1

Catalina Maria.

I let go of my foster dad’s arm and climb the few steps to the altar where Lucas, my fiancé of two years is waiting for me. He is smiling and it’s that stupid, lopsided grin that makes my chest do this annoying fluttery thing. Lucas reaches for my hand as I step up. Through the veil, I see the way his eyes soften. He doesn’t let go of my hand even after I’m up. I chuckle—the crowd chuckles too. This is it. The day I marry my childhood best friend.

The priest clears his throat, ready to start the intro of our wedding when a cosmic rumble creeps into the cathedral. At first, it’s faint. Maybe thunder? But no, it’s louder. Closer. Like…engines of powerful cars?

Before I turn to see what’s happening, boom—the cathedral doors slam open so hard they practically fly off the hinges. The air explodes with many noises. Engines are roaring, tires are screeching, a rapid pop-pop-pop of gunfire goes through the ceiling. Dust rains down from the ceiling into everyone. Screams bounce off the walls as men—no, gangsters—swarm into the church.

Bikes roar down the aisle and the wedding guests scatter like birds, tripping over each other to get away. I am still on the altar where I can’t move. I’m just… stuck. My brain is screaming at me to run, but my legs are cemented to the floor.

Suddenly, a gigantic, black Jeep drives in. The gangsters begin to seal off the doors, locking everyone inside. They fan out, guns raised and I don’t notice the two guys heading for the altar until they’re right there.

One of them is tall and built like a freight train. He steps up to Lucas and cracks him across the face with the butt of his gun. Lucas stumbles, yet the other guy kicks him hard in the chest so he ends up crashing to the floor below the altar.

“Lucas!” I scream but I unable to reach him as fast as I want in this heavy wedding dress.

The weight of my wedding dress drags me down. The stupid fabric tangles around my legs and I drop to my knees, stretching my hands out toward him, but he’s too far gone. These gangsters are everywhere. They are beating our guests mercilessly—kicking men to the ground, pointing guns in the terrified faces of women, and even the priest—he’s lying flat on the floor, pleading for his life with his hands clasped together.

“Quiet!” a larger gangster yells and suddenly, everyone goes still.

I watch in horror as they force Lucas and his brothers to their knees. My heart pulses at the sight of dust, blood and sweat on his forehead. I start yanking at the pins of my wedding dress, pulling it apart so I can move. I unpin and rip at the fabric in order to free my legs.

That’s when I see it—a trail of white smoke. It is the first thing I notice before a man steps out of the Jeep. Smoke is sizzling out from his nose and mouth at the same time, twisting around his face like something inhuman.

When the smoke clears, I see a cigarette clenched between wicked lips.

On his cheek is a tattoo unlike anything I’ve seen before, etched so finely it seems alive. A leaf—so thinly carved into his skin, it looks like it would flutter with the wind. But it doesn’t. It just sits there, mundane and motionless like another scar that starts at his forehead. This one on his forehead cuts clean through his eyebrow, before continuing a cruel path under his eye and ending somewhere near his cheekbone.

This devil’s jawline is an angular shaped thing that belongs in a geometry textbook. So carved, so prequel in its form. What is his hair? A pattern of black, so sinister in its colour, tied in two braids and left resting somewhere near his neck against skin that’s the colour of sun-baked sand.

With the way the gangsters crowd him—they are like soldiers guarding their king and it is painfully obvious that he is powerful. Two gangsters grip Lucas and force his face upward to look at the devil. But Lucas doesn’t just look—he struggles when he sees the devil. He thrashes like he’s trying to escape a nightmare made real.

“Lucas!” I run to him. I am nowhere near when a gangster grabs me by the neck and stops me. My scream gets the attention of the devil. There is a smirk on his face when he sees me, and he stares at me with eyes like those of an incarnate from Hades. His gaze does not stay for one or two seconds. I take his attention wholly, and he takes the cigarette out of his lips.

He doesn’t just look at me—he takes his time to travel over my face, my lips, on every feature on my face. And then, his eyes obsess around my breasts and he chuckles.

“Lucas, is it? You and your damn brothers dared to steal treasures from my mother’s home so that you can bring it home to your innocent-looking fiancée, marry her, and start a rich life?”

His voice is rustic, like a drill against steel. As he speaks, there is a storm in both eyes. They are the color of golden bullets.

I look at Lucas. I don’t want to believe I heard that. I am praying that it’s not true.

“Please, let my son go!” Lucas’s mother yells.

The devil faces her and uses his hands lazily to signify that his men drag Lucas’s mom here. They do, and she is on the ground.

“Your damn son robbed the Don’s house and dared to push his grandmother from a flight of steps when she caught them. Say your last goodbye to your sons!” a gangster next to the devil says, and I freeze.

He’s a Don? A mafia Don?

There’s only one Don in the whole of Maython City. He is called Salvador Silver—is this him?

I let out a bitter cry and the devil looks at me again.

“My son would never do that! You must have gotten the wrong person. My son would never rob a house… he wouldn’t—” Mrs. Mayer cries out.

The Don is tipped to the edge by her yelling. His jaw jacks as he raises his hand in the air and slams a punch into Thomas, Lucas’s elder brother, who is also on his knees.

The gangsters drag Thomas back up as if nothing happened, and the Don reaches for the gold chain around his neck. He pulls it off with a growl and holds it between his fingers as it dangles in the air.

“Pure gold. Did you buy this for your son?”

He steers toward Jerry, Lucas’s younger brother, and points to the rings on his trembling fingers.

“Those rings… they belong to you?”

Jerry begins to shake his head profusely, trembling so hard he can’t even speak. The way he refuses to meet the Don’s gaze makes one thing clear—the rings do not belong to him.

Tears melt down my face as I look at Lucas. His eyes find mine and it is so full of fear and regret until the Don grabs him by his hair. As if he saw that we were staring at each other. He yanks him away from my line of sight.

“On a good day, you could have stolen from me and disappeared into the shadows, but stealing wasn’t enough, you and your brothers decided to shove my grandmother down the stairs and land her in an hospital?!” The Don growls like an animal and then, explodes into feral rage. He catches Lucas’ chin like a vice and then, pounds at his face with his fist, over and over again until Lucas’s body crashes to the ground in front of me.

I collapse to my knees as I watch. The Don is not a man—he’s a lion in the jungle, attacking its prey to shreds.

Blood is smearing Lucas’ face, his neck—it’s everywhere. My hand stretches out to touch him but before I can, someone seizes my wrist and yanks me to my feet with cruelty.

His hand is so calloused that it feels like gravel against my skin. I am forced to look into his eyes.

“The ring on your finger belongs to my grandmother—the one your fiancée pushed down the stairs. The owner of this ring is lying in a hospital bed, fighting for her life!” he growls and I look at the said ring. Lucas called it a promise ring just days ago and I was so happy looking at it. Tears spill from my eyes as I tremble under his glare.

“Give me a gun!” he snaps.

Someone throws a pistol and he cocks it. He points it across Jerry’s head.

“We are sorry! Please!” Jerry pleads. “It was a mistake. We didn’t mean to—”

“Where are the diamonds you stole?”

“We only stole jewellery. We didn’t find diamonds. We didn’t mean to push your grandmother, please—”

The Don slams his gun at Jerry, and he faints at once.

“Please—” Thomas begins to beg.

“If I don’t have a diamond, no one will get to have their life in this place. Forget the diamond—if my grandmother dies in that hospital bed, I will bury bullets in all your heads.”

“Please…my fiancée is innocent.” Lucas begins to say, and the Don looks at me with the gun dangling in his fingers.

“Your fiancée?” he repeats.

Slowly, he begins to walk toward me.

“Hey, priest!” he yells and the gangsters shove the priest forward. The Don pulls me. He doesn’t care that I stumble in my dress; he yanks me along with him until we are set at the altar. The priest is forced to stand and I yank my hand away from the Don. His hands are still covered in Lucas’s blood, and I begin to smear it off, away my white skin.

I am shaking.

“Wed us.” I hear him chuckle and I look at him in dread. Did he say that, or has fear crept into my brain and I have begun to hear horrible things?

I take a step back as my instincts say.

“Are you fucking deaf, you old fool!” he refers to the priest.

I am scared but I don’t care. I start going down the aisle when he grabs the single-strand sleeve of my dress. The arm part—in an effort to bring me back, it rips, and I slam my hands against my exposed breast.

“Stay fucking put!” he seethes at me, with all the silver in his eyes. The priest’s voice drifts in, reciting vows and I am rooted in one place, shielding myself from all that is in his eyes.

“Do you take Cataline to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

“I do.” he answers.

“Cataline, do you take…” The priest hesitates, not knowing his name.

“Salvador Silver Mendoza.” he emits.

“Cataline, do you take Salvador to be your lawfully wedded husband?” the priest asks me. Words have failed me—or at least that’s what I thought until Salvador raises his gun and aims it at Lucas again.

“I—I do.” I quiver.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife…” the priest says in sorrow.

“Get those legal shit. Let us sign our names…” he orders his gangsters, and at once, he signs the marriage certificate. I am handed the pen and made to sign. My hands fidget, and it is only when I close my eyes that I am able to draw my signature.

Before I open my eyes, I feel a coat around me. I open them to see that the Don has removed his own coat and placed it against my sleeve that is falling down. I don’t want anything that belongs to him. I want to burn along with the coat, but it doesn’t roll off my shoulders.

He strides off the altar like the maniac he is.

“Until my grandmother’s life is stable and until you bring back my diamonds, you can never have your fiancée. Bruno, get the stamp and brands these bastards.” I hear him roar.

I don’t know what that means until his gangsters step in, grab Lucas and his brother’s hands, and press some hot metal that leaves a mark on them. I pale and fall to the ground all over again.

“Henceforth, if I call, you will answer. If you don’t, I will end your entire family. I can end your whole legacy at once. And that fiancée of yours—no, my wife now…if you do not want her to end up in my bed, find me my diamond, pray that my grandmother gets better, and then pray that I forgive you for daring to steal from me.”

“Move out!” he yells, and his gangsters drag me up to follow after him.