Harrison waits for me at the entrance to the aisle.
He looks different. The gray is still there, the weight loss, the lines that guilt carved into his face over the past months. But his suit is pressed. His tie is straight. His shoes are polished and his hands are steady at his sides and when he sees me his chin drops and his eyes fill and he presses his lips together so hard the color leaves them.
Forgiving my father is a choice I make every morning. Some days it's easier than others. He swore to me he never touched the women. Never purchased them and never participated beyond sitting in those rooms and watching. And as disgusting as that is, I went through his financial records myself. Every account. Every transaction. I couldn't find a single payment to Lorenzo or anyone connected to the Society for the purchase of another human being. Knowing what was happening and doing nothing is still an offense, and he knows it. He's cooperating with theGenesis men now, handing over names, dates, locations of every event he attended. When I asked why they weren't taking it to the feds, Harlon's answer was simple. The men and women of Society 69 will fall by their hand. Blood in blood out.
I can live with that.
"Sloane." My name comes out broken from my father’s mouth. He clears his throat and tries again. "You look like your mother."
My chest tightens. I haven't heard him mention my mother in years. The comparison hits a place I wasn't guarding and I feel the moisture press against my lashes before I can stop it.
"Don't make me cry. This eyeliner took twenty minutes."
He offers his arm. I look at it. His sleeve, his hand, the wrist where his watch sits, the fingers that signed a contract that traded me for his ambition.
I take his arm.
His voice cracks. “I’m honored and I will spend the rest of my life earning your trust again.”
"You're here, Dad," I say quietly, lacing my hand through the crook of his elbow. "That's enough for now."
He nods. Swallows. His arm tightens against mine and we walk.
The aisle is short. Thirty steps, maybe. But each one carries the weight of every moment that led me here. Step one, the birthday cupcake. Step two, the wrong number. Step three, the wish room with its red velvet and Massimo's voice behind me. Step ten, the contract on my kitchen counter. Step fifteen, the guards bleeding in the parking lot. Step twenty, the restaurant where the truth detonated. Step twenty-five, the concrete floor where I stoodover Lorenzo with steady hands. Step thirty, where Massimo and I discovered the strength of love.
I look up to find Massimo standing at the end of the aisle.
The collar of his white shirt is open at the throat, exposing the base of the viper tattoo that curls up his neck. His dark hair is pushed back from his forehead. His loving gaze finds mine and doesn't let go.
He's not moving. He's not smiling. He's not doing any of the things grooms do in movies where they grin and fidget and tear up on cue. He's standing perfectly still with his hands at his sides and his chest rising and falling with breaths that are too deep and too controlled, and the expression on his face is one I've never seen before.
It's the expression of a man who has spent his entire life finding the right words for every situation and has finally encountered a moment where language doesn't exist.
Massimo Santoro, the Syndicate's legal counsel, the man who can dismantle a contract with a sentence and reassemble it with a comma, is standing at the end of an aisle with his mouth slightly open and absolutely nothing coming out of it.
I almost laugh. Almost. But the look on his face steals the sound from my throat because it's not funny. It's the most serious his face has ever been and the most vulnerable and the most beautiful and I grip my father's arm tighter because my knees are doing something unreliable.
Harrison places my hand in Massimo's. The transfer is gentle, deliberate, the gesture of a man handing over something precious that he knows he failed to protect. Massimo's fingers close around mine and they're trembling. His fingers.Trembling. I’ve never known the man to tremble, but today is the first for many things.
"Hi, stranger," I whisper with a smile. “Ready to make this legit?”
He swallows. His jaw works. His eyes glisten.
"Now and always." His words carry the weight of all the love I see glimmering in his eyes.
The ceremony is a blur of words I'll remember later when I'm lying in his arms replaying the evening in my head the way I replay everything.
Kon stands behind Massimo, silent and massive, his dark hair tied back, his expression carrying the closest thing to softness I've ever seen on his face. His eyes find Onyx across the aisle and hold. She meets his gaze without turning her head, just her eyes shifting to his, and I watch something pass between them that doesn't need hands or words or proximity.
Rafael watches from the front row with Persia tucked against his side. Drake fills a chair and a half with his arm around Katriana. Luca catches my eye during the vows and winks, the gold flecks in his eyes catching the setting sun, and I almost lose it because the wink sayswelcome to the familylouder than any speech.
Rowan stands near the back, quiet, observant, his expression unreadable but present. He's a mystery I bet Onyx is dying to unravel. He thinks I don't notice, but his attention isn't on the wedding. It's on a red envelope I watched him tuck into his breast pocket twenty minutes ago. His fingers keep drifting to it the way Massimo's drift to his viper tattoo when his thoughts go somewhere he doesn't want to follow. Whatever wish is writteninside that envelope has Rowan Volkov's ice blue eyes looking at something the rest of us can't see.
Samuel leans against the rooftop railing in a dark suit, his broad shoulders outlined against the skyline. He watches the ceremony with careful stillness, comfortable at the edges and dangerous everywhere else.
Julian Mercer sits three rows back with a bourbon in one hand and a look on his face that might be happiness or might be calculation. Knowing Julian, it's both.
The sun drops below the skyline during the kiss. Massimo cups my face in both hands and presses his mouth to mine and the rooftop erupts in cheers and whistles and what I'm fairly certain is Drake's voice yelling something inappropriate that makes Katriana smack his arm. I smile against Massimo's lips and he smiles against mine. For one perfect second the two of us stand grinning into our kiss while the sky turns gold and the city is a sea of lights beneath us.