The wedding

The wedding was happening.

I stood in front of the mirror, dressed in a perfectly tailored black suit that felt like a prison. The fabric was smooth, expensive exactly what my father would have chosen but it was suffocating. The weight of the ring in my palm felt heavier than it should, as if it carried the weight of every decision I had never been allowed to make.

Sabrina should have been here.

She should have been the one standing in this room, preparing to marry Alessandro, not me. Instead, she was buried in the cold ground, and I was being forced to take her place.

A knock at the door.

I didn’t turn. I already knew who it was.

“We’re running out of time,” my father said, his voice even, controlled. As if today was just another business transaction.

I stared at my reflection, barely recognizing the man in the mirror. My jaw was tight, my shoulders stiff, my eyes hollow. “What if I refuse?” My voice was quiet, but it carried weight.

He didn’t sigh, didn’t scold me. He simply stepped further into the room and placed a firm hand on my shoulder. “Then you’re not the son I raised.”

A cold chill ran down my spine.

I wanted to tell him to go to hell. I wanted to rip this suit off, walk out the door, and never look back. But I knew the truth. There was no walking away. Not from this.

So I turned, pocketed the ring, and walked out of the room. My mom was forcefully dressed up in a dress too to escort me to the wedding. She didn't want this too but she didn't speak anything even after seeing me dressed up in the suit.

The air felt thick, heavy with the tension that hung over the entire house. My mother walked beside me, her steps slow, as if every movement was weighed down by the gravity of the situation. Her face was pale, her eyes red from the endless night of grief, but she said nothing. She hadn’t said much since Sabrina’s death, too lost in her own sorrow to be of any comfort. Today evening, she was nothing more than a figurehead, part of the procession that would lead me to my own doom.

We moved through the house like ghosts, the walls silent witnesses to the betrayal of everything we once held dear. My father was ahead, already preparing for the next part of the charade, his business-like demeanor unaffected by the loss of his daughter. He had already shifted into what he needed to be, ruthless, cold, focused. And I had no choice but to follow in his wake, even though every fiber of my being screamed against it.

The wedding hall was cold and impersonal as expected. It had been prepared with meticulous precision, as though this were just another one of his many deals to be signed, to be completed, to be marked as done. Flowers arranged perfectly, guests seated as expected, the grand chandelier overhead casting an unforgiving light over everything. But it didn’t feel like a celebration. It didn’t feel like love. It felt like hell to me.

The hall was lavishly decorated, the guests well-dressed and murmuring among themselves, but none of them cared. No one cared that I was standing at the altar instead of Sabrina. No one cared that the groom hadn’t even arrived.

As I stood there at the altar, waiting for Alessandro to appear, the weight of the ring in my pocket pressed down on me. I could feel it, even though I hadn’t taken it out. It was a reminder, a cold reminder that none of this was my choice.

The doors opened, and Alessandro stepped into the room. He was immaculate in his own suit, but his expression was cold as usual, his dark eyes locked straight ahead. He was everything I remembered sharp, composed, untouchable. He hadn’t protested when the arrangement changed. He hadn’t asked for time to grieve. He had simply agreed.

Because, like my father, Alessandro only cared about the deal.

The world seemed to shift when our eyes met, a cold understanding between us. We both knew what this was. Neither of us had a say. His family, my family none of it mattered. All that mattered was the contract, the survival of our families, and the power it held.

My pulse quickened as the priest began the ceremony, his voice a distant murmur in the background. Words that didn’t matter, vows that meant nothing. I wanted to scream, to tear everything down, but I stayed silent, letting the cold reality sink deeper into my bones.

And then the words came, the ones I’d been dreading.

“Do you, Nikolai Smirnov, take Alessandro to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. My heart pounded, each beat reminding me of the life I had lost, the future I would never have. But I couldn’t refuse. Not with my father’s eyes watching from the back of the room, cold and unforgiving.

I forced myself to speak. "I do."

And with those words, the weight of my entire existence shifted once more.

"You can now exchange the rings",

“The rings.”

I hesitated.

For the briefest second, I thought about throwing the damn thing on the floor and walking out. But I didn’t. Instead, I forced my fingers to move, sliding the cold metal onto Alessandro’s hand.

When it was his turn, his touch was firm, his movements precise as he slipped the ring onto my finger. His eyes flickered to mine for a fraction of a second. There was nothing there. No emotion. No warmth.

Then, the final words.

“You may now kiss.”

My breath caught in my throat.

For the first time, Alessandro’s mask cracked just a little. His gaze met mine, dark and unreadable, and for a moment, I thought he might refuse. That he might finally say no.

But he didn’t.

He stepped forward, one hand reaching for my face, and before I could think, before I could stop it, his lips were on mine.

The kiss was brief. Cold. A formality.

And just like that, it was done.

I was married.

To a man I barely knew.

To a man who would never love me.

And as the guests applauded, as my father nodded in approval, as Alessandro stepped back with that same cold expression, one thought echoed through my mind:

I had never felt more alone in my life.