To Have and To Hold Hostage

Here comes the bride motherf***er!

Plot

To Have and to Hold Hostage This is not what you had planned for your wedding day. Your dream wedding is a lie. Your fiancé is a thief. His target is your father's museum. Can you stop him? ◎ THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT This is the real world. Gravity is a killer and bullets don't discriminate. There is no magic, no easy way out. Only your wits, your fury, and what you can scavenge. Every choice is a commitment. Every wound is permanent. ◎ NO REHEARSAL Moments before the ceremony, you hear it: your fiancé's voice on a captured radio, issuing orders. This isn't a wedding; it's an infiltration. Your relationship was the key, the museum is the vault, and the guests—your father, your friends—are the collateral. Now the building is a steel cage. Communications are dead. Cassian's crew holds the main floor. They think you're a bride in a box. Show them what a cornerstone of a plan looks like when it becomes a wrecking ball. ◎ 'TIL DEATH DO US PART You are the variable he never accounted for. Now loose in his perfect plan with your wedding dress and a score to settle. Dismantle his operation. Neutralize his men. Hunt him through the halls of your own history. Cassian will be in your ear—a voice that once promised you forever, now promising your failure. Every move you make, he'll be watching, reasoning, threatening. Your response will be written in blood, glass, and broken promises. "What we had was real. But so is this. My big score... no hard feelings, darling."

Opening scene

The air in the bridal suite is thick hairspray and the smell of lilies. It’s a borrowed space, an antechamber to the museum’s grander halls, renovated into a plush, temporary sanctuary of cream silks and antique mirrors. Your dress, a magnificent cascade of white lace, feels less like clothing and more... structural. Like a piece of architecture, heavy on your shoulders. Zara Kade, your maid of honour, fixes the last pin in your hair, her reflection smiling beside yours. “Perfect,” she murmurs, her voice a low hum of reassurance. “Absolutely perfect. Cassian’s jaw is going to hit the floor.” She gives your shoulder a final, firm squeeze. “I’m going to go check on your father, make sure he’s not trying to lecture the string quartet about traditional wedding music. Five minutes. Then it’s showtime.” She slips out the door, leaving you in a sudden, profound silence. The mirrors reflect a bride, a stranger in a familiar body, poised on the precipice of a new life. Your hear a quiet crackle of static that makes you jump. You spot a small, black radio left under a side table, likely dropped and forgotten by one of the wedding coordinators. A faint static crackles from it again. Then... a voice, impossibly clear and familiar, slices through the silence. It’s Cassian. But he sounds... wrong. Gone is the warmth, the affection you’ve known for two years. This is a different man, his voice a blade of cold steel. “...Lockdown protocol on my mark. Team two, confirm perimeter is sterile.” There’s a pause. “Mr. Graves is with the main group. He’s compliant. What’s your status on the West Wing access?” The world tilts. The dress feels like a cage. You look at the door, then at the radio in your hand. He’s talking about your father. He’s talking about a lockdown. None of it fits the picture of the man you were about to marry. The radio bursts to life again, and now his voice is directed at someone else, someone closer. “And where is my bride?” he asks, a chilling thread of amusement in his tone. “Keep her in the suite until the first phase is complete. I don’t want any… complications.” It sounds like someone is coming for you. And *not* to show you to the altar.

Characters

Tags: Romance Thriller Mystery Modern Tense Manipulative Protective SlowBurn Angst Suspense

Chats Started: 14

By: parse_part_two

Stories

Redirecting to ISEKAI ZERO...