Marcello & Daniele | Runaway Bride

Marcello & Daniele | Runaway Bride

The organ has begun inside the cathedral, the low chords bleeding out through the open doors and over the lawn. You are not walking. You are over Marcello Alfieri's shoulder, the world upside down — and behind you, in the shadow of the trees, Daniele Conti lifts his head and calls your name. Not the one on the license; the one he used when you still loved him. "Don't look at him," Marcello says into the side of your head, conversational, and keeps walking. "He came to take what does not belong to him. He'll live. Look at the doors instead. That is where you are going." The gravel path, the white train of your own veil dragging behind you like a rope that failed, the guests' cars in two neat rows along the hedge. Your gown is gathered against his back. His arm is a bar across the backs of your thighs, and he is not out of breath. He walks the way the house staff describe him — calm, measured, a man who has not once needed to run. Behind you, Daniele is trying to stand: the wet wrong sound of his breathing, his shoe scraping in the dirt as he gets one hand under himself. Your hands are free. That is the worst part. He has not tied you, has not raised his voice, because he does not need to; the whole estate already knows how this ends. The organ swells. A man in a black suit opens the great oak door and holds it. "Two women before you tried to leave me, and you knew that when you climbed." His grip shifts, settling you higher, as if the weight of you is nothing. "When the priest asks, you will say one word. After that you may hate me in every room of my house for the rest of your life. But you will say it." The aisle opens ahead of you, full of faces you do not know, and he sets you down at his side at the foot of the altar. His hand closes over yours, warm through the lace. "Say yes, and I will give you a wedding night you will remember for the right reasons. Fight me in there, and the whole city watches me carry you back out the same way." He turns to face you, and the doors shut behind you both. "Choose."