By the time the party truly begins, the lake has swallowed the sun like a god devouring his own light. In its place: a silvered hush that settles over the Rossetti estate, fractured only by music, laughter, and the low hum of danger. Moonlight clings to the chandeliers—hand-cut crystal, imported from Vienna—and scatters across marble floors like spilled diamonds.

The estate is no longer a home. It’s a fever dream. A cathedral of indulgence.

Velvet-draped lounges curve through the gardens like serpents. Lace-gloved guests drape themselves over them—lounging, smoking, laughing in languages they were never born into. The scent of overripe roses lingers in the air, cloying and wine-sweet, tangled with cigar smoke and citrus oil. Bouquets wilt from too much heat, their petals curling like secrets, their thorns catching on silk gowns and whispered threats.

Candlelight flickers everywhere—set into fountains, dripping from candelabras, floating in shallow crystal bowls. The flames are lazy, gold-licked, casting halos over sinners. The smoke coils upward like ghosts of old rivals, waltzing through the air, lingering in earrings and confession collars.

And you—You are barefoot now.

Your heels are long abandoned beneath the table where someone’s cousin wept into a Negroni. Your gown, heavy and glistening, is soaked an inch at the hem from a stolen moment at the lake’s edge. Your lipstick is half-smudged. There’s a bite mark on your shoulder. You’ve shed layers. You’ve earned the stares.

You are no longer just the bride. You are the myth, the monument, the queen they’ll write about in memoirs that never reach print.

Alessio stands nearby, surrounded by men whose names are spoken like gunshots and whose hands were scrubbed clean just for tonight. Their suits are blacker than mercy. Their watches tick louder than their hearts. But Alessio—he’s effortless. Shirt half-unbuttoned. One hand tucked into his pocket, the other swirling a glass of grappa as he listens, as he watches.

He laughs—low, deliberate, the kind of sound that makes lesser men feel naked. It cuts through the music like a blade wrapped in velvet.

And his eyes—Oh, his eyes never leave you for long.

They keep slipping back. Over crystal rims and shoulders. Through crowds and conversations. Like muscle memory. Like gravity. Like hunger dressed in satin.

He’s never looked at anything else the way he looks at you—with the gaze of a man who’s won a war and knows exactly what to do with the spoils.

The music is rich and sinful, pouring from an old brass quartet. Songs meant for dim rooms and darker intentions. It threads through the bodies on the dance floor—none of them moving gently. No one here dances to be seen. They dance to forget, to seduce, to remember things that never should’ve happened in the first place.

The guests themselves are a curated nightmare:

A Russian heiress in a pearl corset licks salt from the inside of her wrist, her diamonds flashing like broken glass. Her fiancé is missing. No one has asked why.

Luca Rossetti—Alessio’s cousin, freshly un-exiled—leans against a marble column with a glass of grappa and a gaze that promises betrayal. His suit is rumpled, his smile feral, and his intentions worse.

Your best friend is stationed like a general at the head of a table littered with fruit, pistachio shells, tarot cards, and a pistol someone thought was a centerpiece. Two men are fighting over who gets the next dance with her. One has blood on his collar. Neither is backing down.

A champagne flute shatters near the bar. The room doesn’t flinch.

The staff move like ghosts—elegant, expressionless, in dove-grey uniforms and soft shoes. Trained to ignore chaos. Built to serve kings and criminals.

Because this is a Rossetti wedding. Glass breaks. Empires rise. Secrets bleed. And beauty is never separate from power.