13. Nova #2
He stands at the altar like a man watching his own execution - face the color of old paper, eyes glassy and unfocused, the boutonniere on his lapel crushed where he must have been clutching at his chest. His carefully styled hair has fallen across his forehead. His hands hang limp at his sides.
Beside him, Chloe stands frozen in her princess gown. White silk and tulle, a veil cascading down her back, her bouquet of white roses trembling with each shallow breath she takes. The perfect bride. The perfect picture.
Except she’s staring at Nova like she’s seen a ghost.
And Dante isn’t looking at his bride at all.
He’s looking at her. At Chloe. With an expression I’ve never seen on my brother’s face before - not anger, not fear, but something rawer. Something broken.
“You said she’d never come back.” His voice is strange. High and thin, like a child’s. Like a boy who’s just discovered that the adults have been lying to him his whole life. “You promised me, Chloe. You said no one would ever find out about us-”
“Dante.” Chloe’s voice is sharp. Panicked. “Stop talking.”
“You told me I didn’t have to see it. You said if I just stayed quiet, if I just let Mother handle it, none of it would ever land on me-”
“Dante!”
But he’s not listening anymore. He’s unraveling right there at the altar, in front of everyone, all the carefully constructed lies falling away from him like dead skin.
“You told me I didn’t have to look. You told me a good son doesn’t question his mother. You made it so easy to pretend-”
“Since when?”
Nova’s voice cuts through his babbling. Quiet. Deadly.
They both freeze.
I watch her step forward. Past Marta, still standing in the aisle with tears drying on her cheeks. Past me, her hand slipping from mine. Up the altar steps, toward the man she married and the sister who betrayed her.
“I’m asking you, Chloe.”
Her sister doesn’t answer. Her face has gone the color of her dress. White, bloodless, terrified.
“Answer me.”
“Nova, please-” Chloe takes a step back, nearly tripping on her train. “It’s not what you think-”
“Then tell me what it is.” Nova is close enough now to see the sweat beading at Chloe’s hairline, the mascara starting to smudge beneath her eyes. “Tell me when you started fucking my husband while his mother was breaking my bones.”
The word echoes through the cathedral.
Fucking.
In this sacred space, in front of all those scandalized witnesses, in the middle of what was supposed to be my brother’s perfect wedding day.
No one breathes. No one moves.
Nova stands there in her red dress, magnificent in her fury, waiting for an answer that everyone already knows.
“It wasn’t-” Chloe’s voice cracks. “We didn’t mean for it to-”
“When?”
“Nova-”
“Before.” Dante’s voice, hollow and defeated. He’s not even trying anymore - not trying to maintain appearances, not trying to salvage the lie. He’s just… broken. “It started before.”
***
Nova
I turn to look at him.
My ex-husband. The man I married. The man I trusted. The man who stood by while his mother destroyed me, who told me I was sensitive, who chose his whiskey glass over my bleeding heart.
He stares back at me with empty eyes.
“Before what?” I ask, though I already know the answer. I just need to hear him say it.
“Before you left.” He laughs - a horrible, broken sound that echoes off the ancient stones. “Before the divorce. Before any of this.”
The cathedral seems to tilt around me. I feel Luca move closer, feel his presence at my back, solid and steady. An anchor.
“She came to me,” Dante continues, and his voice has taken on a strange, detached quality, like he’s narrating someone else’s life.
Like he’s already left his body and is watching from somewhere far away.
“After one of Mother’s… episodes. You were in the hospital.
The broken wrist, I think. And Chloe came to the house to check on you. ”
“Dante, stop-” Chloe reaches for his arm.
He shakes her off.
“But you were sedated. So she stayed. Had a drink.” His eyes find mine. “She told me things.”
“What things?”
“That you were weak.” The words fall from his mouth like stones. “That you’d always been weak. That Mother was right about you - you weren’t cut out for this family, and the kindest thing would be to let you go.”
My throat is closing. My chest is too tight. But I force myself to keep standing, keep listening, keep facing the truth I’ve spent two years trying not to see.
“So we started… talking. Meeting. And one night, after Mother had-” He gestures vaguely, and I know exactly what he means. After Mother had beaten me bloody. After Mother had left me crying on the bathroom floor. “-Chloe came over. And she stayed.”
“You-” My voice doesn’t sound like my own. “While I was-”
“You were already gone.” Chloe’s voice is high, defensive, desperate. “Maybe not physically, but mentally. Emotionally. You were a ghost in that house, Nova. You barely spoke anymore. You barely existed. And Dante needed someone who could actually be there-”
“I was being tortured.”
The word hangs in the air.
“I was being beaten, and starved, and gaslit, and isolated.” I take a step toward my sister. Then another. “And while that was happening, my sister was climbing into my husband’s bed and telling him it was my fault?”
Chloe flinches. “That’s not-”
“Is it?” Another step. “Is it, Chloe? Because I remember things now. I remember how you always seemed to know things - details about my marriage, about Vivienne’s moods, about when it was safe to call and when it wasn’t.”
“I was worried about you-”
“You were gathering intelligence.” I’m right in front of her now, close enough to see the fear in her eyes. “You were keeping tabs. Making sure I didn’t figure out that you were already inside my marriage, waiting for me to be pushed out.”
“Nova, please-”
“The engagement. Before the ink on the divorce was even dry.” I laugh, and the sound is sharp enough to cut. “Everyone said it was so fast. So sudden. But it wasn’t sudden at all, was it?”
Chloe’s face crumples.
“You’d been waiting for years.” I feel something cold settling into my chest - not rage anymore, but something worse. Something final. “Waiting for Vivienne to break me. Waiting for me to leave so you could step into my place.”
“It wasn’t like that-”
“Then what was it like?” My voice rises.
“Tell me, Chloe. Tell me what it was like to fuck my husband while I was in the hospital. Tell me what it was like to sit across from me at Christmas dinner, knowing what you’d done.
Tell me what it was like to slam the door in my face when I came to you for help, when I was homeless and starving and desperate, because you were too busy planning your wedding to the man who watched me get beaten and did nothing! ”
“I didn’t know!” Chloe is crying now, tears streaming down her face, ruining her perfect bridal makeup. “I didn’t know how bad it was - Dante said you were exaggerating - Vivienne said you were unstable-”
“And you believed them.” My voice drops. Quiet now. Cold. “You believed them over me. Your own sister.”
“I-”
“You chose them.” I take a step back. Then another. “You chose comfort and money and a Castellani name over your own family.”
I look at her - really look, maybe for the last time. At this woman I grew up with, shared secrets with, promised I’d always be there for. At the sister who decided my suffering was a small price to pay for the life she wanted.
“I hope it was worth it,” I say quietly. “I hope he makes you happy. I hope you spend the rest of your life wondering if he’ll do to you what he did to me.”
“Nova-”
“We’re done.”
I turn away from her. From Dante. From the altar where I stood two and a half years ago and promised to love and cherish and honor.