Chapter 1 - ELEVEN SECONDS AFTER THE MUSIC STOPPED
Tommy had already reached the eastern windows when he saw the bullet hole.
He did not shout. He touched two fingers to his earpiece, said something Vivien could not hear, and turned toward the crowd with an expression that made three nearby men stop pretending a vase had merely fallen. The saxophonist stood with his instrument suspended against his stomach. At the nearest table, a woman in emerald satin kept asking why there was water on her shoes.
Edmund held Vivien against the pillar. His gun was low, his voice lower. “Do not look toward the window again.”
“Someone fired at you.”
“I noticed.”
“You’re welcome.”
His gaze flicked to her face. Under other circumstances, the exchange might have drawn that almost-smile she had seen earlier. Now his expression was all calculation. “Can you walk?”
“Unless the wedding shoes have finally murdered my feet.”
“Good. Keep your head down.”
Tommy crossed the floor toward them, moving through guests who were beginning to understand that something terrible had happened. A security man tried to direct people away from the shattered vase, only to discover that half the room wanted to rush toward the doors while the other half had frozen in place.
“East roof,” Tommy said when he reached the pillar. “We have men going over. No confirmed position.”
Edmund looked at the window. “No second shot?”
“Not yet.”
“Get civilians away from the glass. Quietly.”
Tommy glanced at Vivien. “She see the light?”
“She saved my life,” Edmund said.
There was no ceremony in the statement. That made it more startling. Vivien, who had spent the afternoon being treated like part of a business exchange, stared at her husband for a heartbeat longer than the situation allowed.
Then another crash erupted near the musicians.
A waiter had dropped a tray. That was all. Still, the sound was enough to turn restrained concern into a stampede. People shoved toward the main entrance. Someone screamed that there was a second gunman. A man in a gray tuxedo drew a weapon until Tommy slammed his wrist downward and ordered him to put it away.
Edmund pushed Vivien behind him. “Service corridor.”
The nearest guard opened a narrow side door. They entered a passage smelling of furniture polish and old stone. Vivien's skirts caught on the frame. Edmund turned and pulled the fabric free, one hand oddly careful among all the violence surrounding them.
“Don't rip it,” she said automatically.
“You hate that dress.”
“I hate paying for it twice.”
He looked at her, and this time the almost-smile appeared, quick and disbelieving. Then it was gone.
The corridor led behind the former cathedral sacristy to a private exit. Edmund was halfway to the stairwell when his phone vibrated. He glanced at the screen. The change in his face was slight, but Vivien saw it.
“What's wrong?”
“Nothing you need to carry.”
“I just carried your life for half a dance. Try again.”
He showed her the message.
A photograph of their wedding cake had been sent from an unknown number. One white sugar rose had been circled in red. Beneath the image was a single line.
THE FIRST SHOT WAS A COURTESY.
Vivien stared until the letters blurred. “They want you frightened.”
“They want us moving.”
“Us?”
Edmund looked toward the stairs. “We're married now. Whatever this is, somebody arranged the timing.”
“Then perhaps somebody should have checked the guest list more carefully.”
“We did.”
“Apparently not well enough.”
They reached the lower landing. Two men in dark suits were waiting beside the service exit, but one held his radio with the antenna bent toward his body. Tommy had told security to use the private channel; the man was speaking into another frequency. Vivien noticed because her father had spent enough evenings explaining betting signals to teach her that people often revealed more through what they concealed than what they said.
“That guard,” she murmured.
Edmund did not turn his head. “Which?”
“Left side. His radio.”
Edmund slowed. “Stay behind me.”
The man on the left reached inside his jacket.
Edmund shoved Vivien into the recessed alcove beside an old stone baptismal font. Tommy, arriving behind them, grabbed the man's wrist before it cleared the fabric. A small black device fell to the floor. It wasn't a weapon. It was a remote switch with an adhesive label from the venue's lighting contractor.
The other guard ran.
Tommy swore and sent two men after him. Edmund pinned the first against the wall.
“Name.”
“Brenner.”
“Who paid you?”
Brenner looked past him toward Vivien. His face changed. “The bride wasn't supposed to see it.”
Vivien felt a coldness spread across her shoulders. “See what?”
The guard swallowed. “The dot.”
“Wasn't supposed to?” Edmund repeated.
Before Brenner could answer, a harsh electronic chirping echoed from the next room. The old fire doors slammed on their hydraulic closers. Somewhere overhead, a recorded evacuation warning began instructing guests to remain calm.
Tommy dragged Brenner away from the exit. “We have to move.”
Edmund released him to the guards and guided Vivien into a storage room opening onto an alley. The outside air cut through her wedding dress like a blade. Rain had begun falling. A black SUV waited at the curb, engine running.
She stopped short.
“Whose car?”
“Mine,” Edmund said.
“Who drove it here?”
“Ansel, my driver.”
“Where is Ansel?”
Edmund looked into the front seat. A man in an unfamiliar cap stared back at him.
Everything happened at once. Edmund caught Vivien around the waist and pulled her backward into the doorway. The SUV lurched away before anyone touched the handle, tires spinning on wet pavement. A second vehicle appeared at the alley mouth and blocked the retreating car. Tommy's people swarmed around it, shouting.
Vivien's heart hammered. “Your driver?”
“Not my driver.”
“Then someone knew precisely how you intended to leave.”
Edmund looked at her. “Yes.”
It was the first time he had sounded frightened. Not of the person outside. Of the knowledge that his own world had been entered from within.
Tommy came back with blood on his knuckles, breathing hard. “Driver had fake credentials. Original driver found tied up in the caterers' lot. Alive.”
“Get Ansel medical attention,” Edmund said. “And get every guard's name. No one disappears into a crowd.”
Vivien could hear distant sirens now. Police would arrive; cameras would follow. The most dangerous men in the city had gathered to celebrate a marriage, and someone had chosen their reception as a stage for attempted murder.
Edmund turned toward her. “There's another car.”
She looked at the shadowed loading entrance. “Do I have a choice?”
He seemed surprised by the question.
Then he answered with more care than he had used when discussing their wedding. “Yes. I recommend coming with me because whoever orchestrated this knows who you are. But yes, Vivien. You have a choice.”
She searched his face. She had disliked him from the day her father introduced them. She disliked his world, his certainty, and the humiliation of arriving at the altar as a line item in somebody else's financial arrangement. But he had listened to her warning, protected civilians instead of opening fire, and recognized the trap without blaming her for being afraid.
“For tonight,” she said, “I go with you.”
They took the second car, an ordinary gray sedan driven by a woman in a restaurant uniform who gave Tommy a brief nod and said nothing. Edmund sat in the back beside Vivien. He did not touch her, though the road shook the car with every pothole and their knees nearly met.
Only when they reached the river did she realize her hands were trembling.
Edmund noticed. He removed his suit jacket and laid it over her shoulders. It was heavy and warm, smelling faintly of cedar and rain.
“You're not hurt?” he asked.
“No.”
“Any dizziness?”
“No.”
“You have blood on your sleeve.”
She looked down. A narrow cut crossed her upper arm where the vase had shattered. The blood was her own. Suddenly the sight made her stomach lurch.
He tore a clean handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it into her hand. “Hold this against it.”
“Will I need stitches?”
“I don't know. A doctor will decide.”
She pressed the cloth in place and looked through the rain-smeared window at the city. Her father had called the wedding an opportunity. Edmund had called it protection. Everybody had described what she was supposed to gain. None of them had mentioned becoming a moving shield for a man whose enemies could reach into his security detail.
“Who wants you dead?” she asked.
“Several people.”
“That is not comforting.”
“I wasn't trying to comfort you.”
“No. Apparently that's outside the marriage contract.”
He looked at her for a long moment. “The contract can change.”
She turned sharply. “What?”
Before he could answer, Tommy called. Edmund put the phone on speaker at Vivien's insistence.
“The venue's security office has been emptied,” Tommy said. “Camera storage gone. Catering roster replaced. And there is something else.”
“Go on.”
“Wedding coordinator says the photographer received special instructions to photograph only the first half of the dance.”
Vivien's pulse sharpened. “Why?”
“Because someone expected the dance to end before the song,” Tommy said.
The car fell silent.
Then Tommy added, “And the person who approved those instructions used your uncle Rocco's private authorization code.”
Edmund's face went still.
Vivien remembered shaking Rocco Costa's hand at the reception. The old man had worn a white carnation and told her she looked like a lucky bride.
Now, in the darkness of the moving car, Edmund whispered the name as though it belonged to a stranger.
“Uncle Rocco.”
Vivien turned toward him. “The man who gave you away from your side of the aisle?”
He looked at her.
“Yes.”
May you like
And for the first time, the danger no longer seemed to be outside their marriage.
It had been standing at the altar with them.
