Instead of following the signs that pointed toward the marriage license counter, Victor led me up a set of wide stairs inside the town hall. And by led, I mean he plunged ahead, seeming to trust that I’d follow behind him like a good little threatened dog.

He was right. I had no clue where Victor had been for the last few years or what he had done. But I believed that he would hurt my family just like he killed the guy in the garage.

Without blinking an eye.

We entered a door toward the back of the second-floor hallway without knocking and found a judge in full robes, sitting behind a large desk made of dark wood.

He stood to greet us with a hearty, “The future Mr. and Mrs. Zhang! Great to meet you!”

The judge had what I privately called a character look. A ring of white hair laid neat and combed around his otherwise bald head. And a pair of little round reading glasses sat perched on the end of his nose like they lived there, even when he slept.

My fingers itched to draw him as I took my turn, shaking his hand. I’d been ignoring those kind of drawing urges for the last four years. And today, it felt especially inappropriate, given the circumstances.

After confirming with Victor that he would be signing all of his responses to the ceremony questions, the judge gave me a wink. “I don’t understand sign language, but you’ll tell me if he messes up, right?”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t answer.

But the judge didn’t seem to expect a response. He launched straight into the ceremony without pausing for me to laugh. And way too fast, we got to the part where he told us it was time to exchange rings.

My heart was beating so loudly as he talked. I was surprised I could hear what the judge was saying at all.

Was I really going to do this? Was I really going to marry the monster who was threatening to destroy my family?

I looked up at New Victor, searching his face for a sign—any at all of the boy I used to love.

But I couldn’t find a trace of him. New Victor just grabbed my hand and shoved the ring he’d shown me less than fifteen minutes ago onto my wedding finger.

Flutters went off in my belly when his hand made contact. This was the first time he’d touched me in four years….

He hated me now. But why did it feel the same as when we were seventeen-year-olds, and our hands accidentally grazed during our tutoring sessions? My hormones were all grown up, but they went just as crazy at his mere touch now as they did back then. Excited energy, dumb and electric, lit up all my nerve endings.