Vowed in Blood

The Wedding.

Zoraya’s Pov

The cabin of the private jet felt like a vacuum, sucking the air from my lungs. Every time I closed my eyes, I couldn’t see the flickering lights of the French Coast. I saw the white of Inès’s apron turning a violent red. I saw her eyes, wide with a confusion that she took to her grave.

I didn’t bother to wash. I sat in the buttery leather seat of the multimillion dollar private jet feeling the cold speck of her blood on my skin.

Across from me, Darion was the picture of soulless composure. He swirled a glass of gin, the ice clinking against the glass.

“Drink”, he said, his voice a low rumble. “You look like a ghost. And I have no interest in a bride who faints before the vows”.

“f**k you Darion”, I hissed, the words feeling like shards of glass in my throat. “I’m not a ghost. I’m the thing that’s going to haunt you. I hope every time you close your eyes, you hear that gunshot. I hope it rings in your ears, until you beg for the silence of the grave”.

Darion didn’t flinch. He didn’t even look up from his glass. “Piccolo guaio (little trouble). Hatred is a burden for someone so small. You’d find life much easier the sooner you accept your situation. You’re a Moretti now. Start acting like you have the f*****g spine for it”.

“I am a Montclair ”, i spat, leaning forward until I could smell the sharp scent of his gin. “And the only thing I’m accepting, is the fact that one day, I am going to watch you bleed out on the floor just like she did”.

Darion set his glass down with a deliberate thud. He unbuckled his seatbelt and leaned over me, his hands gripping the arms of my chair. The scent of Tobacco and sandalwood invaded my senses.

“Listen to me, you little brat” he whispered, his face so close his breath warmed my lips . “Your father sold you. He didn’t blink, he didn’t haggle, and he certainly did not cry when we walked out. You’re not a martyr. You’re an investment. And if you try to bite me again, I won’t just pull your teeth. I’ll break every bones in those hands you’re so proud of .”

I didn’t pull away. Instead i stared directly into those grey eyes searching for a spark of humanity and finding only a frozen wasteland. “Do it.” I challenged, my voice trembling with a hint of fury and loathe. “Break them. I’ll still find a way to kill you.”

For a split second, something flickered in his gaze. Not pity, but a dark twisted kind of fascination. He reached out, his thumb grazing the dried blood on my jaw. He smeared it, his touch lingering with a possessive weight that made my skin crawl.

“I’m going to enjoy this”, he murmured. “A toy that fights back is so much satisfying to break”.

Milan was a different kind of hell. As the jet touched down at Linate airport, the city greeted us with a cold thick fog. A fleet of black SUVs sat idling on the tarmac and I was marched into the back of a Cadillac. Darion sat beside me , already back on his phone, barking orders in rapid Italian about port shipments and “cleaning up the mess in Paris”. He spoke of Inès like she was a spilled glass of wine.

We eventually reached Villa Moretti. The estate was a fortress, a monument to blood money and ego. It was all black marble and reinforced glass, a skyscraper of glass walled rooms that overlooked the city like a watchtower.

The door was opened for us. A line of staff, stood in perfect formation, their heads bowed. At the center of the foyer stood an older man with silver hair and the same lethal eyes as Darion.

Dante Moretti. The Devil himself.

“You brought her.” Dante said as he walked towards me, inspecting me with the cold detachment of an art critic. “She’s filthy. And she reeks of the gutter.”

Son of a b***h.

“She’s an artist father,” Darion said, his voice laced with a mocking edge. “She likes getting her hands dirty. She even brought some of the help’s blood with her to show off ”.

Dante let out a short dry laugh.

Bloody sons of bitches.

“Good” Dante says. “We need a fresh fire in this house.Get her cleaned up. The priest will be here at noon. I need this done as soon as possible.

I looked from father to son, they were two versions of the same nightmare.

I was led to a suite of rooms that was larger than my entire studio in Paris. Four women moved in silence and stripped me of my clothes. They thrust me into a claw foot tub filled with water so hot it felt like it was scalding the pride and sins off my skin.

They scrubbed my skin until my flesh turned raw. They scrubbed Inès away. They tried to scrub the murder off me, but I knew it was settled deep in my bones now.

Then, they brought the dress.

It wasn’t white. It was red. The color of a fresh wound. The color of the bloodstain on my floor back at home.

“He insisted”, one of the maids whispered.

I stood before the full length mirror, staring at the stranger in the reflection. My ginger hair was brushed into a shimmering artificial waves. My skin was pale, highlighting the dark, bruised circles under my eyes.

I wasn’t a bride. I was an omen.

When I stepped into the hallway, Darion was waiting. He was leaning against the marble wall, a cigarette dangling from his lips, looking like a devil in a three piece suit. He looked me up and down, his eyes darkening as they traced the curve of the red silk over my hips.

“Better”, he said, flicking the ash onto the priceless Persian rug. “You look like you’re heading to a funeral”.

“I am”. I said, stepping close enough to smell the smoke on his breath. “Yours”.

Darion grabbed my arm, his grip bruising tight as he began to lead me towards the private chapel at the back of the estate. “Don’t trip on the way to the altar, piccola monella (little brat). It would be such a shame to ruin that dress with more blood so soon.”

The chapel doors opened to reveal a priest and a dozen armed men waiting to witness my soul being sold.

Dario pulled me toward the altar, his hand a vice around mine. I looked at the crucifix at the front of the room, wondering if the man on the cross felt as betrayed as I did.

When Dario took my hand to slide the ring on my finger, his skin was unnervingly warm. The ring was a silver band with an oval emerald diamond hatched on it. It felt cold and heavy.

“With this ring,” he murmured, his voice made the arms on my arms to stand up, “I bind you to the Moretti name.”

You bind yourself to a corpse, I thought.