The first security guard caught the back of my dress six feet from the altar.
We were taken into the cathedral’s private library because apparently there are few social disasters too large for a room containing leather chairs.
The handcuffs had become a practical problem.
I had purchased them that morning from a theatrical supply company because Caroline had originally requested an elaborate “escape” photograph for the reception booth.
The universe has a sense of humor.
The locking mechanism had bent when Dante’s security man tried to force it.
A locksmith was on the way.
Until then, Dante Russo and I were a deeply unhappy two-person chain gang.
He sat.
I sat because he sat.
This annoyed me.
“Could you announce major body movements?”
“No.”
“We need relationship counseling already.”
“We do not have a relationship.”
“Excellent. One less scheduling problem.”
His security chief, Cole Barrett, stood near the door.
Caroline sat across from us wrapped in somebody’s coat.
Her father had been taken to another room.
Nobody had been arrested.
Nobody had been shot.
By Russo-family standards, I considered that a strong beginning.
Dante looked at Caroline.
“Start again.”
She shook her head.
“I told you.”
“You told Maeve.”
His use of my first name startled me.
I had introduced myself once, eight months ago, during the venue walkthrough.
Apparently dangerous men remembered wedding planners.
Caroline pressed both palms between her knees.
“Three weeks ago, I found papers in my father’s study. Payments made through six companies. One of them funded the warehouse lease on Lake Street.”
Dante’s face hardened.
“Who signed them?”
“My father.”
“Who authorized the transfer?”
She hesitated.
“Victor Russo.”
Cole’s eyes moved sharply toward Dante.
I recognized the name.
Victor was Dante’s uncle.
He had spent the wedding smiling at people like he already owned their houses.
Dante remained silent.
Caroline continued.
“I thought the documents proved our families had been working together before the feud. Then I found something else. Insurance changes. Security schedules. A payment made the morning before your brother died.”
Dante’s voice dropped.
“To whom?”
“I don’t know. The account number was hidden.”
“And the envelope?”
“Copies.”
“Why give it to her?”
Caroline looked at me.
“Because nobody searches the wedding planner.”
I raised my cuffed wrist.
“I feel that theory has now been tested.”
Nobody laughed.
Fair.
Dante turned toward me.
“Who knew you had it?”
“Caroline.”
“Anyone else?”
“No.”
“You never opened it?”
“I promised.”
“You keep promises to strangers?”
“When they’re wearing wedding dresses and having panic attacks, yes.”
He studied me.
“Why?”
I hated the question.
Not because I had no answer.
Because I did.
Eight years earlier, I had worn a wedding dress.
Not this expensive.
Not this beautiful.
But white.
My mother had cried when she zipped it.
My friends had told me I was lucky.
My fiancé, Ryan, had been charming in rooms full of people and cruel in private in ways small enough that I spent years arguing with myself about whether cruelty was the right word.
He never hit me.
That was the sentence I used to excuse everything else.
He corrected how I ate.
Who I spoke to.
What I wore.
How loudly I laughed.
He had once gone three days without speaking to me because I ordered dessert after telling him I wanted to lose weight.
By the time our wedding arrived, I had become excellent at keeping everybody comfortable.
The morning of the ceremony, my sister found me sitting on the bathroom floor.
She asked if I wanted to marry him.
I said, “Everyone is already here.”
She asked again.
I said, “The flowers were expensive.”
She asked a third time.
I cried.
She canceled the wedding for me.
For two years, I resented her.
For the next six, I understood why.
I looked at Dante.
“Because sometimes somebody needs one person in the room who doesn’t care how expensive the flowers were.”
Something changed in his face.
Small.
Real.
Caroline looked down.
Dante said, “And you were willing to destroy your business for that?”
“No. I was hoping for a smaller catastrophe.”
His cuff shifted when he leaned back.
“Your definition of small concerns me.”
“I coordinate weddings. My scale is distorted.”
Cole’s phone buzzed.
He read something.
Then looked at Dante.
“The envelope may still be inside the building. Cameras show nobody entering the service corridor after Ms. Collins left except staff.”
“Search the staff rooms.”
I straightened.
“Wait.”
Dante looked at me.
“The envelope wasn’t stolen in the corridor.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I checked the pocket after that.”
“When?”
“Outside the ballroom.”
“Then who touched you between there and the altar?”
I thought.
Florist.
Assistant.
Photographer.
Bride’s mother.
Three bridesmaids.
A waiter who nearly poured champagne down my chest.
Then I remembered.
Victor Russo.
He had stopped me at the ballroom entrance.
He had kissed my cheek.
A strange, formal greeting from a man I barely knew.
His hand had briefly rested at my waist.
Exactly where the pocket was hidden.
I looked at Dante.
“Your uncle.”
No one spoke.
Cole left immediately.
Dante did not react.
That worried me.
“You suspected him,” I said.
His eyes met mine.
“You don’t look surprised.”
Caroline started crying again.
Not loudly.
That was worse.
Dante turned toward her.
“What did he promise your father?”
She shook her head.
“You already know.”
“Tell me.”
“After the marriage, my father was transferring the North Harbor leases into the joint company. Victor would control the security contracts. My father would keep the real estate. You would sign the restructuring documents at the reception.”
“And?”
Caroline stared at him.
“And you weren’t supposed to leave the reception alive.”
My mouth went dry.
Dante said nothing.
Caroline’s voice cracked.
“That’s why I tried to warn you last week.”
I looked between them.
“You spoke before today?”
Neither answered quickly enough.
That was my answer.
I pulled against the cuff without meaning to.
“You knew?”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“I knew there was a threat.”
“How much?”
“Enough.”
“You knew her father was planning something?”
“I suspected.”
“And you still stood at the altar?”
“Yes.”
“With her?”
“Yes.”
Caroline whispered, “He said it was the only way to make my father believe the plan was working.”
I stared at Dante.
“So she was bait.”
“No.”
“That is exactly what bait is.”
“She agreed.”
Caroline laughed through her tears.
It was a horrible sound.
“I agreed because my father had Mason.”
Dante closed his eyes once.
There.
A crack.
I turned to Caroline.
Her younger brother was twenty-one.
I had met him twice.
Thin kid.
Quick smile.
A history of pills and recovery centers his father paid for.
“What do you mean he had Mason?”
“My father moved him Monday. I don’t know where. He said if I caused a scene, Mason would lose access to treatment.”
Dante said, “My people were looking for him.”
“You didn’t find him.”
“No.”
“So I kept saying yes.”
She looked at me.
“To the dress. The dinner. The photographs. Everything.”
My anger shifted.
Not disappeared.
Shifted.
Toward Owen Weller.
Toward Victor Russo.
Toward Dante.
Toward every person who had looked at a terrified woman and called her cooperative.
Dante’s voice was low.
“You should have told me he threatened Mason.”
Caroline snapped her head up.
“I did.”
His expression changed.
“I sent it through Victor.”
That landed hard.
Cole returned before anyone could respond.
He shut the door.
“Victor is gone.”
Dante stood so suddenly I nearly fell sideways.
“Warning!” I barked.
His hand caught my arm before I hit the table.
For one absurd second, we were inches apart.
His grip was firm.
Then immediately gone.
“Sorry.”
It was the first apology I had heard from him.
Cole continued.
“His car left twelve minutes before the ceremony. We found the blue envelope in the trash near the west stairwell.”
Caroline stood.
“Everything?”
“No.”
Cole looked at Dante.
“The accounting pages are there.”
“What’s missing?”
“A photograph and one signed statement.”
Caroline’s face changed.
“What photograph?”
She genuinely didn’t know.
I saw it.
Dante saw it too.
Cole handed him the envelope.
Because of the cuff, I had no choice but to move closer when he opened it.
There were copies of bank records.
Contracts.
Invoices.
One sheet caught my eye.
COLLINS & CO. EVENTS.
My company.
My address.
My tax number.
My signature.
A payment for $184,000.
I stopped breathing.
“I never signed that.”
Dante looked at me.
The payment was dated seven months earlier.
My company had supposedly received money from a freight supplier I had never heard of.
Then transferred most of it to another account.
It looked exactly like money laundering.
Using my business.
Using my name.
I read the signature again.
It was good.
Very good.
Not mine.
Caroline whispered, “That’s why I hired you.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“I saw your company in the accounts months ago.”
“You knew?”
“I thought you were involved.”
The room tilted.
“You hired me because you thought I was laundering money for your father?”
“At first.”
My laugh came out sharp.
“That is a fascinating client acquisition strategy.”
“Maeve—”
“Don’t.”
She stopped.
I looked at Dante.
Something in his expression told me there was more.
“No.”
He said nothing.
“No, no, no. Do not do that mysterious silent-man thing. Why is my company in your family’s records?”
Dante glanced at Cole.
Cole looked away.
My stomach dropped.
“You knew too.”
Dante finally spoke.
“I learned about the account six weeks ago.”
“You knew someone was using my company?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“We were trying to determine who opened it.”
“By letting them keep using my name?”
“The account had gone inactive.”
“That isn’t the point.”
My voice broke.
I hated that.
I pulled my wrist hard enough that the cuff cut into my skin.
Dante looked down at the red mark.
Then at me.
“Maeve.”
“No. You don’t get to say my name like that.”
The door opened.
One of the guards entered.
He looked at Cole.
“We found Mason Weller.”
Caroline stood so fast the coat fell from her shoulders.
“Where?”
“A hotel near the lake. He’s alive.”
Her knees buckled.
Cole caught her.
I watched her cover her face and sob.
Not elegant crying.
Not movie crying.
The sound of someone whose body had carried terror too long and finally been told it could put the weight down.
Dante looked at her.
Then at me.
For the first time all day, the most feared man in the room looked ashamed.
The locksmith arrived seven minutes later.
When the cuff opened, the absence of metal between us felt stranger than the chain had.
I rubbed my wrist.
Dante stayed seated.
I stood.
“You used me.”
“I didn’t put your company in those accounts.”
“But you knew.”
“Yes.”
“And you chose your investigation over warning me.”
His eyes held mine.
“Yes.”
There are moments when an apology matters.
There are others when honesty does.
That was the second kind.
It did not make me less angry.
It only kept me from hating him.
Caroline came toward me.
“Maeve, I’m sorry.”
I looked at her exhausted face.
I wanted to be furious.
Instead I remembered her barefoot in the service corridor.
“You owe me an explanation someday.”
“I know.”
“And a new dress.”
She blinked.
I pointed to the tear security had made at my waist.
She laughed while crying.
“Deal.”
I picked up my bag.
Dante stood.
“What do you want?”
The question irritated me.
“What?”
“What happens next for you?”
“My company may be tied to financial crimes, half of Chicago just watched me tackle your wedding, and a video of me handcuffing myself to you probably already has background music on the internet.”
He almost smiled.
I didn’t.
The almost-smile disappeared.
“I can help.”
“That is exactly what I do not want.”
His face went still.
“I don’t want a Russo favor. I don’t want money. I don’t want someone frightened into fixing my reputation.”
“What do you want?”
I opened my mouth.
The joke came automatically.
For once, I swallowed it.
“I want the truth before somebody decides I can’t handle it.”
Dante nodded.
“You’ll have it.”
I left without asking whether men like him kept promises.
The first cancellation arrived before I reached my apartment.
By morning there were nine.
By Friday, seventeen.
The video from the cathedral had been viewed millions of times.
Some people called me brave.
Some called me insane.
One woman online said my hips had “the structural integrity of a bulldozer,” which was rude but technically supportive.
I printed that one.
The financial story was worse.
Investigators confirmed accounts had been opened using my business information.
I was not charged.
That did not stop clients from leaving.
Nobody wants their wedding planner mentioned in the same news report as organized crime and suspected financial fraud.
Three weeks later, Collins & Co. had lost nearly half its bookings.
Dante never sent flowers.
Never sent money.
Never appeared at my door.
He sent documents.
Every morning.
Copies of records his attorneys had obtained.
Names.
Dates.
Statements.
No commentary unless necessary.
Exactly what I had asked for.
The truth.
It was uglier than I expected.
Victor Russo and Owen Weller had been secretly moving money through small businesses for years, usually businesses unlikely to examine every vendor transfer closely.
Florists.
Caterers.
Rental companies.
Event planners.
The fake Collins & Co. account had been created because Victor had attended a gala I organized and obtained enough invoice information to imitate my paperwork.
Dante discovered it six weeks before the wedding.
He had intended to expose Victor after the ceremony.
He had not told me because he feared warning me would alert his uncle.
Logical.
Efficient.
Unforgivable.
At least for a while.
Caroline called me from Colorado, where she had taken Mason after he left treatment.
“I’m working at a bookstore,” she told me.
I nearly dropped the phone.
“You?”
“I know.”
“You once complained because a restaurant didn’t have sparkling water from Italy.”
“I was awful.”
“You were twenty-nine.”
“I’m still twenty-nine.”
“Then transformation has been alarmingly fast.”
She laughed.
A better laugh now.
Before hanging up, she became quiet.
“Maeve?”
“Yes?”
“Dante didn’t know my father threatened Mason.”
“I know.”
“He thought I had agreed because I wanted out of my father’s control.”
“That doesn’t make using you as part of a trap okay.”
“No.”
I appreciated that she did not try to excuse him.
Then she said, “But there’s something else you should know.”
“What?”
“The signed statement missing from the envelope.”
I waited.
“Victor had written it.”
“Confessing?”
“Partly. He claimed Dante ordered the fake accounts.”
My stomach tightened.
“Did he?”
“I don’t know.”
Neither did I.
That uncertainty sat with me for days.
Then Dante walked into my office carrying a cardboard box.
I stared at him.
He wore a charcoal coat over a white shirt.
No tie.
No visible security.
He looked tired.
Not movie-star tired.
Human tired.
“What’s in the box?”
“Your files.”
“Those are usually digital now.”
“These aren’t.”
He placed it on my desk.
Inside were original invoices, account applications and copies of checks.
I flipped through them.
Then I found the signed statement.
Victor’s.
The missing one.
I looked up.
“You have it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“My uncle mailed it to me.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“What does he want?”
“A deal.”
“With you?”
“Yes.”
I read the statement.
Victor claimed Dante had approved everything.
If true, Dante could destroy his uncle by releasing the other records but potentially destroy himself too.
I looked at him.
“Is it true?”
He did not answer immediately.
My heart sank.
“Dante.”
“Part of it.”
I sat back.
He remained standing.
“The account using your company existed before I knew about it. I did not authorize that.”
“But?”
“I authorized other transfers years ago.”
There it was.
Not redemption.
Not misunderstanding.
Guilt.
Real guilt.
I had spent three weeks wondering whether knowing him had made me stupid.
The answer was more complicated.
He was not innocent.
He had never claimed to be.
“How illegal?”
“Illegal.”
“Excellent detail.”
“You asked for truth.”
“I’m noticing truth has terrible customer service.”
The corner of his mouth moved.
Then fell.
“I’m giving the statement to the investigators.”
I stared at him.
“It implicates you.”
“Yes.”
“You could go to prison.”
“Yes.”
“And Victor?”
“Likely.”
“Why would you do that?”
He looked at the box.
“Because if I destroy the statement, I become him.”
Simple.
No speech.
No claim that meeting me had magically changed him.
That mattered.
I stood.
“Are you afraid?”
His eyes came back to mine.
“Yes.”
That answer surprised me more than anything else he had said.
People built legends around men like Dante because legends were easier than admitting powerful men still woke at three in the morning and feared consequences.
I leaned against my desk.
“Good.”
One eyebrow lifted.
“That was cruel.”
“It was.”
He almost smiled.
I didn’t let him escape.
“What happens to you now?”
“I cooperate. My attorneys negotiate. I accept whatever follows.”
“And your businesses?”
“The legitimate ones remain. Others end.”
“Your family will hate you.”
“Some already do.”
“Victor?”
“Definitely.”
I looked at him for a long time.
“Why are you here?”
His answer took longer.
“To apologize.”
“You already apologized.”
“No. I admitted what I did.”
I waited.
He glanced at the torn cuff mark that had faded from my wrist weeks ago.
“I knew someone was using your company. I decided protecting the investigation mattered more than giving you the choice to protect yourself.”
My throat tightened.
He continued.
“I did to you exactly what I told myself I was preventing people from doing to Caroline.”
That landed.
Because it was true.
He had not forced me toward an altar.
He had simply decided he knew what risk I should carry.
Same arrogance.
Better suit.
Different scale.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
No flowers.
No excuses.
No request for forgiveness.
I looked away.
My office was a mess.
Half-packed centerpiece samples.
Canceled contracts.
A crooked shelf.
A tray of cookies a former bride had sent after seeing the news.
Real life.
Ugly and ordinary.
“I’m still angry.”
“You should be.”
“I may stay angry.”
“I know.”
“You don’t get to pay my losses.”
“All right.”
“You don’t get to send clients.”
“All right.”
“You don’t get to have your security people scare anyone who posts something mean about my thighs.”
He blinked.
“I have not done that.”
“Good. Because somebody called them majestic, and I would like that preserved in the historical record.”
He laughed.
Actually laughed.
It changed his whole face.
I hated noticing.
Then he looked at me.
“What can I do?”
Nothing funny came.
I thought about Caroline.
About myself eight years earlier.
About all the ways people mistake taking control for helping.
“Ask.”
His expression shifted.
“Ask what?”
“Instead of deciding what people need, ask them.”
He nodded slowly.
Then he did.
“What do you need from me?”
I had spent most of my life answering that question for other people before they asked it.
Water.
A chair.
A joke.
A changed subject.
A fixed problem.
For myself, I had always been slower.
“I don’t know.”
“All right.”
That was all.
He picked up his coat.
At the door, I said, “Dante.”
He turned.
“Coffee.”
He waited.
I hated him for understanding that I was trying.
“Are you asking me to have coffee with you?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Now.”
His face softened.
“Yes.”
I pointed at him.
“This does not mean I forgive you.”
“I know.”
“It isn’t a date.”
“I know.”
“And if you order espresso without eating anything, I’m judging you.”
“I had breakfast.”
“What?”
“Coffee.”
“That is a beverage.”
He held the door open.
“You’re very controlling.”
I stared at him.
He stared back.
Then both of us laughed.
It was a beginning.
Not forgiveness.
Beginnings and forgiveness are not the same thing.
Dante pleaded guilty six months later.
The newspaper headline called it the fall of a crime dynasty.
That sounded more dramatic than reality.
Reality was court dates.
Sold properties.
Attorneys.
Employees who needed new jobs.
Relatives who stopped speaking to him.
Businesses closing because some of them should never have existed.
People coming forward with stories nobody wanted to hear when the money was flowing.
Victor received a much harsher sentence.
Owen Weller lost almost everything except the part money could never repair.
Caroline never spoke to him again.
Mason relapsed once.
Then returned to treatment.
Then relapsed again.
Then returned again.
Caroline told me recovery was less like climbing a mountain and more like trying to walk up an escalator moving downward.
Some days he gained three steps.
Some days he lost five.
She kept loving him without pretending love could cure him.
My business survived.
Barely.
For a year, I organized birthday parties, nonprofit dinners, retirement lunches and exactly four weddings.
One bride hired me specifically because of the cathedral video.
“My mother is terrifying,” she explained.
“I need someone who has demonstrated a willingness to tackle obstacles.”
“I did not tackle him.”
“You handcuffed yourself to a mafia boss.”
“That was situational.”
She hired me anyway.
Dante received a thirty-month sentence.
Before he began serving it, we had been dating for seven months.
Dating is a strangely cheerful word for what we were doing.
We had dinner.
Argued.
Made each other laugh.
Stopped talking twice.
Started again.
He learned to ask before fixing things.
I learned that saying “I’m fine” when I wasn’t was not kindness.
Once, after a terrible client meeting, I called him.
He asked what happened.
I said, “Nothing.”
He waited.
I said, “I hate you.”
“I know.”
“That was your cue to accept the lie.”
“No.”
So I told him.
When he left to serve his sentence, he did not ask me to wait.
That mattered too.
We stood in my apartment the night before.
My shoes were by the couch.
His coffee cup was on the table.
Nothing cinematic.
“I don’t know what happens to us,” he said.
I felt the old instinct.
Make it funny.
Save the room.
I let the silence stay ugly.
“Neither do I.”
He nodded.
“I love you.”
My chest hurt.
I looked at him.
“I love you too.”
He closed his eyes for one second.
Then opened them.
I added, “That does not mean I’m promising two and a half years.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know who I’ll be.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know who you’ll be.”
“I know.”
“That’s extremely annoying.”
“I know.”
I laughed despite myself.
Then cried.
He held me.
No promises.
No ring.
No performance.
Love without certainty felt frightening.
But for the first time in my life, uncertainty did not feel like failure.
Fourteen months later, I visited him on a gray Sunday morning.
We sat across a plain table.
He had lost weight.
There was more gray near his temples.
He looked less like the man from the cathedral.
I liked that.
Not because prison had improved him.
Suffering does not automatically improve anyone.
But because there was no crowd left to impress.
No guards waiting for his approval.
No powerful family watching.
He had to be a man without the machinery that once made people fear him.
That was the man I wanted to know.
He asked about work.
I told him Collins & Co. had booked nineteen weddings for the coming year.
“Nineteen?”
“Try sounding impressed.”
“I am.”
“You look constipated.”
“I’m in prison.”
“That cannot become your excuse for everything.”
He laughed.
Then his expression changed.
“Caroline wrote.”
“I know.”
“She’s engaged.”
“I know.”
His eyebrows rose.
“She told you first?”
“I’m more likable.”
“Debatable.”
“She’s marrying a high school science teacher.”
“Good.”
“She said he drives a twelve-year-old Subaru.”
“Very good.”
“She said her father would have hated him.”
Dante smiled.
“Excellent.”
I reached into my purse.
“You’re going to like this.”
I placed an envelope on the table.
Blue.
He stared at it.
Then at me.
“Really?”
“I appreciate thematic consistency.”
Inside was Caroline’s wedding invitation.
Dante read it.
His expression softened.
At the bottom, Caroline had written by hand:
No alliances. No contracts. No family negotiations. Just a wedding this time.
Dante looked at me.
“Are you coordinating it?”
“Yes.”
“Should I be concerned?”
“Probably.”
“You still have the handcuffs?”
I smiled.
“No.”
That was a lie.
I had them in a box in my office.
Not because they were romantic.
They weren’t.
They represented one of the most reckless things I had ever done.
A violation of somebody’s space committed to stop a larger violation of someone else’s choice.
I no longer thought it was heroic.
Sometimes the actions that change our lives are messy enough that calling them heroic is a way of avoiding what they cost.
Dante had lost years of freedom.
Caroline had lost her family as she had known it.
Mason was still fighting for his life one ordinary day at a time.
I had lost clients, money and the comforting illusion that good intentions made every decision good.
There was no perfect ending hidden underneath the damage.
Only people trying to become less dangerous to one another.
Dante folded the invitation.
“When is it?”
“October.”
“I may be out.”
“You may.”
He looked at me carefully.
“You want me there?”
The question.
Always the question now.
Not assumption.
Not expectation.
Choice.
I looked through the glass beyond him at the dull corridor, then back at the man I had once chained myself to because nobody else in that cathedral seemed willing to stop moving long enough to hear a frightened woman say no.
I thought about the strange cruelty of life.
Sometimes freedom begins with a door opening.
Sometimes it begins with a wedding ending.
Sometimes you love someone and still refuse to promise that love will survive every version of them.
I reached across the table.
His hand stopped halfway.
Waiting.
I closed the distance myself.
“Yes,” I said. “I want you there.”
His fingers closed around mine.
No steel.
No lock.
No frightened bride.
No three hundred guests demanding the correct answer.
Just a hand I could release whenever I wanted.
Dante looked at our fingers.
Then at me.
“You know, our first meeting was technically assault.”
“Do not ruin this.”
“I’m stating a fact.”
“You’ve become irritating.”
“You taught me.”
I squeezed his hand.
He smiled.
There were still sixteen months left on his sentence.
My business could still fail.
Mason could relapse.
Caroline’s marriage could become ordinary and difficult after the flowers died.
Dante could leave prison and discover that the man he wanted to become was harder to live as than the man everyone once feared.
And I could wake up one morning and decide love was not enough.
That possibility used to terrify me.
Now I understood something I wish I had known when I was twenty-four years old in a white dress, sitting on a bathroom floor and calculating the price of flowers as if money could answer whether I wanted my own life.
A promise has value only when the person making it is free to refuse.
Love does not become deeper because leaving is impossible.
Loyalty means very little when fear is doing the locking.
The most meaningful yes I ever gave was not at an altar.
It was across a scarred visiting-room table to a man who had finally learned not to decide for me.
And perhaps that was why I trusted it.
Because nothing held my hand there except mine.
THE END
