Chapter 2 - The Groom Who Never Reached the Altar
Victoria Vale looked at my wedding dress and smiled.
Not warmly.
Not cruelly.
Like she had arrived exactly where she expected to be.
“Beautiful,” she said.
My mother moved in front of me.
“You need to leave.”
Victoria's gaze shifted.
“Isabel.”
“Leave.”
“Twenty-eight years and that's your greeting?”
Dante stepped between them.
“That's enough.”
Victoria's smile disappeared.
“Dante Moretti.”
“Victoria.”
“You've grown into your father.”
“Don't use his name.”
She tilted her head.
“I didn't.”
The room felt smaller.
I looked from one face to another.
Everyone knew something.
Everyone except me.
I hated them for it.
“Stop.”
Nobody moved.
I stepped around my mother.
“If one more person says something mysterious instead of telling me the truth, I'm walking downstairs and asking one hundred and eighty-six wedding guests whether any of them know why my groom disappeared.”
Victoria almost laughed.
Dante didn't.
My mother closed her eyes.
“She's right.”
I looked at her.
“Then start talking.”
Mom sat on the edge of the vanity chair.
Suddenly she looked older than fifty-six.
“I knew Victoria when we were young.”
Victoria crossed her arms.
“That's one way to say it.”
Mom ignored her.
“We worked together.”
“Doing what?”
Silence.
Dante answered.
“For my father's company.”
I stared at my mother.
“You worked for the Morettis?”
“For six months.”
“You told me you were a receptionist at an insurance office.”
“I lied.”
The words hurt more because she said them plainly.
“Why?”
“To keep you away from this.”
I gestured around the room.
“What exactly is this?”
Victoria looked at me.
“Your inheritance.”
Dante's expression hardened.
“Don't.”
My heart kicked.
“What inheritance?”
Mom stood.
“Nothing you need.”
“Mom.”
“Elena, please.”
“No. Twenty minutes ago I was getting married. Now Adrian is missing, Dante Moretti is in my bridal suite, and some woman from a twenty-eight-year-old photograph says I have an inheritance.”
My voice cracked.
I hated that.
I lowered it.
“You tell me everything.”
My mother looked at Dante.
Then Victoria.
Finally me.
“Your father wasn't the man you grew up believing was your father.”
The room disappeared for half a second.
My father, Marco Rossi, had died five years ago.
He had taught me to ride a bicycle.
Packed my lunches.
Built me a ridiculous treehouse when I was eight.
Cried at my college graduation.
Nothing my mother said could change him.
But the sentence still cut.
“What?”
“Marco was your father in every way that mattered.”
“That wasn't my question.”
“No.”
“Who?”
Victoria answered.
“Alexander Moretti.”
I turned toward Dante.
He went completely still.
Mom snapped, “No.”
Victoria smiled.
“Enough lies.”
Dante looked at my mother.
“Isabel?”
My mother began crying.
Not loudly.
Her tears just fell.
“Elena,” she whispered, “Alexander was Dante's uncle.”
My knees weakened.
I grabbed the vanity.
Dante's face revealed nothing.
But he had stopped breathing.
“Did you know?” I asked him.
“No.”
Victoria laughed softly.
“That's interesting.”
Dante looked at her.
“Careful.”
I barely heard them.
My mind was stuck on one thing.
Alexander Moretti.
My biological father.
Not Dante's father.
His uncle.
That distinction should have mattered.
It didn't.
My wedding was gone.
My father was suddenly two men.
My mother had spent twenty-eight years hiding one family from another.
And Adrian—
I looked up.
“What does Adrian have to do with this?”
Victoria's eyes sharpened.
“Everything.”
Dante spoke before she could continue.
“Adrian worked for Vale Strategic.”
I looked at Victoria.
“Your company?”
“Yes.”
“I thought Adrian worked independently.”
“He did,” Victoria said. “For me.”
My stomach dropped.
“For how long?”
“Four years.”
I almost laughed.
We had been together three.
Of course.
“Why?”
Victoria walked to the dressing table.
Dante blocked her.
She stopped.
“Still protecting women who never asked?”
“My patience has limits.”
“So did your father's.”
Dante's expression darkened.
My mother stepped between them.
“Victoria, enough.”
“No. You had twenty-eight years.”
Victoria looked at me.
“Your biological father died before you were born.”
I swallowed.
“He knew about me?”
“Yes.”
Mom said, “Barely.”
Victoria continued as if she hadn't spoken.
“Alexander left something for his child.”
“What?”
“A controlling interest in a private holding company.”
The sentence sounded ridiculous.
I almost dismissed it.
But nobody smiled.
“What kind of company?”
Dante said, “Moretti Atlantic.”
I knew the name.
Everyone in North Carolina business circles knew it.
Commercial properties.
Ports.
Freight.
Hotels.
Construction.
Private equity.
Dozens of companies beneath it.
I stared at him.
“You're saying I own part of that?”
“Not exactly.”
Victoria smiled.
“Not yet.”
Mom stood.
“That was the entire point.”
I looked at her.
“What point?”
“You weren't supposed to know until you turned thirty.”
“I’m twenty-eight.”
“Yes.”
“Then why does Adrian care now?”
Nobody answered immediately.
Then Dante said, “Because marriage changes the structure.”
My skin prickled.
“What does that mean?”
“Alexander's trust was written in 1998. Old provisions. Complicated ones.”
“How complicated?”
“If you married before thirty and died without children—”
My mother's voice broke.
“Stop.”
I stared at Dante.
“Finish.”
His eyes stayed on mine.
“Your spouse could gain temporary voting authority over your shares while the estate was settled.”
The room went cold.
My first instinct was denial.
Then the screenshot flashed through my mind.
She's in the dress. Guests are seated. Proceed exactly as discussed.
I gripped the table.
“Adrian wanted to marry me for a company?”
Victoria said, “Initially.”
That word was worse.
“Initially?”
“He may have developed genuine affection.”
I looked at her.
“You sent him.”
“Yes.”
My mother lunged toward Victoria.
Dante stopped her.
Not violently.
He simply moved between them.
“You sent that man into my daughter's life?”
Victoria's calm finally cracked.
“You stole something worth hundreds of millions and expected nobody to look?”
“I stole nothing.”
“You hid the beneficiary.”
“To keep her alive.”
Silence.
The word sat in the center of the room.
Alive.
I looked at my mother.
“What do you mean?”
She shook her head.
“Not here.”
“Mom.”
“Elena, please.”
Dante checked his phone.
“We need to move.”
“I am not going anywhere until—”
“Your wedding guest list was leaked.”
“To who?”
He looked at Victoria.
She raised her hands.
“Not me.”
Dante continued.
“Someone outside this estate knows you're Alexander's daughter.”
My heart pounded.
“How?”
“That's what Adrian's message was about.”
He showed me another screen.
A banking transaction.
A wire scheduled for 4:05 p.m.
Five minutes after our ceremony was supposed to begin.
Payee hidden.
Amount: $2,000,000.
Authorization pending marriage certificate.
My mouth went dry.
“He was being paid?”
“Yes.”
Victoria shook her head.
“Not by me.”
I looked at her.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I paid him to locate you. I did not pay him to hurt you.”
Dante's phone rang.
He answered.
“Yes.”
He listened.
His eyes narrowed.
“When?”
Another pause.
“Lock the east gate. Nobody leaves.”
He ended the call.
“What happened?” my mother asked.
“Adrian's best man is gone.”
Sophie, who had remained near the wall in stunned silence, whispered, “He was downstairs ten minutes ago.”
“Not anymore.”
I pulled off my veil.
Everyone stared.
I dropped it on the dressing table.
“I'm done being the bride in a room where everybody else has the script.”
“Elena—” Mom began.
“No.”
I turned to Dante.
“Can you find Adrian?”
“Yes.”
“Alive?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“You hesitated.”
“Because I don't make promises I can't control.”
For some reason, that answer made me trust him more than anything else he'd said.
I looked at my mother.
“You're coming.”
She nodded.
I looked at Victoria.
“You're not.”
Victoria gave a faint smile.
“That's probably wise.”
Dante opened the door.
Two security men waited outside.
The hallway beyond them was empty.
Wedding music drifted upward from the ballroom.
My wedding.
My guests.
My life from thirty minutes ago.
Sophie touched my arm.
“What do we tell everyone?”
I looked down at my dress.
“You tell them the ceremony is delayed.”
“For how long?”
I looked toward Dante.
“Until I know whether the man I almost married planned to steal from me or kill me.”
Nobody corrected the second possibility.
That terrified me.
We took the private staircase toward the estate office.
Halfway down, Dante's phone buzzed.
He stopped.
“What?”
He read the message.
Then looked at me.
“Adrian's car was found.”
“Where?”
“Three miles from here.”
My heart stopped.
“Was he in it?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Dante turned the screen toward me.
A photograph showed Adrian's abandoned black sedan.
The driver's door stood open.
On the front seat was a white envelope.
My name was written across it.
ELENA.
And beneath my name, in fresh red ink, were four words.
ASK YOUR MOTHER ABOUT LUCA.
Mom made a strangled sound.
I turned toward her.
“Who is Luca?”
She backed into the wall.
Dante's face changed.
For the first time since he'd entered my bridal suite, the man everyone feared looked genuinely shaken.
My mother whispered, “He was supposed to be dead.”
Then the estate office door opened below us.
May you like
A man stepped into the stairwell.
And he said my mother's name.
