The night before my wedding to the Don, I drive sixty miles to bring his mistress home myself. When Damien pushes the door open, he finds the two of us sitting at the table with an open bottle of red between us, laughing like old friends. He exhales. He’s relieved. “Aria. Since you already know, let Cordelia move in with us.” I don’t look up from my glass. “You’re still my wife on paper. But Cordelia is delicate. Let her have the ceremony tomorrow. Once she’s settled, I’ll marry you properly. I promise.” I swirl my wine. I say nothing. He takes that as a yes. He always does. He grabs Cordelia’s hand and walks out without looking back, off to pick a gown. My gown. For my wedding. I’m not angry. I open my phone. There’s a private channel. Five names. Every man on it sworn in blood to a Family older than this city. I type one line. I need a groom for tomorrow. Anyone in? Three seconds. The screen explodes. Damien’s own Capos. His sworn brothers. Crawling over each other to be the first to volunteer. I smile. See, Damien? You won’t marry me. There’s a line. I mute the channel and put the phone face down. “Miss Moretti.” Marco, the house consigliere, has been standing in the doorway for a while. He clears his throat. “The Don is asking for tomorrow’s gown.” A pause. He hates the next part. “He says since you’re not getting married tomorrow anyway, the gown should go to his bride.” The gown. Six months of design. A year of flying between Milan, Paris, and Sicily, every stitch done by hand inside a Moretti atelier. The same silk four generations of Moretti brides have worn. The family crest sewn into the bodice with thread spun from melted-down heirloom gold. Nobody knows what that gown means better than Damien. It isn’t a dress. It’s a contract. It’s my name made flesh. And now Cordelia Vance, the daughter of a rival consigliere, a girl with no blood claim to anything in this world, says she likes it, and I’m supposed to hand it over? “Tell him,” I say, “if he wants it, he can come crawling for it.” Thirty minutes later, the front door slams open. Damien strides in with a dozen boutique girls trailing behind him, each one carrying two gowns. He drops onto the couch and twists a lock of my hair around his finger. “Aria. Our wedding is still happening, just later. The girl wants the gown. Let her have it.” He waves at the boutique girls. “Pick a new one. Or don’t bother. Cordelia can return mine after the ceremony. I don’t mind if you wear it second.” Cordelia laughs. She throws herself across his lap and traces lazy circles on his chest. “Damien, you’re awful. You told all of New York no Moretti bride would ever wear a used gown. Now you want her to wear mine? She must hate me so much.” Damien strokes her hair. “She’s not that petty.” Then, lazy and cruel: “Besides. She’s been mine for ten years. Who else is ever going to take her?” I glance at my phone. The channel is still scrolling. Every one of those men sharper, hungrier, more dangerous than the one sprawled across my couch. Damien checks his own phone. Snorts. Drops a voice note into his groomsmen’s chat. “Boys, listen. Tomorrow at the ceremony, you treat Cordelia like the Donna. Full respect. I don’t want to hear a single name out of place. Understood?” He doesn’t notice. Not a single one of his sworn brothers replies. He pulls Cordelia tighter against him and reaches for me without even looking. “Aria, where do we keep the condoms? You know how Cordelia is. She’s all over me every night, and she throws a fit if she doesn’t get what she wants.” A pause. He smiles. “Don’t worry. I made you a promise. The first Sinclair heir comes out of you. Nobody else.” I almost laugh out loud. That promise. He remembers half of it. At twenty, under the harbor fireworks, he held my face in both hands and swore only you. The wedding will be yours. The first child will be yours. Always you. Ten years later, everything’s changed except the half that still works in his favor. He catches the look on my face and softens for a second. “You should smile more, Aria. You laughed all the time when you were twenty. These days you just look cold. I miss the old you.” I let the smile fall off my face. I tell Marco to bring the Don a box of condoms. Damien forgets the conversation the second it’s over. He’s pleased. I’m being good. I’m being reasonable. He scoops Cordelia up and heads for the stairs. “Take the guest room tonight, Aria. Cordelia wants me to herself. She’s a nightmare in the morning, so have the stylist wait outside her door. Don’t go in until she’s awake.” “Damien.” He stops on the landing. Turns his head. Eyebrows up, impatient. I look him in the eye and smile, soft, almost gentle. “The wedding tomorrow is still happening. Just so you know. If you’re not standing at the altar, someone else will be.”
Damien doesn’t buy it. He scoffs and shakes his head, like I’m a child throwing a fit. “Knock it off, Aria. This isn’t the time to fight for attention.” “Let me handle Cordelia first. Maybe if I sweeten her up, she’ll let you walk behind her as a bridesmaid tomorrow.” Cordelia pouts against his chest, tugging at his shirt, sulking. He doesn’t look back. He climbs the stairs with her in his arms, and a few minutes later the sounds start. The kind of sounds I’m supposed to pretend I can’t hear through the floor. Marco opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. “Miss Moretti.” His voice is low, careful. “The seat of the Donna in this house… the Don has never once considered giving it to anyone else. You should know that.” I glance at the box of condoms in his hand. Then tip my chin toward the ceiling. “Take them up.” Around midnight, my phone goes off. Bianca. Her voice nearly punctures my eardrum. “Aria! What the hell is going on over there?!” “Damien just told everyone the wedding is off?! Are you kidding me? You’ve been bleeding for this thing for a year! Do you remember how many nights you didn’t sleep? Do you remember Sicily? Do you remember Milan?! And he just cancels it like he’s canceling brunch?!” I rub my ear and sit up. Sleep is gone. I open my mouth to tell her the wedding’s still on. She doesn’t let me get a syllable out. “Wait. Hold on. Hold on. That son of a bitch just sent me a new invitation. Same date, same venue, new bride. Some bitch named Cordelia Vance. And he wants me to show up and clap for her?!” “Who in God’s name is Cordelia Vance?! I’ve never even heard of this girl!” I lower my eyes. This is who Damien has always been. When he loves you, he gives you the moon. When he stops, he comes for the moon back, and the sky, and the air you breathe with it. A pair of headlights flashes across the wall. The room sinks back into darkness. “Bianca. Listen.” I keep my voice soft. “Don’t worry about any of it. Just show up tomorrow. The wedding is still on.” “He’s swapping out the bride. So tomorrow, I’m swapping out the groom.” The line goes dead quiet. She figures it out fast. Then she explodes. “That motherless snake. Swap him. Swap him hard. I want him on his knees by Sunday.” “Three years, Aria. Three years he’s been screwing some side piece while he had you flying around the world picking out flowers and silk samples. Three years he’s been telling you to wait for the date, the venue, the dress. And now he wants you to sit in the back row and watch?” Her voice breaks. “Don’t you dare cry. I’ll cry. I’m waking Marco’s brother right now. We’re burning this man’s life to the ground for you. Hold on, baby. Hold on.” I laugh, soft and exhausted. I want to tell her not to bother. The men lining up to take Damien’s place tomorrow each outrank him in blood, in territory, in body count. There’s nothing left of his life worth burning. I don’t get the chance. There’s a knock at my door. It’s Marco. He doesn’t have to speak. The look on his face says it all before his mouth opens. He hesitates, like the words physically hurt him. “Miss Moretti… the Don is asking for you. In the master bedroom.” I know what this is. If I refuse, Damien will take it out on Marco. I tell Bianca to put her maid of honor dress on tomorrow and meet me at the venue. Then I head upstairs. The master bedroom door is half open. The room is a wreck. Sheets twisted on the floor. The smell of sex hangs in the air, thick enough to choke on. Damien just got out of the shower. His hair is still dripping, water running down a neck covered in fresh bite marks and bruises, sliding into the open collar of his robe. I dig my nails into my palm and shove the pain in my chest down somewhere I can’t feel it. He sees me and waves lazily at the floor. At the bridesmaid dress crumpled there, stained, ruined. “Aria. I know you put a lot into this wedding. So here. Put this on tomorrow and stand behind Cordelia as her bridesmaid. Think of it as the year of your life paying off. At least you’ll be in the photos.” Cordelia smiles like a snake under those sheets. She leans in and whispers against his ear, loud enough for me to catch every word. “Damien, baby. Aria’s the one who made the Moretti ring, isn’t she? The one with all the family stones. I want it. Put it on me tomorrow.” My face doesn’t move. That ring isn’t jewelry. It’s a Moretti family signet. Four generations of Donnas have worn it. The inside band carries an engraving only the blood heir knows how to read. Whoever wears it carries the keys to my family’s ledger. Damien knows exactly what that ring is. He has to know. But he just raises an eyebrow and lets out a slow, lazy breath. “Aria. It’s a ring. The girl wants it. Don’t be stingy.” “You and I don’t even have a new date yet, sweetheart. You’ve got all the time in the world. Forge yourself a new one.” He says it the way you’d offer someone the last fry on your plate. And just like that, the pain in my chest dies. Every bit of it. Gone. I can’t feel a single thing. I look him dead in the eye and say it one more time, soft and slow. “I told you, Damien. Tomorrow’s wedding is still happening.”
Damien freezes for a beat. Then he laughs, low and certain, like a man humoring a child. “Continue with what, sweetheart? Your groom isn’t even in the room. You marrying the wallpaper?” “Come on, Aria. You’ve never been the clingy kind. I gave you my word. I’ll marry you. Just sit tight a couple more years and be a good girl. Hm?” Wait. Always wait. Ten years of waiting. I finally clawed my way to a wedding date. Three months out, I found out he’d been screwing someone else for three years. And now he wants me to wait again. Wait for him to marry another woman, give her his name, his bed, his ring. And then, when he gets bored of her, drag me out of storage and put me on the altar? “I’m done waiting, Damien.” He doesn’t hear me. He glances at the watch on his wrist, drags Cordelia back under the sheets, and tosses the words at me without looking up. “Night’s still young. We can go another round or two. Don’t worry, Aria. The first Sinclair heir is coming out of you. Nobody else gets that.” I lower my eyes. There’s nothing in them. I drop the bridesmaid dress on the floor and walk out. The next morning, neither of them comes down. The stylist is standing in the hallway, hugging her case, mortified. I walk over. “I’m the bride. Do me.” She knows me. Every consultation, every fitting, every piece of silk flown in from the Moretti atelier in Sicily came through me. She doesn’t ask. She just opens her case and gets to work. By the time my hair and veil are nearly done, the two of them finally come strolling down the stairs. The morning sun cuts across the hall and falls right over me. Damien stops dead. The stylist pins the last layer of the veil in place. I lift my skirt, stand, and turn my head slowly to look at him. He pinches the bridge of his nose like I’ve given him a migraine. “Aria. I told you. You’ll get your wedding. Later.” “Be a good girl. Take it off before Cordelia comes down. She’ll throw a tantrum if she sees you in it.” Right on cue, the heels start clattering on the stairs. Cordelia comes flying down, hooks onto his arm, and the second she lays eyes on me she comes unglued. Her finger jabs at my face. “Damien! Today is my wedding! Why is she in my dress?!” Her eyes well up on command. She tucks her chin and her voice goes soft, broken, deliberate. “You know about my mom. You know what she was. I told myself I’d die before I ended up like her. And I still let you have me. I let myself become that woman for you, Damien.” A tear slips down. Right on cue. “Three whole years. And you can’t even give me one wedding day she isn’t standing in the middle of?” Damien drops his head fast and starts murmuring against her hair. Hands fluttering. Panicking. Trying to soothe her. The same way he panicked fifteen years ago, kneeling beside a thirteen-year-old me in the bloodied ruins of the Moretti compound. Bodies still warm. He held me against his chest and swore on his Family’s blood that I would never be alone again. Memory is a cruel thing. I laugh, soft and short, and toss the small leather notebook on the floor between us. “Damien. I don’t need this anymore. Take it back.” If he bothered to look, he’d know exactly what it is. The Vow Ledger. Fifteen years ago we pressed our bloodied thumbs onto the inside cover and started writing down a hundred wishes. He told me, back then, that when we finished the last one, nothing in this world could pull us apart. There are still ten wishes left in that book. I don’t want to finish them with him anymore. “Aria. Good timing.” Damien picks up the leather notebook, smiles, and presses it into Cordelia’s hands like he’s giving her a present. “It’s our little couple’s journal, baby. We finish a hundred wishes together, and we’re locked in. Forever.” He kisses her hair. “The dress is yours. The wedding is yours. All of it.” Cordelia’s tears dry in a heartbeat. She melts back into his chest, looks me dead in the eye, and smiles slow. “Damien, baby. Make her take it off. She’s a bridesmaid. Who said she gets to wear a bride’s dress?” Damien lifts one finger. Three housemaids close in on me, hands already reaching. “Aria. Off.” The stylist looks around, panicked. She opens her mouth to speak. A guard takes her by the elbow before a single word comes out and steers her into the next room. The door clicks shut. The dress weighs a ton. Underneath it I’m wearing nothing but underwear. I look around the room. Guards. Staff. Damien. I tilt my head and smile. “Damien. You sure you want me to take it off right here?”
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