Chapter 16: The Ties That Bind
The chapel glowed with golden light, every inch soaked in luxury. Ivory roses lined the aisle. A quartet played softly beneath the domed ceiling. Cameras flashed from the velvet ropes just outside the gates, hungry for a headline.
Inside, the guests whispered. Every seat was filled with media moguls, politicians, and CEOs. Elena Thorne had personally selected each one. This wasn’t a wedding. This was a spectacle. A staged display of power, submission, and image control.
And at the center of it all stood Cambria King.
Wrapped in white silk, her train gliding behind her like the tail of a silenced dragon, she walked toward the altar with steps so measured, so calm, she felt like she was outside her own body.
Each movement was deliberate. Each breath is calculated.
Maddox stood at the altar, dressed in black, a quiet fury in his eyes. He hadn’t spoken since Elena arrived at her hotel suite that morning. Hadn’t needed to.
Because this wedding wasn’t for him.
It was for her.
Elena.
And the empire she refused to lose.
Cambria reached him.