THE KASTELLAN HEIR.

TILL DEATH DO US APART.

The wedding began at four o'clock sharp, under a sky so blue it seemed to have been ordered from a catalog.

Green Hills Manor had never looked more beautiful. White roses climbed the arch, gauzy ribbons lifted in a warm breeze, and two hundred guests in silk and tailoring settled onto the ivory chairs, murmuring, gossiping, admiring. A string quartet played something delicate. Beyond the lawn, the fountain sparkled like scattered diamonds.

Ronan arrived last.

He stepped from the back of the Bugatti in a black suit that fit like sin, dark glasses hiding his eyes, Sienna at his side in deep emerald silk. A ripple went through the crowd. Heads turned. Whispers began.

"Who's that?"

"Is that the bride's ex? The husband? God, he looks..."

"Different."

"He must've come into money."

At the back of the seating area, Margaux's face went the color of skimmed milk. Coleman half rose from his chair, mouth opening, and Margaux jerked him down by the sleeve.

"Sit," she hissed. "Don't make a scene. Not here."

Ronan didn't look their way. He walked to the last row on the groom's side and sat, calm as a man in church. Sienna took the seat beside him. From the rows behind, two Kastellan guards in ordinary suits melted into the crowd.

"The guest list," Ronan murmured. "Give me the name."

Sienna's eyes were already moving across the crowd. "Gideon Crane. Registered as a client of Preston's. Third row, aisle, left side. Gray suit. Salt-and-pepper hair."

He found him instantly. A lean, weathered man in his sixties, sitting perfectly upright, his face expressionless. He wasn't looking at the altar. He was looking at Ronan.

Their eyes met across forty feet of white chairs. Crane didn't smile. He didn't nod. He simply tilted his head a fraction, the way a man might acknowledge an opponent across a chessboard, and turned away.

Ronan's pulse thudded.

"Is that him?"

"Aldric's head of security, on paper," Sienna said in a voice like a blade. "He's been with the Nevilles for thirty years. Before that, he was a mechanic."

"A mechanic?"

"Military engineer. Specialized in vehicles."

The quartet shifted into the processional. The doors of the manor swung open, and every head turned.

Preston stood at the altar, hands clasped, pale but resplendent in his new suit, the one Ronan had paid for. Beside him, the best man, a friend from college, looked at his watch.

Then Vivienne appeared.

She came down the aisle on her uncle's arm, since her father had long ago vanished from her life. The lace dress hugged her waist and flared behind her in a cloud. A veil of fine tulle drifted around her shoulders. In the golden afternoon light, she looked like a painting.

Ronan felt something twist in his chest. He had once stood at the end of a cheap aisle in a borrowed suit, in a courthouse, with her grandfather dying in a wheelchair beside them. She hadn't smiled then. She hadn't smiled at all.

Now she was smiling, though the smile didn't reach her eyes.

Halfway down the aisle, her gaze flickered sideways and caught him.

She stumbled. Barely, a hitch in her step. Her uncle steadied her. Her lips parted in something that might have been shock, then fear, then a flash of raw and confusing emotion that made Ronan look away.

Preston, for his part, had spotted Ronan the moment he sat down.

It was a small thing. A glance over his shoulder while the ushers were still fussing with the aisle runner, and there he was, the ghost from the porch, sitting in the last row in a suit that must have cost a month of Preston's old salary. Preston's stomach lurched. Then his pride rallied. He turned to his best man and whispered, loud enough for the first two rows to hear, "Look who came to watch. The charity case. Somebody get him a tissue."

The best man snickered. Two of the groomsmen glanced back, grinning.

Beside Ronan, Sienna leaned close, her lips barely moving. "Two of the groomsmen just checked their phones. They're looking up your name."

"Let them."

"Half the guests will have it by the time the vows are done."

"Good. I'd hate for anyone to say later that they didn't see it coming."

Ronan didn't react. He let the mockery roll over him like water over stone, and a strange, quiet calm settled on his shoulders. In a few minutes, none of them would be laughing, and he found that he could wait.

The officiant, a soft-voiced man with silver hair, began. "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today..."

Ronan listened to every word. To love and to cherish. He had said those words once. He had meant them.

"If any person here knows of a reason why these two should not be joined," the officiant intoned, "let them speak now or forever hold their peace."

The garden held its breath.

Ronan didn't move. He sat with his hands folded on his knee. He didn't so much as shift his shoulders.

A single bird sang somewhere in the trees.

Preston let out a faint, relieved exhale and squeezed Vivienne's hand.

"Then by the authority vested in me..."

"Now?" Sienna whispered, her hand tightening on his.

"Not yet."

"Ronan, if we wait until the vows..."

"I want him to say it." His voice was almost inaudible. "I want him to say it in front of everyone."

The officiant turned to Preston. "Do you, Preston Halvane, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer?"

Preston beamed. He glanced back at the crowd, then straight at Ronan, and his smirk flashed across his face like a snake's tongue.

"I do."

A murmur of delight. A few claps. Vivienne blinked back tears, though Ronan couldn't tell what kind.

"And do you, Vivienne Brentford, take this man..."

Sienna's phone buzzed once against her knee. She glanced down. She looked at Ronan.

"It's Pruitt," she whispered. "Everything's ready."

Ronan reached into his breast pocket, drew out his phone, and typed a single word. Now.

The officiant paused, smiled at Vivienne, and lifted his book. "Vivienne, do you..."

Everything died.

The music stopped mid-note. The fountain choked and went silent. Every string light along the lawn clicked off in a long, spreading wave, and the giant speakers by the altar hissed, coughed, and went dead.

For a heartbeat, no one moved. The garden hung in a shocked, bright silence.

Then the tall iron gates at the end of the drive slid shut with a heavy, echoing clang.

"What's happening?" Preston said sharply, spinning around. "Pruitt! Where's the manager? Get someone!"

The crowd began to stir. A woman screamed as a row of guards in black uniforms stepped smoothly from behind the hedges and formed a line across the aisle. A man in a white apron ran out of the catering tent, pale and sweaty, shouting, "Nobody serves! Stop! Stop the service!"

Vivienne clutched her bouquet. "Preston?"

"Stay calm." His voice cracked. "It's a power failure. It's just..."

At the back, Ronan rose from his seat.

He removed his sunglasses.

Two hundred faces turned.

"I'm sorry to interrupt," said Ronan, his voice carrying the length of the garden. "But this venue is now closed."