Chapter 1 #2
I pushed myself up on my elbows. The room tilted sideways, then righted itself with a nauseating lurch. Sunlight poured through the French windows, too bright, making me squint. The antique clock on the mantle read 11:47.
Late. I was late for—what? Why couldn't I remember?
I looked down.
My breath stopped.
I was wearing a wedding dress.
Not just any wedding dress. An elaborate confection of ivory silk and French lace, with long sleeves covered in delicate beading that caught the light.
Pearl buttons marched down the bodice—dozens of them.
The skirt pooled around me on the bed, layer upon layer of tulle and silk, with a train that spilled onto the Persian rug.
This wasn't my dress. I'd never seen this dress before in my life.
My hands went to the fabric, fingers catching on the lace. Real. It was real. The panic hit like a fist to the chest—sudden, brutal, stealing what little air I had left.
This isn't happening. This can't be real.
I tried to stand. My legs tangled in the train and I nearly went down, catching myself on the bedpost. The room spun again. I pressed my palm to the carved mahogany until the world steadied.
The full-length mirror across the room reflected someone I didn't recognize.
My hair was swept up in an intricate updo I'd never be able to create myself—braids and curls pinned with tiny white flowers. My makeup was professionally done, though smudged now from sleep. Smoky eyes, nude lips, contoured cheekbones. I looked like Bianca.
No. I looked like a bride.
I stumbled toward the vanity, one hand against the wall for balance. My jewelry box sat open, empty except for—
A note.
The white paper was folded over once. Inside was Bianca's handwriting, that familiar slanted script I'd known my entire life.
My hands shook as I picked it up.
Sorry, little sister. I couldn't do it. You'll understand someday. Don't hate me.
The words blurred. I read them again. Then again.
I couldn't do it.
Couldn't do what?
Fragments of memory clawed back through the fog. Bianca's apartment. Champagne that tasted wrong. Her hands shaking. I'm so sorry, Paola.
She'd drugged me. My own sister had drugged me.
But why was I in a wedding dress?
I turned back to the bed, scrambling through the covers to try and find my phone. I’d call her and demand an explanation. Or I’d call Anna–tell her what happened, she’d come pick me up–
There.
It was on the nightstand along with a few other belongings that someone had taken from me: a bracelet gifted by an ex-turned-friend years ago, my wallet, the worn hair tie I kept around my wrist for painting.
I lunged for the phone, almost sobbing in relief when the screen lit up. There was still battery–barely. And there were a ton of texts from Anna, two missed calls.
The date on the screen… yesterday I’d gone to meet Bianca. I’d spent a whole day passed out in my childhood bedroom.
“No.”
A hand closed around the phone, wrestling it from me as I cried out. A tall, broad, quiet man stood over me, staring down stoically as I scrambled off the bed, breathing hard. There was a holstered gun at his hip. His massive hand closed entirely around the phone and my heart sank.
Then the bedroom door burst open.
Three women rushed in—servants I vaguely recognized from my childhood. They were speaking over each other rapidly, hands fluttering.
"Signorina! Thank God you're awake!"
"The car is waiting—you're already late!"
"Your father will be furious—"
"Late for what?" My voice came out hoarse. "What are you talking about?"
The oldest servant—Maria, I thought her name was—pressed a hand to her ample chest. "Your wedding, signorina! To Signor Monti! The ceremony started twenty minutes ago!"
The room tilted again. Wedding. Monti. The words didn't make sense together.
"No." I shook my head, backing away from them. "No, this is wrong. This isn't my dress. I'm not getting married. I'm not—"
But they weren't listening. Maria was already at my face with a makeup compact, dabbing at the smudges under my eyes. Another servant adjusted my veil—when had that gotten there?—while the third smoothed the train.
"There's been a mistake," I tried again, louder this time. "Where's Bianca? I need to talk to Bianca."
They exchanged glances. Something passed between them—confusion, maybe pity.
Maria's hands stilled on my shoulders. She met my eyes in the mirror.
"Signorina... you are Bianca."
The world stopped.
I shoved past them, the train ripping free from someone's hands. The hallway beyond was exactly as I remembered—marble floors, oil paintings of dead ancestors, the grand staircase sweeping down to the foyer.
"Father!" My voice echoed off the high ceilings. "Father, where are you?"
He appeared at the top of the stairs like a summoned demon.
Giovanni Lombardo. Impeccable as always in a custom tuxedo, silver hair slicked back, not a thread out of place. His expression was carved from ice.
"Father, thank God—" I stumbled toward him, nearly tripping on the cursed dress. "Something terrible has happened. Bianca, she drugged me, she left this note—"
"Stop making a scene, Paola."
The coldness in his voice when he said my name told me everything. He knew, and for some reason he was going along with it.
The world lurched sideways again.
"You knew." It wasn't a question. I could see it in his face, in the cold calculation of his eyes. "You knew what she was planning to do. But why–"
"What I know is that this marriage happens today." His voice was flat. Final. "One daughter or the other—it makes no difference to me."
The words hit like a slap. "It makes no difference? I'm your daughter—"
"You're a Lombardo." He descended two steps, looming over me. "And Lombardos honor their agreements. Cesare Monti expects a bride. You'll do your duty."
My laugh came out broken. "Duty? This is insane! I'm not marrying a stranger—a mafia Don I've never even met—"
My father moved faster than I expected. His hand closed around my upper arm, grip bruising through the lace.
"Listen to me carefully." His voice dropped to something deadly quiet. "This marriage ends a war. The Monti and Lombardo families have been bleeding each other for three years. This alliance stops it. If it doesn't happen, people die. Your choice: walk down that aisle, or have blood on your hands."
I stared at him. Searched his face for any hint of the father I'd once known—the man who'd pushed me on swings, who'd taught me to ride a bike, who'd cried at my mother's funeral.
There was nothing. Just cold pragmatism.
"You would do this to me?" My voice cracked. "Your own family?"
"I would do this for my family." He released my arm. "Now get in the car."
The servants materialized again, surrounding me like a well-trained army. Gentle hands on my elbows, on my back, guiding me toward the stairs. I could fight. I could scream. I could run.
But where? Out the back door, through the gardens? And then what? My father had made himself clear. This marriage was happening whether I cooperated or not.
And if I ran, people died.
I didn't even know what that meant—didn't know the players or the stakes or the history. But I knew my father. Giovanni Lombardo didn't bluff.
My feet moved automatically. Down the stairs. Through the foyer. Out the front door.
A limousine waited, black and gleaming in the late morning sun. Someone opened the door. Someone gathered my train. Someone helped me inside.
Then I was alone.
The door closed with a quiet click. The engine purred to life and then we were moving.
I pressed my hands to the cool leather seat, forcing myself to breathe. To think. Just yesterday I’d been in my apartment, painting, going about my quiet and completely unexciting life.
Options. I needed options.
Jump from the moving car—too dangerous, possibly fatal. Call for help—my phone was gone, purse nowhere to be found. Refuse at the altar—Father's threat echoed in my mind.
People die.
I didn't even know this man. Cesare Monti. The name meant nothing to me beyond whispers and rumors: a mafia Don, dangerous and ruthless. The kind of man my father did business with in shadow-filled rooms.
And I was about to become his wife.
This doesn't happen to people like me.
The thought was absurd even as it formed. I was an art curator. I taught children to paint. I lived in a studio apartment in Brooklyn and ate Thai food from the place on the corner. I wasn't someone who got forced into mafia marriages.
Except I was. Because I was a Lombardo, and Lombardos honored their agreements.
Even if it meant sacrificing their daughters.
Bianca's note burned in my memory. Sorry, little sister. I couldn't do it.
Couldn't marry him. Couldn't face this life. So she'd drugged me and run, leaving me to take her place.
My twin. My identical twin. The person who was supposed to be my other half.
I didn't know her at all.
The limousine slowed. My stomach dropped.
Through the tinted windows, I could see it—the church. Enormous and old, all Gothic spires and stained glass. People crowded the steps. Men in expensive suits. Women dripping with diamonds. The upper echelon of New York's criminal underworld, dressed up and playing at civilization.
This was real. This was actually happening.
The car stopped and the door opened. A gloved hand extended toward me.
I stared at it. This was the moment, the last chance to run, to fight, to refuse.
But Father's words still rang in my ears: People die.
I took the hand.
The world outside was too bright, too loud.
April sunshine blazed down on the church steps, unseasonably warm for early spring.
The sun was at its peak, a clock on a building across the square showing that it was just after noon.
I could feel eyes on me—dozens of them, assessing, judging.
Someone adjusted my veil, pulling it forward until I could barely see through the layers of tulle. Someone else snapped a photo.
Good. I didn't want to see this.
The church doors opened. Music swelled—the wedding march, traditional and inexorable. A bouquet of white roses was pressed into my hands. They smelled like a funeral.
I was positioned at the entrance to the aisle. The interior of the church stretched before me, cavernous and dark except for candles flickering in sconces. Rows of pews, filled with strangers.
And at the end—
A man. Tall and dark-suited, standing at the altar.
Waiting.
My groom.
The music pushed me forward. My feet moved—one step, then another. The train whispered behind me. The veil obscured my vision, turning everything hazy and dreamlike.
Each step felt like walking through water. Unreal. Impossible.
But the details were sharp enough to cut. The rustle of silk, the weight of the bouquet. Whispers from the pews—too quiet to hear, loud enough to feel.
They thought I was Bianca. They thought this was what I wanted.
Halfway down the aisle and I could see him more clearly now.
Cesare Monti was... not what I'd expected. Somehow both more and less frightening than the monster I'd built in my mind in the short ride it had taken to get to the church.
He was tall—well over six feet, with the kind of presence that commanded attention without effort. Broad shoulders in a black suit that probably cost more than my yearly rent. His dark hair was styled back and the strong jaw made him handsome in a brutal, unforgiving way.
And his eyes.
Even through the veil, I could feel them. Dark and intense, tracking my every movement. Cold. Assessing. Dangerous.
This was the man who would own me after today.
The man who thought he was marrying my sister.
The man whose bed I'd share, whose name I'd take, whose world I'd be trapped in–unless I could find a way to escape. But for years I’d been separating myself from my family’s mafia lifestyle, and I was sure I didn’t have the cunning or intelligence to get away from whatever this was free of consequences.
My hands shook. The roses trembled.
Ten more steps. Five.
I reached the altar.
Time slowed. Sound dimmed. The entire world contracted to this moment—standing at the base of these marble steps, looking up at the stranger who would be my husband.
I raised my eyes.
Met his.
The impact was physical, as if he’d reached out and touched me, caused a tingle to run down my spine. Something flickered in his expression—surprise, maybe, or recognition. Too quick to read. Then his face went blank again, a mask of cold control.
Terrifying.
Beautiful.
Mine, whether I wanted him or not.
Father Lawrence, the man who had been our priest throughout my childhood, stepped forward, his voice rich with ceremony. "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today..."
The bouquet nearly slipped from my fingers. I gripped it tighter, the thorns biting through the wrapping into my palms.
This was it. The point of no return.
I was about to marry a monster.
And there wasn't a damn thing I could do to stop it.