A quiet cancellation would have freed me and left him armed.

So we made a colder choice.

We let the wedding proceed to the exact point where Konstantin would show the room who he was — the point where he produced the document and demanded I sign — and we made sure that when he did, it was recorded, witnessed, and admissible.

I did not walk into that cathedral to be married.

I walked in to collect the last piece of evidence, in his own voice, and to let him hand it to me at the altar in front of two hundred people.

The calm I felt when the best man slid that paper across was not the calm of shock.