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.
