THE FOURTH SEAL

*CHAPTER 1: The last thing my third husband told me was, "Don’t cry at my funeral, Veyla." He died twelve hours later. I didn’t cry. I was out of tears by husband number two. My name is Veyla Cross. I’m twenty-four years old, and I’m a curse. That’s what they call me in the papers. That’s what they whispered at the church. _Black Widow. Bad luck. Don’t get too close._ The first one died in a car crash, six months after the wedding. The second one had a heart attack at thirty-two. Healthy as a horse, the doctors said. The third one choked on his own dinner. At home. Alone. I buried them all. And then I buried the idea that I would ever be normal. So I did the only thing left to do. I stopped trying to survive the curse. I decided to break it. That’s how I ended up in Vale & Associates at 8:03 PM, holding a contract that should have been illegal in forty-seven states. Four names were printed at the top of the page. *Knox.* *Riven.* *Zade.* *Vale.* Four billionaires. Four men I had every reason to hate. And one year. "You're actually going to do this," Maeve said. She was my best friend and the only person who still answered my calls. She was sitting on my desk, eating cold noodles out of a takeout box. "Marry all four of them at once." "It’s a business arrangement," I said. My voice didn’t shake. I made sure of it. "They get access to my company’s biotech patents. I get four targets for the curse. If it kills one, there are three left. If it kills all four, then maybe it’s done with me." Maeve stopped chewing. "That’s the most f****d up and brilliant thing I’ve ever heard." "It’s desperation," I corrected her. "There’s a difference." "Not from where I’m sitting." She hopped down. "Okay. Rules. One: you don’t fall in love with any of them. Two: you don’t die. Three: if any of them hurt you, I get to ruin their lives. Deal?" I almost smiled. "Deal." The office was on the ninetieth floor. Glass walls. Cold marble. The kind of place that made you feel small on purpose. They were already waiting. *Knox* stood by the window with his back to me. Six foot three. Black suit. Scars on his knuckles that no amount of money could explain. He was the man who bought my father’s company and fired five hundred people in one email. Ruthless. Efficient. War in a tailored suit. *Riven* was leaning against the conference table, scrolling through his phone. Surgeon. Cold. Precise. He was the one who told me my second husband wouldn’t make it through the night and then went back to his rounds like he hadn’t just ended my world. Famine. Empty in a different way. *Zade* was the reason I was ten minutes late. He was late to his own wedding. Leather jacket, tattoos crawling up his neck, guitar case slung over his shoulder. The rockstar who slept with my best friend in college and then wrote a platinum album about how sorry he wasn’t. Pestilence. Beautiful and rotten. And *Vale.* Vale didn’t look up when I walked in. He was sitting at the head of the table, signing documents with a fountain pen. Black suit. Black tie. Black eyes. He was the lawyer who got my ex-boyfriend out of jail after he put me in the hospital. He was Death. Quiet. Inevitable. "You're here," Knox said without turning around. "Sign the papers," Riven said without looking up. "Took you long enough," Zade said, and grinned. "You look incredible, by the way. All black? Very on brand for you." Vale finally looked at me. "Veyla," he said. Just my name. Nothing else. My heart didn’t flutter. It sank. Because I remembered what he looked like standing over my ex in a police station. Calm. Smiling. That was the last time I saw him before tonight. Dex, my drummer and the only sane person in the room, was hiding behind a potted plant with a plate of hors d'oeuvres. "Okay so. Whose wedding is this exactly? Asking for the catering staff." "All of ours," Zade said, and winked at me. The contract was fifty pages. Prenup. NDA. Business merger. Marriage license. One year. No divorce. No affairs. Public appearances required. And a clause at the bottom that made my stomach turn: _In the event of the death of one or more parties, the remaining parties assume full ownership of Veyla Cross Industries._ They weren’t marrying me. They were buying insurance. "Sign it," Knox said. I picked up the pen. My hand didn’t shake. I signed four times. Veyla Knox. Veyla Riven. Veyla Zade. Veyla Vale. The sound of the pen was the loudest thing in the room. Maeve clapped once, too loud. "Congratulations. You’re now the most complicated widow in the state of New York." "To business," Riven said, and raised a glass of water. "To chaos," Zade said, and downed champagne. Knox didn’t toast. He just watched me. Vale didn’t drink at all. For thirty seconds, it felt like I had won. Like I had outsmarted fate. Like four billionaires would be enough to drown out a thousand-year-old curse. Then the lights flickered. Once. Twice. Gone. The entire city went black outside the glass walls. The temperature dropped twenty degrees in a heartbeat. My breath fogged in the air. "What the hell," Dex whispered. And then all four of them turned to me. At the exact same time. Knox’s eyes were gold. Not brown. Gold. Like molten metal. Riven’s were black. Completely black. No iris. No white. Zade’s were red. Burning. Vale’s were empty. A void. Like looking into a grave. The air smelled like ash. Like copper. Like old graves after the rain. Zade was the first to speak. But his voice wasn’t his. It was deeper. Older. Tired. "Well," he said. "That didn’t take long." Riven closed his eyes. When he opened them, the black was still there. "The Seal is broken." Knox took one step toward me. The glass behind him cracked. "Veyla Cross." Vale stood. He didn’t make a sound. He just smiled. And it was the coldest thing I had ever seen. My phone buzzed in my pocket. I didn’t check it. I couldn’t move. Maeve stepped in front of me, holding a broken champagne flute. "Back off." "You don’t understand," Riven said softly. To her. To me. "She does this every time." "Does what?" I managed to ask. My voice was barely there. Zade tilted his head. "She locks us away. To save the world." He laughed, but it wasn’t funny. "And then she forgets. And then she marries us again." The memories hit me like a physical blow. Fire. A sword. Four men on their knees. Me, screaming, carving symbols into the air with my bare hands. _Bind them. Lock them. Please._ I stumbled. Riven caught me before I hit the floor. His hands were ice. "You did this," Knox said. Not angry. Just fact. "A thousand years ago. You were the Fourth Seal." "And now you’ve opened it," Vale finished. Outside, a siren started. Then another. Somewhere far away, something exploded. My phone buzzed again. I pulled it out with shaking hands. It was a text. From an unknown number. *_DAY 1 OF 30 HAS BEGUN. CHOOSE ONE. OR THE WORLD ENDS.__ I looked up at the four men in front of me. War. Famine. Pestilence. Death. And I realized the truth. The curse was never on me. The curse was on them. And I was the only one who could decide who lived. "Veyla," Vale said. His voice was soft. Too soft. "What happens if I don’t choose?" I asked. All four of them answered at once. And the building shook. To be continued....