Sutton

Two days before the wedding.

"Did you find anything?" I ask Dom as she settles down onto the couch with the takeout containers of Chinese food she brought over from my favorite restaurant.

Dom shakes her head. "No. Not yet. But I haven't stopped looking. Sorry I didn't get to come over yesterday."

"It's fine. I'm just glad you saw Jason leaving Wicked Sins early. He'd be mad if he knew you were coming over. He doesn't want me to have any way at all of contacting Nic. I think he thinks you're going to like, go over to his house and send him a letter from me like some kind of carrier pigeon."

I asked Dom to let me call or text him the other night, but she reminded me that her phone bill is paid by the Ring. They probably have it tapped. As far as she's told me, she hasn't talked to Nicolai since the night everything went down.

She curls her lip as she eats a bite of chow mein. "He's such an asshole, Sutton. How did everything get so fucked up that you're marrying him?" she asks.

"I don't know. I wish I knew, and I wish I could go back and redo whatever the fuck it was I did that—"

Dom sets down her food and cups my cheeks, forcing me to look at her. "No. Don't do that. This is not your fault. None of this is your fault. Do you hear me?"

I nod, her whole arm moving up and down with my head. "Yes, I hear you."

"But do you believe me?" she asks, letting go and sitting back against the arm of the couch.

"I do, I just hate this so much," I groan. "I never thought I'd say I hate Jason. I always tried to take up for him, to see the good in him, but now..." I shrug and take another bite of chicken. "I can't."

"I get it."

"Have you talked to Nicolai? Is he okay?"

"Like we discussed, I haven't used my phone or anything to call or text him. It doesn't feel like a smart thing to do. I don't want to put him in danger. Jason is clearly volatile right now, and I don't want to provoke him," she says.

"You're right. I just—I wish I knew if he'd found anything."

"Me too. I think if he found anything groundbreaking, he'd find a way to tell me."

"Yeah, I think so too."

We sit in silence as we finish eating and I glance at the clock. "Ugh, he'll be home in a bit. We better get this cleaned up so you can get out of here before he gets back."

She's gone all too soon, and I'm alone again.

***

one day before the wedding

"Is my dad coming tonight?" I ask Jason before I close my door to get dressed for our rehearsal dinner. I hadn't even heard if he was in town yet; considering I didn't have a phone, it had kind of been hard to stay in touch with anyone.

Jason leans against my doorframe and his eyes roam over my towel-clad figure. Shit, I should have changed before I talked to him. I cross my arms tight over my chest.

Over the past couple days, Jason has been doing his best to make up for the way he acted the night Nicolai got caught in the apartment. I don't know what made him see that he was such a dick, but he's done everything but give me my phone and laptop back.

I'm still pissed.

"Of course he is," Jason says with a poor attempt to keep his eyes on my face instead of my chest. "His best friend is marrying his daughter. How could he miss that?"

"How indeed," I mutter. "I just wasn't sure because last time I got to talk to him, he thought he may not be able to get away."

Jason reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, and it is everything I can do to not smack his hand away.

"Princess, you are about to solve all of this family's problems by doing your duty. He'll be home for good now."

My stomach roils. My father's fate lays in my hands. How can I do anything other than walk down that aisle tomorrow?

I just swallow and say, "Good. I'll be glad to see him." I step out of his reach and gesture over my shoulder with my thumb. "Okay, I better get dressed so we can go."

"All right, princess. I'll be in the kitchen."

I close the door and lean against it, willing my nerves and stomach to settle. I just have to get through tonight and then tomorrow... surely Nicolai has a plan and I just don't know it yet.

Right?

Before I can talk myself out of the pitiful peptalk I'd just given myself, I slip into a blue sleeveless dress that goes all the way to my ankles, pull my hair into an elegant updo I was able to remember the steps for off the top of my head, and apply some makeup that gives me that dewy, glowing look I'm always seeing online. I can't show up looking like I don't give a fuck—even though I don't. Like it or not, I am one of the "princesses of the Ring." Jason didn't come up with that nickname for nothing.

Finishing off the look with a pair of heels, I take a deep breath and leave my room, making my way to the kitchen. You can do this, Sutton. You can do this.

What I'm most scared of tonight is a thought I have really refused to entertain until now.

Tonight, we will have an audience. Tonight, members of the Ring will be there. Members that I don't need to embarrass the family in front of. Whoever it is that my dad has pissed off will be there, I am sure. And they need to believe this is real. That Jason is really a part of our family in order to get him out of trouble.

Because yeah, organized groups like the Ring have marriages arranged all the time for convenience or whatever you want to call it, but the rules aren't always the same.

When they want to make the rules different for the person they're fucking over, they'll do it. And my father is the one that's getting fucked over here.

So I have to play the part. And playing the part means acting like I'm in love with Jason.

And people in love behave a certain way.

They touch.

They kiss.

"You ready?" I say in order to stop the thoughts rushing in, turning the corner into the kitchen.

"Yeah, in here—" I hear his shoes clicking on the tile floor as he walks my way.

Jason stops short when he sees me, and if I were into him, the look on his face would have surely swept me off my feet.

He's looking at me like I'm the most gorgeous woman he's ever seen, like there's never been another in his line of sight in his entire life.

"Sutton, you look incredible," he whispers, stepping closer to me and planting his hand on my waist. He leans in and I force a smile as he kisses my cheek. "Truly, fucking stunning."

"Thank you. You look nice too."

And objectively, he does. A blue suit that complements my dress without being too matchy-matchy, wingtip shoes, platinum cufflinks, and a tie in a perfect Windsor knot.

He places his other hand on the other side of my waist and shifts us so we're facing the huge mirror in the entryway to the penthouse. One of his hands slides around over my hipbone and splays across my stomach. He leans down, planting a kiss on my neck, looking up at our reflection.

"Look at us, princess. Look how good we look together," he murmurs against my skin, gripping my hip possessively, the material of my dress bunching in his fist.

I inhale sharply. I don't like this, but I have to make it through tonight without major incident.

So I just take a deep breath and turn my head so I can see him. "We do, don't we?" I say, my voice coming out as only a slight squeak.

"I'm glad you finally see it."

He tips my chin up, turning me around to face him. I close my eyes to try and make the moment go by faster, and he must take that as a different sign.

Because he pinches my chin harder and before I know what's happening, he's in my space and his lips are on mine.

I gasp, starting to tell him to back off, going with the terrible excuse of not messing up my lipstick.

But then I decide to play the game.

I actually kiss him back for the first time.

It's as bad as I thought it would be.

And I have a feeling it's only going to get worse as the night goes on.