Page 12 of The Scars We Keep
An usher breaks formation to speak with Arturo.People glance back at the arch again, and again.
A few heads turn my way.Suspicion.Accusation.Pure desperation.
I just smirk, let them wonder what the hell’s going on.
And then—the music stops.Cuts off mid-note, like someone slashed the throat of the quartet with a piano wire.
Chairs squeak.Someone coughs.A baby emits a single, confused wail before its mother hushes it.
The soldiers at the back adjust their stance, prepared for orders.
Arturo rises halfway out of his seat, then pauses, hovering as if moving will make this real.
Gasps spill from the front row.Panic builds like a storm front.Mothers clutch pearls.Someone stands up.Someone else curses under their breath.
And that’s when it hits them.
The bride’s gone and nobody knows what the fuck to do.
Seconds drain away, stretching the silence until it feels suffocating.
People fidget and whisper.
Someone clears their throat.
The soldier at the door shifts his weight, hand brushing the holster at his side.
And then—
Arturo’s daughter appears.
In the damn doorway, framed in the warm light spilling through the glass window.Backlit like a fucking omen.
She’s not wearing white.
She’s wearing black.
Funeral black.Vengeance black.A dress made of silk and rebellion, cut to the bone with a neckline that says “fuck your purity.”Every inch of it screams that centuries of expectation can go to fucking hell.
Her hair is loose.Her spine is steel.And there is an intake of air as if the room stops breathing.
I hear someone in the third row whisper, “She’s wearing black.”
No shit.
The room freezes.
My cock stirs.
Because fuck me, she’s magnificent.
There’s panic on some of the older faces, the kind who care about tradition, reputation, and Serrano family optics.Someone mutters that this is disrespectful.Another says it’s disgraceful.Arturo’s jaw tightens.Fury flickers behind his cold stare, held back only by decades of control.
And Isabella Serrano stands there as if this whole bloodstained circus was made for her.
She owns it.In every pair of eyes that can’t stop staring.Every breath caught in their throats.
The music starts up again.
