Chapter 3 ✮⋆˙ 3 ˙⋆✮
I looked at myself in the mirror and saw a bride dressed for a funeral.
The dress was still white. The pearls still shimmered. My hair was still pinned beneath a veil someone else had chosen. Nothing had changed in the last sixty seconds, and somehow everything had.
The girl in the mirror was not walking toward a husband.
She was walking toward a cage.
No.
Not walking.
I pressed both hands against the vanity and stared at my reflection until the panic sharpened into something harder. Smaller. Usable.
I would rather die running than walk down that aisle.
The thought should have terrified me. It steadied me.
Outside the bridal suite, Nico’s men were spreading through the estate. Garden doors. Kitchen corridor. West exit. Front drive. He had named every obvious escape route because he had already studied my fear and decided where it would take me.
But he did not know everything.
He did not know I had spent the morning smiling at florists while counting doors. He did not know I had asked for water three times just to see which hallway the staff used. He did not know I had lingered near the powder room until a server pushed through a narrow panel beside a linen closet and vanished into the service wing.
Or maybe he did know, and I was already too late.
Another knock came from the sitting room.
“Ava?” Clara called. My cousin, my maid of honor, and the only person in this wedding party who had looked at me like she suspected the gown weighed more than fabric. “Are you okay?”
No.
The answer rose in my throat so fast I almost choked on it.
No, Clara. I am not okay. My father sold me. My fiancé wants my signature. My dead mother had secrets no one told me about, and men outside the door are waiting to make sure I become someone’s property before I can figure out why.
Instead, I said, “One minute.”
My voice sounded thin. Far away.
I dropped to my knees and gathered the contract pages with shaking hands. I did not have time to understand why Nico needed my name before he could touch whatever my mother had left behind.
I only had time to keep him from getting it.
I shoved the pages back into the folder, then looked around the room for something useful. Phone. Purse. Keys. Anything.
Nothing.
Of course nothing. A bride did not need keys. A bride did not need cash. A bride did not need a phone when everyone who wanted to control her was standing nearby.
My phone sat in the sitting room with my bridesmaids. Too far. Too many witnesses.
The side door was still there.
Thin. Painted cream. Almost invisible behind a spray of roses.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
From the hallway, my father’s voice drifted closer. He was returning.
I moved.
The dress fought me immediately. The skirt was too full, the lace too heavy, the train catching on the leg of a chair with a soft, hateful tug. I grabbed fistfuls of silk and yanked. Something tore.
Good.
Let it tear.
“Ava?” Clara called again.
I crossed the suite in a rush and reached the side door just as voices rose beyond the main one. My father. Marco. Another man I did not recognize.
I twisted the knob
For one horrifying second, it did not move.
Locked.
“No,” I whispered
I tried again harder. The old metal gave with a tiny click, and the door opened inward.
Cold air rushed over my face.
The service corridor beyond was narrow and dim, lined with gray walls, utility carts, and boxes of flowers. No guards.
Not yet.
I slipped through and closed the door behind me as quietly as I could.
The moment I was alone in the corridor, my body tried to betray me. My breath came too fast. My hands cramped around the dress. My knees shook so badly I had to press one shoulder against the wall.
Move.
I forced myself forward.
The corridor bent left, then right. Somewhere nearby, dishes clattered. Wedding staff moved through the hidden veins of the estate while the bride tried to disappear behind them.
I kept my head down.
If anyone saw me, maybe they would think I was being escorted somewhere. Maybe they would be too busy to question me.
I reached the linen closet and stopped.
This was where the server had vanished earlier.
Beside the shelves of folded tablecloths, the panel was cracked open.
Hope hit me so suddenly I almost sobbed.
I shoved through it and found a smaller passage, steeper and darker, with stone steps leading down. My heels struck too loudly, sharp little betrayals with every step.
Behind me, a door opened.
“Ava?”
My father.
I froze on the stair.
“Ava, where are you?”
For one second, the child in me wanted to answer. Then Marco shouted, “She’s gone.”
The child died.
I ran down the stairs.
My heel caught on the hem, and I slammed into the wall hard enough to bruise my shoulder. Pain flashed white. I bit it back and kept moving. The passage ended at another door, this one metal, with a push bar across the center.
I hit it with both hands.
It opened into a covered service court behind the estate.
Rain misted the air. Delivery vans lined the far wall. Staff moved near the kitchen entrance. Beyond them, an iron gate stood open to the side drive.
Open.
I almost laughed.
Then someone behind me shouted, “Bride!”
A guard stood at the top of the service steps, staring at the white train spilling behind me like evidence.
For one second, neither of us moved.
Then his hand went to his earpiece.
I grabbed the front of my skirt and ran.
“Ava Rosetti!” he shouted. “South service court!”
The staff scattered. A tray crashed. Someone screamed.
My shoes skidded on wet stone. I stumbled, caught myself on the side of a van, and looked toward the gate.
Two men were coming through it.
Black suits. Fast.
No.
I bent, grabbed one heel, and tore it off. Then the other. The stones were freezing beneath my bare feet, slick with rain and grit, but I could move.
Behind me, more voices rose.
“Stop her!”
“Miss Rosetti!”
“Ava!”
My name sounded different when they shouted it like a command.
I lifted my dress with both hands and ran straight through the open gate.
The side drive curved toward the front of the estate, where the chapel waited, where the cars waited, where Nico’s men waited.
I went the other way.
Past the hedges. Past the fountain. Across the wet grass, my veil tearing loose behind me.
The estate ended at a low stone wall and beyond it, the street.
For one heartbeat, I saw nothing but gray sky, wet pavement, and freedom too wide to trust.
Then alarms rose behind me.
Nico’s men were shouting my name.
I kicked free of the last trapped fold of silk, gathered the ruined dress in both hands, and ran straight into the street.
