The dress was too white for a day that felt this dark.
I stood in the mirror while strangers pinned lace to my skin and called me beautiful, their voices floating past me like smoke. My hands trembled, not from cold but from the truth sitting heavy in my chest. I was not the bride they wanted. I was the replacement. The consolation prize. The sister who stayed when Isabella ran.
Outside the suite, the city hummed. Somewhere below, engines purred, horns cried, life went on. I wondered how the world could keep breathing when mine had already stopped.
My phone buzzed against the vanity.
Sebastian.
My heart lurched like it always did when his name appeared. I imagined his smile, the way his eyes softened when he said my name like it mattered. Like I mattered. He was supposed to be here today. Not like this. Not hidden in my phone while I stood in a gown meant for another woman.
I did not open the message. I could not. Because if I did, I would run. And running had already ruined everything once.
My mother hovered by the window, hands clasped, eyes red but dry. She had cried all her tears long before today. My father did not look at me. Alexander Voss stared at the floor like it might swallow him whole. He smelled of fear and regret. The kind of man who made deals with devils and called it survival.
“Elara,” my mother whispered. “It is time.”
Time for what. To be sold. To be handed over like a debt receipt. To marry a man I had never met in exchange for my family’s safety.
Matteo Ricci.
The name alone carried weight. Power. Fear. An heir to a world built on blood and silence. I had seen his photo once. Sharp eyes. Cold mouth. A man who looked like mercy had never been introduced to him.
They said he agreed to this marriage without protest. That terrified me more than if he had resisted.
The doors opened as we reached the hall. Music swelled, soft and elegant, mocking the storm gathering in my chest. Guests turned. Faces blurred. I walked slowly, every step a goodbye to the life I loved.
Then everything shattered.
The first sound was not a scream. It was glass exploding.
Chaos erupted in seconds. Shouts. Gunfire cracking through the air. People running. Bodies colliding. Someone grabbed my arm, yanking me back as bullets tore into white roses and marble walls.
I screamed. Not loud enough. Not strong enough.
The room filled with smoke and fear. I fell, my palms burning as they scraped the floor. My dress darkened with dirt and something warm that I refused to look at. My heart slammed against my ribs, wild and desperate.
Strong arms wrapped around me, pulling me upright.
“Do not move.”
His voice was calm. Terrifyingly calm.
I looked up and met eyes the color of winter steel.
Matteo Ricci.
He stood between me and the violence like he owned the space, like death answered to him. Blood stained his sleeve, not his own. His grip tightened when another shot rang out, his body angling to shield mine without asking permission.
In that moment, I understood something with painful clarity.
I had not escaped him.
I had been delivered.
As he dragged me toward the exit, alarms screaming and my world burning behind us, I realized my life had just been split in two.
Before the mafia heir.
And after the moment he claimed me without vows, without love, without choice.
