Laughter followed me down the aisle before the wedding march had even faded away. Someone had deliberately sliced open the wedding dress I had sewn with my own hands, my fiancé stood there and watched me be humiliated in front of hundreds of guests, and the only man who finally came to my rescue was Manhattan's most notorious Mafia boss. Then he asked one quiet question that turned the entire cathedral into a graveyard of silence.

The cathedral felt as though all the air had been sucked out of it.

Dante Moretti’s voice didn't rise, nor did it tremble with rage. It was a low, velvet purr, yet it carried the weight of a death sentence.

Veronica Hale’s face went chalk-white. The delicate smirk that had lingered on her red lips vanished in a fraction of a second. She took an instinctual step backward into the cluster of gasped bridesmaids, her manicured hands trembling against her silk bouquet.

"M-Mr. Moretti..." Veronica stammered, her voice high and thin. "I... I don't know what you're talking about. Her dress must have just—"

"I didn't ask for a theory, Miss Hale," Dante interrupted softly. He took one step closer to her, his presence utterly dominating the aisle. "I asked a question."

From the altar, Nathan Whitmore finally found his legs. Emboldened by his family’s elite status and the presence of hundreds of high-society guests, he marched down the marble steps toward us, his forehead flushed red with anger and embarrassment.

"Dante, that's enough!" Nathan snapped, trying to project authority. "This is my wedding! This is a family matter! You have no right to come in here and harass my bride's attendants!"

Dante didn't even turn his head. He merely flicked his gaze toward Nathan, his dark eyes unreadable and cold.

"Your bride?" Dante repeated quietly. "Is that what she is to you, Whitmore?"

Nathan halted three feet away, intimidated despite himself. "She was walking down my aisle!"

"And yet," Dante said, his voice dropping into a register that made the pews vibrate, "when her dignity was stripped away in front of three hundred people, you stood on your marble platform like a cowed dog. You didn't move a single inch to protect her."

A wave of whispered shocks rippled through the guests. Nathan opened his mouth, his face burning with humiliation, but no words came out.

Dante turned his attention back to Veronica. He reached into his vest pocket, pulled out a small, plush black handkerchief, and tossed it casually onto the marble floor at her feet.

"Pick it up," Dante commanded calmly.

"What?" Veronica whimpered.

"Pick it up, and wipe your right index finger," Dante said. "Or would you prefer my men check the small seam-ripper blade currently tucked inside your left glove?"

The cathedral collective gasped. Veronica panicked, instinctively clutching her gloved left hand to her chest.

She was caught red-handed.

"I... I didn't mean to!" Veronica broke down, tears of spite bursting from her eyes as the pressure shattered her composure. "She didn't belong here! She's a nobody! A poor seamstress trying to climb into the Whitmore fortune! She ruined the aesthetic of the whole wedding!"

I stood there, wrapped tightly in Dante's heavy wool suit coat, smelling his scent of amber and cedarwood. Tears spilled down my cheeks, but for the first time, they weren't tears of shame. They were tears of sheer, unadulterated clarity.

Veronica had destroyed my dress out of spite.

Nathan had watched it happen out of cowardice.

Dante turned to me. The harshness in his face melted away into an intense, quiet sincerity.

"The choice is yours, little tailor," Dante said gently, extending his hand toward me. "You can stay here and marry a man who lets wolves tear you apart... or you can walk out of these doors with me."