Two days to the wedding.
And Elena couldn't shake the feeling that something was already dying.
Not hope. Not love.
But the part of her that had once believed this could be simple. That protection and power could somehow coexist in peace.
The estate was in lockdown.
Every hallway patrolled. Every entrance doubled in security. Lucian had Matteo's team rotated every six hours—no patterns, no predictability.
And still, the air felt fractured.
Elena sat at the vanity in Lucian's suite, her reflection oddly still. Her hair was up, twisted into a knot that Rosa insisted would hold through the ceremony.
But there was no ceremony today.
Only the rehearsal.
Only the preparation for a day that might never come.
--
Lucian watched her from the doorway.
"You don't have to do this," he said quietly.
She met his gaze in the mirror. "What, marry you?"
His lips quirked, but it wasn't amusement. "Stand in the open. Be a symbol. Invite her rage."
"I'm not inviting it," she said. "I'm matching it."
Lucian crossed the room and rested his hands on her shoulders, his thumbs brushing the base of her neck.
"Elena."
"I want her to see me," she said. "I want her to know I'm not hiding anymore."
"She already knows that."
"Then let's make it hurt."
--
The rehearsal was small.
No music. No guests. Just Lucian, Rosa, Matteo—limping but alive—and the officiant Lucian trusted enough to stake his life on.
They walked the route from the house to the garden three times.
The aisle stretched through a corridor of white roses, guarded on both sides by men with discreet weapons and sharper eyes.
Each step felt heavier than the last.
Like walking through a memory that hadn't happened yet.
--
That night, Elena found Lucian in the garden.
He stood near the rose trellis, a cigarette burning between his fingers, untouched.
"I didn't know you smoked."
"I don't," he said. "I just needed something to burn."
She stepped beside him. "You think she'll strike during the wedding?"
"I think she's smart enough not to. But desperate enough to try anyway."
"Then we're ready."
He looked at her then, and for a moment, the mask slipped.
Not the Moretti mask. The man beneath it.
"You should've had a different life."
"I don't want a different one," Elena said. "I want this one—if it's real."
Lucian's voice cracked. "It is."
And then, quietly, like a man making peace with a war: "I won't let her take it from you."
--
The next morning, the final guest list arrived.
Only fifty.
All vetted. All controlled.
All loyal.
Except one name no one recognized.
Lucian's men flagged it immediately.
"Sara K. Mikhailova."
No organization. No return address.
Just a name.
And an RSVP marked yes.
Elena's heart dropped.
"Mikhailova," she said. "That's Russian."
"It's her," Lucian said. "A test."
"What do we do?"
He didn't answer immediately.
Then: "We let her come."
--
The day before the wedding, the sky cracked open and poured.
Thunder echoed through the estate like artillery. The rose garden turned to wet silk and splintered petals.
And still, Elena stood in the storm, arms outstretched, hair drenched.
Lucian watched from the doorway, jaw tight.
She was testing something.
Herself. Her body. Her fear.
When she finally returned inside, she was shaking—but not from cold.
"She'll come dressed as someone else," Elena said, wrapping herself in a towel.
Lucian nodded. "She'll blend."
"Then I'll know her."
"How?"
"I've seen what she looks like when she thinks she's the only one holding the blade."
--
That night, Rosa gave Elena a gift.
Not something borrowed. Not something blue.
But a bracelet.
Steel. Thin. Lined with faint etching in Cyrillic.
"I had it made from your mother's earring," Rosa whispered. "The one Nadya sent."
Elena's breath caught. "Why?"
"Because you don't wear a warning. You wear a reminder."
Elena touched the cool metal. "Of what?"
"That her blood isn't stronger than your spirit."
She wore it to bed.
And dreamed of fire.
--
Lucian didn't sleep.
He sat at the window, gun on the table, rain blurring the glass.
He watched her chest rise and fall, slow and steady.
And he knew—no matter how many men he placed on the roof, how many locks he reinforced—he couldn't stop what was coming.
Only she could.