The aisle stretched before Seraphina like a path to either salvation or damnation—she wasn't sure which.
Three hundred guests rose as the wedding march began, their faces turning toward her with expressions ranging from curiosity to shock to barely concealed horror. Word had spread quickly through London's elite: Damien Blackwood was marrying the daughter of the Kane murderer. The scandal of the century was unfolding in real time.
Seraphina kept her spine straight and her chin high as she walked alone down the white silk runner. No one to give her away—her father was dead, her mother had abandoned her years ago, and she wouldn't have wanted it any other way. She was walking into this marriage of her own choice, her own power.
The Devil's Heart ruby pulsed warm against her throat with each step, and she could feel the weight of centuries of Blackwood brides who had walked this path before her. The wedding dress whispered against the ground like silk secrets, and she moved with the fluid grace of a predator approaching its prey.
At the front row, she caught sight of them.
Lord Edmund Ashford sat rigid in his chair, his silver hair perfectly styled, his weathered face a mask of controlled fury. Beside him, Isabel Ashford watched with pale blue eyes that burned with naked hatred. The woman was beautiful in a cold, calculating way—blonde hair swept into an elegant chignon, wearing a navy dress that probably cost more than most people's cars.
They looked like the grieving family of murder victims. They looked like pillars of society, beyond reproach.
They looked like liars.
Seraphina's steps never faltered as she met Edmund's gaze directly. She saw the moment recognition flickered in his eyes—not just of her face, but of her father's defiance in her expression. The way she held her head, the steel in her spine, the promise of retribution in her slight smile.
She was Marcus Kane's daughter, and she had come home to collect a debt seventeen years in the making.
At the altar, Damien waited like a dark angel in his perfectly tailored morning coat. His pale gray eyes never left her face as she approached, and something in his expression made her breath catch. Not just possession or satisfaction, but something that looked dangerously like pride.
When she reached him, he extended his hand, and she placed her gloved fingers in his. His grip was warm, steady, anchoring her to this moment that would change everything.
"Beautiful," he murmured, his voice pitched low enough that only she could hear. "Absolutely stunning."
"I clean up well for a killer's daughter," she replied, equally quiet.
"You look like a queen preparing for war." His thumb traced across her knuckles. "Which is exactly what you are."
The officiating minister—an elderly man who had probably married half the aristocratic families in England—cleared his throat and began the traditional words. But Seraphina barely heard him. Her attention was focused on the man beside her, on the warm weight of his hand holding hers, on the subtle tension in his shoulders that told her he was tracking every person in the garden.
"Do you, Damien Alexander Blackwood," the minister intoned, "take Seraphina Kane to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, until death do you part?"
"I do." Damien's voice carried clearly across the garden, and there was something in those two simple words that made several guests shift uncomfortably. Not just agreement, but promise. Threat. Ownership.
"And do you, Seraphina Kane, take Damien Alexander Blackwood to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, until death do you part?"
This was it. The moment that would seal her fate, bind her to this dangerous man and his equally dangerous plans. The moment she stopped being a victim and became something else entirely.
"I do," she said, and her voice was steady as steel.
The minister smiled and began to speak about the rings, but his words were interrupted by a commotion near the back of the garden. Heads turned as a man in an ill-fitting suit pushed through the crowd, his face flushed with alcohol and desperation.
"Stop!" he shouted, stumbling toward the altar. "You can't marry her! She's cursed! Her whole family is cursed!"
Security moved immediately, but Damien held up a hand, stopping them. His expression was curious rather than concerned, as if he'd been expecting this interruption.
"James Whitfield," he said calmly, and several guests gasped in recognition. "How good of you to join us."
Seraphina's blood chilled. She knew that name. James Whitfield—the security guard who had been on duty the night of the Ashford murders. The man who had testified that he'd seen her father leaving the scene.
The man who had lied under oath and destroyed her father's life.
"You don't understand," Whitfield continued, swaying on his feet. "I have to tell the truth. I can't live with it anymore. Marcus Kane didn't kill the Ashfords. It was—"
"James." Edmund Ashford's voice cracked like a whip across the garden. "You're drunk. You don't know what you're saying."
"I know exactly what I'm saying!" Whitfield spun toward Edmund, his face twisted with guilt and fear. "I lied! I lied for you! Marcus Kane never left that house alive that night because you—"
The gunshot shattered the afternoon silence like breaking glass.
Whitfield crumpled to the ground, blood spreading across the white silk runner. Screams erupted from the crowd as people dove for cover, overturning chairs and trampling flowers in their panic to escape.
But Seraphina didn't move. Neither did Damien. They stood at the altar like twin statues, watching the chaos unfold with eerily calm expressions.
Through the pandemonium, she saw Edmund Ashford slip something back inside his jacket. His face was pale but determined, the look of a man who had just eliminated a threat to his carefully constructed lie.
"Well," Damien said conversationally, as if discussing the weather, "that was unexpected."
"Was it?" Seraphina asked, her eyes still on Edmund's retreating figure. "Or did you know he would be here?"
"I may have mentioned to certain parties that James Whitfield had been seen in London, asking questions about old cases." Damien's smile was sharp as a blade. "Amazing how guilt can eat away at a man's resolve."
"You used him."
"I gave him the opportunity to tell the truth. What he chose to do with that opportunity was entirely up to him." Damien squeezed her hand. "Though I must admit, I didn't expect Edmund to be quite so direct about silencing him."
The garden was emptying rapidly as guests fled the scene, but Edmund and Isabel Ashford remained seated in the front row, their faces masks of shocked innocence. Perfect performances of grieving family members horrified by this latest violence.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Damien's voice carried easily across the chaos, drawing every eye back to the altar. "Please, don't leave on our account. We've just witnessed a confession and its immediate retraction. James Whitfield was about to tell us that Marcus Kane was innocent of the Ashford murders. Unfortunately, someone felt compelled to silence him before he could finish."
Edmund stood slowly, his hand still inside his jacket. "That man was clearly deranged. Drunk and spouting nonsense about events he couldn't possibly remember clearly."
"Couldn't he?" Damien stepped forward, placing himself protectively in front of Seraphina. "James Whitfield was the security guard on duty that night seventeen years ago. He testified that he saw Marcus Kane leaving the Ashford estate. But what he was about to tell us was that he saw Marcus Kane entering the estate... in handcuffs."
A collective gasp rose from the remaining guests. Isabel Ashford's perfect composure cracked, just for a moment, before sliding back into place.
"You're mad," Edmund said, but his voice lacked conviction. "Marcus Kane murdered my family. The evidence—"
"The evidence was fabricated." Damien's voice carried the authority of absolute certainty. "Marcus Kane discovered that you were embezzling from the Ashford Foundation, using charity funds to cover your gambling debts. When your wife found out and threatened to expose you, you killed her and your children to prevent the scandal. Then you kidnapped Marcus Kane and forced him to help stage the scene before murdering him as well."
"Lies!" Edmund's hand emerged from his jacket, gripping a small pistol. "All lies!"
But his denial was lost in the sudden chaos as armed men emerged from positions throughout the garden. Not Damien's security—these were hard-faced strangers who moved with military precision, surrounding the remaining guests with weapons drawn.
"I'm afraid the time for lies is over, Lord Ashford," a new voice said from behind them.
Seraphina turned to see Detective Inspector Sarah Chen approaching, flanked by a dozen armed officers. The woman was in her forties, with intelligent dark eyes and the kind of quiet competence that came from years of dealing with London's worst criminals.
"Detective Inspector Chen," Damien said pleasantly. "So good of you to join us. I trust you received the evidence package I sent?"
"We did indeed, Mr. Blackwood. Along with a very interesting deathbed confession from Thomas Morrison—the man who helped Lord Ashford dispose of Marcus Kane's body." Chen's eyes fixed on Edmund with laser intensity. "Lord Edmund Ashford, you are under arrest for the murders of Caroline Ashford, Michael Ashford, Sarah Ashford, and Marcus Kane."
"This is preposterous!" Edmund raised his pistol, but before he could aim it, Isabel moved.
"Father, no!" She lunged forward, grabbing his wrist just as the gun fired. The bullet went wide, shattering a stone cherub in the garden fountain.
The police swarmed them immediately. Edmund was on the ground in seconds, the pistol kicked away, his hands being cuffed behind his back. Isabel knelt beside him, tears streaming down her perfect face—though whether from grief or relief, Seraphina couldn't tell.
"You have the right to remain silent," Chen continued, her voice carrying clearly across the garden. "Anything you say may be given in evidence..."
As the arrest played out, Damien turned back to the minister, who stood frozen beside the altar, his prayer book clutched to his chest like a shield.
"I believe we were in the middle of something," Damien said calmly. "The rings?"
"The... the rings?" The minister's voice cracked. "But there's been a murder! An arrest! Surely we should—"
"We should finish what we started." Damien's tone brooked no argument. "My bride and I have waited quite long enough to be married."
Seraphina stared at him, her mind reeling. Around them, police were processing a crime scene, her father's killer was being dragged away in handcuffs, and blood was seeping into the white silk aisle runner.
And Damien wanted to finish the wedding ceremony.
"Are you insane?" she whispered.
"Probably." His smile was sharp and beautiful and completely unhinged. "Does that frighten you?"
It should have. She should have been running, should have been horrified by the violence, by his casual manipulation of events, by the fact that he'd turned their wedding into a trap for murderers.
Instead, she felt something dark and satisfying unfurl in her chest. Her father's name had been cleared. His killer was in handcuffs. Justice had been served with blood and witnesses.
And she was about to marry the man who had orchestrated it all.
"No," she said, surprising them both. "It doesn't frighten me at all."
Damien's eyes flared with something that might have been desire, might have been admiration, might have been love. "That's my girl," he murmured, and slipped a platinum band onto her finger. The ring was simple, elegant, and inscribed with words in Latin that she couldn't read but somehow understood: *Until death and beyond.*
She took his ring—heavier, more ornate, bearing the Blackwood family crest—and slid it onto his finger with steady hands.
"By the power vested in me," the minister said shakily, "I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may... you may kiss the bride."
Damien's hands framed her face as he leaned down, and for a moment, the chaos around them faded to nothing. There was only him, only the warmth of his skin against hers, only the promise in his pale gray eyes.
"Mrs. Blackwood," he murmured against her lips.
"Mr. Blackwood," she replied, and then his mouth was on hers, claiming her with a kiss that tasted like victory and vengeance and something that might have been forever.
When they broke apart, both breathing hard, the garden had gone silent except for the distant sound of police cars and Edmund Ashford's shouted protests as he was loaded into a van.
"Well," Seraphina said, her voice remarkably steady considering her world had just shifted on its axis. "That was quite a wedding."
"Just wait until you see what I have planned for the honeymoon," Damien replied, his smile promising things that were probably illegal in several countries.
And as they walked back down the aisle—now stained with blood and scattered with broken flowers—Seraphina realized that for the first time in seventeen years, she was exactly where she belonged.
In the arms of the devil who had just given her everything she'd ever wanted: justice, protection, and a love forged in darkness that burned brighter than any light.