Chapter 1 - The Toast of the DamnedCarmine Vale’s laughter was too loud, too brittle, echoing against the marble pillars of the cathedral like shattering glass. His left hand gripped an amber tumbler so tightly his knuckles resembled polished bone, yet the ice cubes inside trembled against the crystal.
Edmund didn't blink. He kept his arm securely banded around Vivien’s waist, feeling the faint, rapid tremor of her pulse where her hand rested on his shoulder. They moved in sync to the mournful waltz of the strings, gliding past the jagged crater where a sniper’s bullet had buried itself two minutes prior.
"Look at his wrist," Vivien murmured, her lips barely parting as she tracked Carmine's movements. "Not the hand holding the glass. The other one. Inside his jacket."
Edmund’s gaze shifted fractionally. Carmine’s right hand was buried deep within his tailored wool blazer, fingers hooked nervously around a burner phone. A prepaid device. The kind used once and thrown into the harbor.
"He hired an amateur," Edmund said quietly, his voice dropping into that cold, subsonic register that terrified his own capos. "A professional would have taken the second shot when we stepped back out. An amateur panics, watches the room, and waits for confirmation."
"Confirmation that you're dead or confirmation that you survived?" Vivien asked, lifting her chin to meet his pale eyes.
"Both." Edmund executed a sharp turn, shielding her body from Carmine’s line of sight while positioning them closer to the grand staircase leading to the upper gallery. "Tommy."
Tommy Mercer materialized beside a massive floral arrangement as if he had stepped out of the shadows themselves. His suit was immaculate, his expression completely devoid of human warmth.
"Boss?"
"Carmine’s burner," Edmund said, his eyes never leaving the dance floor. "Find out who he’s text-messaging. If he drops that phone, don't let it hit the floor intact."
"Already on it," Tommy replied, blending back into a knot of nervous politicians before the sentence had fully registered.
Vivien felt a cold shiver trace down her spine, entirely unrelated to the night air slipping through the broken window. She was no longer just the collateral pawn traded away to settle her father's debts. In the span of three minutes, she had become an accomplice to an execution waiting to happen.
"You're enjoying this," she accused, stepping closer to Edmund as the waltz neared its dramatic crescendo.
"I'm surviving it," Edmund corrected, his fingers tightening on her waist with bruising force. "And so are you. But if you want to keep breathing past midnight, Vivien, you need to understand something fundamental about the world you just married into."
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"Which is?"
"We don't negotiate with snakes," Edmund whispered, his gaze locking onto Carmine Vale as the older man finally turned his head and met Edmund's unblinking stare. "We skin them."
