Page 1 of Ruthless Claim

1

VALENTINA

The cathedral smells like incense and the slow, dignified death of everything I ever wanted my life to look like.

I’m standing in the vestibule in eleven thousand dollars worth of Vera Wang silk, holding a bouquet of white peonies that I chose myself because if I’m going to be executed I’m at least going to have nice flowers.

The organ plays something appropriately solemn beyond the closed doors.

I cannot do this.

I have to do this.

I genuinely cannot do this.

This has been my internal monologue ever since I opened that letter that spelled out my doom.

Leo is standing beside me in a fitted Armani tuxedo, and he is trying very hard not to look at me like I’m walking to my own execution, which is thoughtful of him and also not working at all.

He keeps looking at me in these sideways glances like he’s checking to see if I’m bolting yet, which I notice every time and choose not to acknowledge.

Because if I acknowledge it I’m going to have to talk about it, and if I talk about it I’m going to have to feel it, and I don’t have time to feel it right now.

I need to get through the next four hours first. Then I can feel things.

I adjust the sweep of my veil with fingers that are steady because I have spent twenty-six years making sure my hands are always steady. I look at the closed cathedral doors, and I breathe.

The dress is perfect. I know this because I have the kind of self-awareness that other people mistake for vanity.

But it’s not vanity, it’s inventory.

My dark brown hair has been pinned at the sides by an artist and left to fall past my shoulders in waves, my makeup is the result of forty minutes of work specifically engineered to look effortless, and the dress fits my figure perfectly.

I know I look gorgeous, and I have no problem admitting it because false modesty wastes everyone’s time. I look exactly like a Santoro bride should look on her wedding day.

I just happen to be marrying the wrong fucking man.

I had dreams about this when I was a child.

The dress, the cathedral, the flowers. A man at the end of the aisle who was looking at me like I was the only thing in the room worth looking at.

Funny how that part didn’t make it into the final version.

“You look beautiful,” Leo says quietly, and I can hear everything he isn’t saying underneath it. The apology. The guilt of “I’m sorry, Val, I didn’t know it would come to this. I would have stopped it if I could.” And maybe that’s even true. I don’t know anymore.

“I know,” I say, because it’s true and because saying thank you feels too soft for today. Leo’s mouth almost twitches like he wants to smile then thinks better of it.

The doors open.

Three hundred people turn to look at me, which is a thing I am entirely accustomed to and normally enjoy.

Right now I feel like an animal being walked into an auction ring. But I lift my chin, find my smile, and I take the first step because that is what Santoro women do.

We don’t flinch.

We don’t show weakness.

We don’t let anyone see us bleed, even when we’re bleeding.