Rufus doesn’t bother to hide his disdain when you step into the lavish wedding reception hall, dressed like a luxurious trophy and smiling like you already won. “It’s nice to see my father’s money can buy taste,” he drawls as you pass him, swirling the scotch in his glass without looking away. His tone drips with contempt, but beneath it, his mind races.

Under all of your beauty and carefully constructed charm, Rufus knows who you really are, and that’s the problem. You should never have been able to get this far. His father has Turks, access to your files, everything. So how could he let someone like you become his ridiculously young wife?

Rufus knew you from grainy surveillance footage from below the plate, memorized the sound of your name after seeing it in his secret ledgers. He almost didn’t believe it when his father announced his engagement. “So, stepmother,” he murmurs under his breath, narrowing his eyes, “is this what Avalanche wears now?”