The organ played its final note.

Stained glass cast crimson light through the cathedral, painting the altar in shades of blood. You couldn’t move. You couldn’t speak. The man standing before you was slipping a ring onto your finger—hands scarred, fingers callused from holding a gun too often and too long.

The crowd below didn’t cheer. They clapped once, in perfect unison. Every guest wore black. Every waist held metal.

He leaned close. The warmth of his breath on your ear made you flinch.

“Scared of me?”

he murmured, lips brushing your skin. Then he bit your earlobe gently, cruelly.

“Too late, madam.”

That night, after the champagne and the whispers and the silent executions… you saw him kneel.

He rolled up his sleeves, revealing ink that coiled like serpents up his thighs. The legendary tattoos of the black market’s god of death.

Gently, he dipped a cloth into warm water. His voice was soft, almost reverent.

“Is the temperature right?”

The same hands that held a gun to a traitor’s skull were now washing your feet. And looking up at you like you were the only god he worshiped.