PROLOGUE

PROLOGUE

The rain lashes against the stained-glass windows of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York as I repeat the words that are supposed to seal the rest of my life.

“I, Beatrice Ashford, take you, Harvey Prescott, to be my lawfully wedded husband…”

My voice is weak. Unsteady. Wrong.

The heavy veil covers my face like a sentence, muffling the world and making everything seem distant and blurred. Harvey squeezes my hands far too tightly. His grip is too strong, too possessive. When I lift my eyes, I find him smiling at me—confident, satisfied, almost triumphant.

As if he has already won.

As if he knows that, after tonight, nothing will ever separate us.

I should feel happy. Protected. Safe.

But something inside me is screaming.

Wrong.

Then the church doors burst open with a deafening crash.

The sound tears through the air. Wood splinters. Shouts echo everywhere. The organ falls silent in the middle of a note, leaving behind a grotesque stillness before chaos swallows everything.

My heart pounds against my ribs.

Armed men storm down the central aisle.

Three of them lead the way. The man in the middle is tall, blond, broad-shouldered, and dressed in black. Rain runs down his suit as if he has crossed the storm itself just to reach me.

But it isn't the rain that freezes me in place.

It's his eyes.

Blue. Fierce. Fixed on me with such brutal intensity that I can barely breathe.

As if I were the only person alive inside the cathedral.

Harvey immediately releases my hands and steps in front of me.

“Who the hell are you?” he roars, his voice echoing off the walls. “This is a wedding. Get out of here. Now.”

The blond man doesn't slow down.

He keeps walking toward the altar, one step at a time, as though nothing in this world could stop him.

Behind him, more men dressed in black spread out along the sides of the church, surrounding the guests and blocking every exit. Within seconds, the cathedral becomes a prison.

One of them—a dark-haired man with a chilling stare—presses the barrel of a gun against the back of Harvey's head.

“One move,” he says calmly, “and I'll paint this altar with your brains, Prescott.”

Harvey freezes.

Anger still burns across his face, now mixed with shock.

I try to step backward, but my heavy dress tangles around my legs.

My stomach knots.

“No, no…”

The blond man climbs the altar steps without hesitation. Without asking permission. Without showing the slightest trace of fear.

Then he grabs my arm and pulls me away from Harvey.

“Let go of me! Let go!” I scream, struggling to regain my balance.

He is strong. Steady. Dangerous.

The scent of rain and dark wood reaches me, but I can think of nothing except the strength of his grip.

There is nothing familiar about this situation.

Only fear.

“Evie,” he growls.

His low, rough voice carries a pain I cannot understand, mixed with a fury that seems ready to explode.

I freeze for a moment.

Evie?

“My name is Beatrice!” I spit back, fighting with all my strength. My nails scrape across his neck, drawing blood. “Let me go, you psychopath!”

He tears the veil away with his free hand.

Our eyes meet.

For a moment, the entire world seems to tilt.

Something deep and confusing passes through me as I stare into those blue eyes. My heart races, my skin prickles, and fear makes it difficult to breathe.

It's as if my body is trying to recognize someone my mind cannot identify.

As if some forgotten part of me knows exactly who he is.

Even though my memory offers me no answers.

Even though everything inside me screams that this man is a stranger.

Then he smiles.

Cold. Dark. Furious.

“You were my wife,” he says, his voice sounding like both a promise and a threat. “And you still are.”

Before I can react, he slips one arm behind my knees and throws me over his shoulder as if I weigh nothing.

The world turns upside down.

My dress twists around me. Humiliation strikes with the same force as panic.

“Put me down! Help! Somebody, please!” I scream, kicking wildly and pounding against his back with all the strength I have.

He holds my legs firmly to keep me from escaping.

“Quiet, Sirius,” he mutters, carrying me down the aisle as if I were a trophy. “You'll remember.”

My entire body stiffens.

“Or I'll make you remember.”

Harvey struggles against the men holding him, his face red with fury.

“Get your hands off her, you bastards!” he shouts. “Beatrice!”

One of the men drives a brutal punch into his stomach. Harvey doubles over, gasping for air, while the gun remains pressed against his head.

No one comes to save me.

No one can.

The rain hits us like shards of ice as the man carries me out of the church. The New York sky is a dark blur. Camera flashes. Screams. Tires screeching. Doors slamming.

He throws me into the back seat of a black armored SUV and climbs in after me, slamming the door shut.

Desperate, I scramble to the opposite side and yank at the handle.

Locked.

“No, no, no…”

He pulls me back and pins me against the seat, blocking my attempt to reach the door.

Heavy. Inescapable. Terrifying.

“Please…” My voice breaks. “I don't know you.”

Hot tears slide down my cheeks.

He grips my chin between his fingers and forces me to look at him.

Those blue eyes are wilder up close. More intense. More unhinged. There is pain in them. Hatred, too. And a dark determination that makes my whole body tremble.

“You knew me better than anyone else in this godforsaken world,” he snarls. “You slept in my bed. You gave birth to my daughter. And I killed for you.”

My blood turns to ice.

No.

That can't be true.

“Now you're coming home. To me.”

The vehicle speeds through the rain-soaked streets of Manhattan.

I fight. I shove. I cry. I try to free myself from his grip, his strength, his suffocating presence.

It's useless.

With one hand, he holds my wrists above my head. With the other, he prevents me from moving away, making it clear that he has no intention of letting me go.

“Keep fighting,” he whispers, his voice dangerously low. “It won't change what happened.”

His voice grows deeper. Darker.

“And you'll learn that you can't escape me so easily.”

I turn my face away, trembling.

But deep inside my chest, fear continues to burn.

A spark.

An echo.

A memory without a face.

And as New York disappears behind the curtain of rain, I understand—with icy terror coursing through my veins—that my life has just been ripped from my hands.

Stolen by a man who claims to be my husband.

A man I cannot remember.

But who has clearly never forgotten me.