
"That's enough!" I sobbed, my voice echoing in the small room. "I don't want any more death, Kieran. Please. If you kill him like this, you're no better than the man he described. Let's just go. Please... let's just leave."
I didn't know why I was doing it.
Maybe it was because they were both part of the same twisted, poisoned bloodline. Maybe, despite the horror he had put me through, I couldn't bear to see the light extinguished from Dante's eyes.
Or maybe—it was the dark, magnetic pull he still had over me. It felt disgusting to realize that even now, seeing him broken and bloodied, a part of me was still drawn to the psychopathic devil. I hated him for what he was, and I hated myself even more for the way my heart still stuttered when he looked at me.
Kieran stared at me, his icy blue eyes searching mine for what felt like an eternity.
Finally, he let out a breath and dropped the lamp.
He reached out, his bloody hand gripping mine with a possessive, iron force.
"We're leaving," Kieran muttered, his voice cold.
"Now."
He pulled me toward the door, his pace fast and uncompromising.
I stumbled along behind him, the lace of my ruined wedding dress catching on the debris.
But as we reached the threshold, I couldn't help it.
I turned my head.
Dante was slumped on the floor, clutching his chest, coughing up blood that stained his teeth red.
He looked broken, a fallen prince in a ruined kingdom.
But then, he lifted his head.
"Aurielle!" he choked out, the sound vibrating with a terrifying obsession.
We kept walking, moving down the hall toward the exit, but his voice followed us like a curse.
"You'll be mine!" Dante shouted, his voice cracking with pain and madness.
"Do you hear me? This isn't over! Kieran can have the empire! He can have the throne! I don't care about the bloodline!"
We reached the stairs, the sound of Kieran's men moving outside, but Dante's scream echoed through the entire mansion.
"I'm coming back for you, Aurielle! I will never let you be happy! I won't rest until you belong to me! I'll kill you and Kieran if I have to!"