Chapter 10: Vows in Red

The cathedral smelled of incense, lilies, and fear.

Five hundred people filled the pews, politicians, businessmen, pastors who owed Czar favors, wives who pretended not to see the blood under his nails. Every one of them had been given twenty-four hours’ notice and a very clear choice: attend or disappear.

I stood at the back of the aisle in a dress the colour of fresh blood.

Not white.

Czar had chosen it himself. “Virginal white is for girls,” he’d said this morning while zipping me up with fingers that still trembled from last night’s confessions. “You’re a woman carrying my legacy. Wear red.”

The organ started.

Every head turned.

Amara was my only bridesmaid, eyes red from crying, gripping my bouquet so hard the stems bruised. She leaned in at the last second.

“You can still run,” she whispered. “I have a car outside.”

I squeezed her hand. “I’m exactly where I need to be.”

Then I walked.

Every step echoed like a gunshot.

Czar waited at the altar in black. Not a tuxedo, a three-piece suit cut so sharp it could have drawn blood. No smile. Just that possessive stare that pinned me from thirty metres away and never let go.

When I reached him, he took my hand and pressed it over his heart.

It was racing.

The monster had a heartbeat after all.

The priest was sweating.

He knew whose wedding this really was.

“Do you, Eden Chioma Vale, take this man…”

I didn’t let him finish the full name.

“I do,” I said, loud enough for the back row to hear. “In sickness and in sin, in war and in whatever peace he allows me. I do.”

A ripple went through the crowd. Some gasped. Some smiled like they’d bet on exactly this.

Czar’s eyes flared. Pride. Lust. Something dangerously soft.

“And do you, Czar Aleksandr Aslanov, take this woman…”

He cut the priest off too.

“Till death,” he said, voice rough. “And if death tries to take her first, I’ll drag her back from hell myself.”

The priest gave up and just pronounced us married.

Czar kissed me before permission was given, deep, filthy, claiming, right there in front of God and Lagos high society. Cameras flashed like lightning.

When he finally let me breathe, he slipped a new ring on my finger.

Black diamonds. Eight carats. A crown of tiny skulls hidden on the inside of the band.

“Safe word still works,” he murmured against my lips, so low only I could hear. “But you’ll never use it again.”

Then he turned to the congregation, arm possessive around my waist, hand splayed over the stomach no one else knew was occupied yet.

“Gentlemen,” he announced, voice ringing off the vaulted ceiling, “my wife is carrying the future of this family. Anyone who forgets that will be erased so thoroughly even their ancestors will vanish from photographs.”

Dead silence.

Then every man in the room stood and clapped like their lives depended on it.

Because they did.

The reception was held on the grounds of the new house he’d apparently bought while I was in Paris, an ocean-front fortress in Banana Island with bulletproof glass and a helipad. Tables overflowed with lobster and champagne. A ten-tier cake bled raspberry filling when we cut it.

Amara pulled me into the powder room an hour in.

“You okay?” she asked, voice shaking.

I looked at myself in the mirror: red lips, red dress, black diamonds, eyes that didn’t look scared anymore.

“I’m not okay,” I said. “I’m alive. And that’s going to have to be enough for now.”

She hugged me hard. “If you ever need me—”

“I know.”

When I stepped back out, Czar was waiting, leaning against the wall like a predator who’d grown tired of the hunt because the prey had walked straight into his mouth.

He held out his hand.

“Dance with me, Mrs. Aslanov.”

There was a string quartet playing something slow and dark.

He pulled me close, one hand low on my back, the other cradling the base of my skull.

“Tell me the truth,” he said against my temple. “Are you afraid of me right now?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

“Good.” His lips brushed my ear. “Fear keeps you sharp. But you’re also wet for me right now, aren’t you?”

I hated that he was right.

His hand slid lower, possessive, hidden by the folds of my dress.

“Feel that?” he whispered. “Five hundred people out there, and every single one knows I own you. And you still chose to walk down that aisle.”

“I chose the lesser evil,” I breathed.

“No, baby.” He spun me, dipped me low, mouth hovering over mine. “You chose the only evil strong enough to keep you and our child breathing.”

He kissed me again, slow and lethal, until my knees buckled.

When he pulled me upright, his eyes were black with hunger.

“Time to go,” he said.

We didn’t say goodbye to anyone.

The Maybach was waiting. He carried me out over the threshold again, this time in front of flashing cameras and screaming headlines tomorrow would devour.

Inside the car, the partition went up.

He didn’t wait for the driver to pull off.

He pushed me down across the leather seat, red dress rucked to my thighs, mouth between my legs before I could gasp his name.

I came with his tongue inside me and my new wedding ring cutting into his scalp where I gripped too hard.

When he rose, lips glistening, he looked like a demon who’d just been given heaven.

“Still scared?” he asked, voice hoarse.

“Terrified,” I panted.

He smiled, slow and savage.

“Perfect. Hold on to that fear, Eden. You’re going to need it.”

The car sped toward the private airstrip.

He hadn’t told me where we were going.

He didn’t need to.

With Czar Aslanov, the destination was never a place.

It was always surrender.

To be continued…