Chapter 3 Gabriella
I arrive at the villa before dawn after twelve hours on crowded trains. The backdoor is unlocked the way Sofia said it would be. I quickly sneak upstairs to her bedroom before anyone sees me.
The house is too quiet for a wedding day. No bustling staff or delivery trucks. Just dead silence as if this is a day for a funeral instead of a wedding.
I find Sofia in her bedroom, still in her nightgown. Her wedding dress hangs on the closet door like a ghost, all ivory silk and hand-sewn pearls.
When I see her sitting on the floor, it's like being transported back to when we were both eight years old. The day we both knew we were being separated forever.
She has that same lost, hollow look in her eyes.
"Sof?" I drop my backpack and cross the room, my heart hammering with a familiar terror.
She looks up, and her eyes are swollen from crying, but it's more than that. There's something broken in her expression that I recognize from the worst period of her depression in university. When she started harming herself because the pain inside was too much to bear any other way.
"You came," she whispers, and her voice has that thin, fragile quality that means she's balanced on a knife's edge.
"Of course I came." I sit beside her on the Persian rug that's been in this room since we were children. "Talk to me. What's really going on?"
She takes a shuddering breath, and I realize she’s trying to organize thoughts that have clearly been spiraling for weeks.
"I've been researching him for months.”
“Who?”
“Luca. The man I’m marrying today. I’ve read every article I could find online about his family, about what they really do." Her voice cracks. "I kept hoping I was wrong. That it was just rumors. That they really don’t do the things the newspapers say they do."
"And?"
"Seven men have disappeared in the past two years.
Just gone. Dropped off the face of the earth.
And everyone knows it was his family, but no one talks about it because they're too scared.
" She wraps her arms around herself. It’s her way of trying to hold herself together when the world feels too big and dangerous.
"There was this one article about a man found in river with his hands cut off. Another about a business owner who refused to pay protection money. They found pieces of him scattered across three neighborhoods."
I force myself to stay calm. Sofia needs me to be the strong one, the way I always have been. While I haven’t always been able to help her, now I’m here and I will.
"Jesus, Sofia."
"I know what you're thinking, that I'm being overly dramatic, that I'm letting my anxiety spiral like always.
" She lets out another sob. "But I'm not.
I'm not imagining this. I have newspaper clippings, police reports, everything I could find.
Papa would kill me if he knew I'd been researching the Romano family, but I had to know what I was walking into. Now I’m terrified. "
I study my sister's face, identical to mine but worn thin by months of terror and sleepless nights. She's lost weight, I realize. Her collarbones are too prominent, her cheeks hollow. When did she get this fragile?
"Why didn't you tell Papa you couldn't go through with it? He loves you. Surely he could’ve figured something out."
"Because you know what happens when I can't handle what's expected of me." Her words drop off to barely a whisper. "You remember university. The... incident and the clinic."
The incident.
That's what we call the three months when Sofia disappeared from her life because the pressure of maintaining perfect grades and perfect everything finally broke her completely. I didn’t know about it until she was out and able to secretly contact me.
I’ve never forgiven myself for letting her down when she needed me the most.
"That was different. You were nineteen and overwhelmed. This is about your entire life, your safety-"
"No, it's not different." She meets my eyes, and I see the depth of despair there.
"It's exactly the same. I can't handle this, but I can't escape it either. Every option leads to disappointing someone or destroying something. I’ve tried so hard to make this work. But I can’t. So now, I’m falling apart. The same way I always do."
My heart clenches because she's right. Sofia has always been the sensitive twin, the one who absorbed everyone else's emotions like a sponge until she drowned in them. When we were kids, before everything changed, I was Sofia's buffer against Papa's rages and the violent world he moved in.
Then Mama took me away and left Sofia alone with Papa's impossible expectations and the lie that her mother didn’t love her enough to take her too.
It wasn’t until years later when Sofia and I were able to secretly reconnect that I was able to tell her the truth.
That our mother didn’t have a choice. Papa only allowed her to take one twin because he didn’t want me, not the other way around.
"I can't marry him," she continues. “I can't spend my life wondering if I'm going to say or do the wrong thing that gets me hurt or killed. I can't live in fear. I won’t make it. You know I won’t. I’m not strong like you."
"So don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't marry the bastard. We'll find another way. There has to be a way out of this."
She stares at me like I've suggested we sprout wings and fly away.
"There is no other way. The contracts are already signed, the business alliance is arranged.
If I back out now, it's not just an insult to the Romano family.
It's a declaration of war. Papa's business, our family's protection, everything depends on this marriage happening today.
This is bigger than me or my emotional issues. "
"Then maybe it's time for Papa to find a different solution to his business problems. You’re not a piece of property to be traded."
"You don't understand." She's crying again, tears running down her face in steady streams. "It's not just about business anymore.
Two months ago, there was a problem. Someone tried to muscle in on Papa's territory.
Some of his pieces went missing from the gallery, expensive ones.
The type of theft that sends a message."
This is the first I'm hearing about any of this. "What kind of message?"
"That he's vulnerable. That he doesn't have powerful enough allies to protect what's his.
" Sofia wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, a gesture so familiar I immediately reach out with my thumb to wipe the tears away.
"The Romano marriage isn't only about expanding business anymore.
It's about survival. If I don't go through with this, if I make Papa look weak or unreliable. .."
She doesn't finish, but she doesn't need to. In this world, looking weak gets you killed.
And your family.
"Everyone expects you to sacrifice yourself to a criminal to save the family business?"
"I'm the only daughter Papa acknowledges," she corrects. "The only daughter who exists in his world. As far as anyone else knows, you’ve been dead a long time."
It's a pointed reminder that even though Sofia and I reconnected eight years ago, even though we've maintained secret contact through encrypted messages and carefully planned meetings, I'm still officially dead to the Arcari family.
In Papa’s eyes, I died the night Mama took me and disappeared. Only Sofia exists, and only Sofia works for his business plans.
"What if there was another way?" I ask softly. "What if you don’t have to be the one who walks down the aisle?"
She looks at me, confused. I sense the exact moment she understands what I'm suggesting.
"Gabriella, no. You can't risk it."
"Why not? We're identical twins. I've been gone for many years. No one knows I’m still alive and around. How well does Luca know you?"
"Not well, but he'll know something's different. He’s a smart man. When he finds out, he might kill us both. And Papa."
"If I notices that I’m different, I'll tell him marriage has changed me.
That I've decided to be more confident. Men love thinking they've inspired some kind of transformation.
" I'm already working through the logistics in my head.
"You can disappear, and I’ll take your place at the wedding.
The marriage agreement gets honored, the family stays safe, and you get your freedom. "
"And you get trapped in a marriage to a dangerous man who could kill you if he ever finds out what we've done."
"Don’t worry about it. I can handle dangerous men. You can't. That's not a judgment, only a fact. You're not built for this kind of life, and there's nothing wrong with that. But I am. I can do this, I promise."
She shakes her head. "You can't sacrifice your life for mine. It’s not right and I won’t let you do it."
"I'm not sacrificing my life. I'm trading one version of my life for another. And you're not sacrificing yours either. You're finally going to get to live it. Are you with me on this? It’s your only chance, Sofia. I’m begging you to take it and go live your life for once."
I take her hands in mind and squeeze them. Finally, she lets out a long breath and nods.
“If you think it’ll work,” she says.
“I know it will, but we need to hurry.”
We spend the next few hours going through everything.
I study photos on her phone, memorize details about her conversations with Luca's family, practice her handwriting until my fingers cramp.
She shows me how she walks, how she laughs softly and covers her mouth, how she sits with her ankles crossed.
"Oh no!” she blurts out before noon. “Your hair! It's longer than mine, and wilder."
I run my fingers through my travel-tangled waves. "Cut it for me."
"I don’t know how to cut hair!”
“Cut it. How hard can it be? We don't have time for vanity. I’m sure the hairdresser you’ve arranged for the wedding will fix it nicely when she arrives."