On the eve of the wedding, Jeremiah was overseeing the final preparations at the venue when he received an urgent call: a fire had broken out at the bridal suite. Rushing back in panic, he arrived only to witness his fiancée, Theodora, in a compromising position with another man. Time and again, Theodora had neglected and even hurt him for the sake of others. Yet Jeremiah had always clung to the hope that marriage would change things—that she would finally be his alone. But now, staring at the vivid marks on her skin, a truth he had long refused to face seared through him: some bonds were never truly his to begin with.
