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หน้าหลัก / Mafia / He Regretted It After I Married for His Lover / Chapter 4

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Chapter 4

ผู้เขียน: Bagel
Dante stood outside my bedroom doors all night, a grim sentinel. I never opened them.

On the eve of my departure for Ashpoint, the dim wall sconces stretched his tall, rigid shadow under the door, long and lifeless as stone.

Finally, his low, hoarse voice broke the silence.

"Alessia," he began.

His voice was hushed, restrained.

"I'll marry you."

I stood barefoot on the other side, leaning against the cold wood of the door, holding my breath. I didn't answer.

"I'll spend the rest of my life atoning for pointing a gun at you," he continued.

He chose every word with care, as if reciting a code he could not break.

"I swear on my life. Not as a lover, but as the family's Consigliere. I will take responsibility."

"I will protect you, as I protect this family," he said. "With my body and my life."

From beginning to end, he never once mentioned love.

All he offered was the only thing he knew to equate with forever in this bloody world: loyalty.

I remained silent, my jaw clenched.

After an eternity, the sound of his footsteps faded down the hall. They were steady, his departure just another order being executed.

On my side of the door, I pressed my forehead against the cool oak.

A bitter smile touched my lips as a single tear escaped and landed on my collarbone.

Before dawn, I changed into a simple black dress and slipped into the unmarked car waiting at the side entrance.

I was alone. No bodyguards, no motorcade, no one at the gate to see me off.

My journey was so lonely, it was as if I'd been abandoned by the world.

Dragging anyone else into this mess would have been a needless cruelty.

Today was also the day Dante was supposed to marry me, his way of fulfilling last night's promise, believing a wedding would keep me from leaving.

By now, he must have found my "gift": the marriage contract with my name on it, and the old ring I'd placed in his desk drawer.

I never expected the car to be cut off on the coastal highway.

It was Dante.

The light inside my car was dim, the tinted windows obscuring my face. He stared at the windshield for a long time before pulling up alongside me.

He stopped beside my window, his gaze fixed on the dark glass for a long moment before he spoke.

"Let me see you off."

I ignored him. I tapped the partition, and the driver hit the gas, speeding past.

He immediately got back in his car and followed.

"Do you hate me, Sofia?" he asked, his voice coming through the car's secure comms as he pulled up beside me again. "Because I married your sister?"

He thought the person sitting in the car was Sofia. To comfort her, he had waited here since before dawn, completely oblivious to everything being wrong back at the estate.

"It's a debt I owe Alessia," he continued.

His voice, usually so steady, was tight with restraint.

"I failed her once. I won't fail her again."

Hidden in the darkness of the car, I stared at the road ahead, saying nothing.

"I'm sorry," he added, his voice softening. "I couldn't convince the Don to take back the order. To send you to that madman."

"If you don't want this," he said, and then without warning, he floored the gas, forcing my car to a stop. He jumped out and yanked on my door handle. "Just shake your head. I won't let this happen. We'll use the emergency protocol. Right now."

His knuckles were white on the handle, his tone leaving no room for argument.

He only ever sounded this certain when he was about to use his fists.

"I won't see a daughter of the Falcone family sacrificed to end a war," he said, his eyes fixed on the black window. "Just shake your head, and I will stop this."

I slowly turned and looked at him through the one-way glass. There was no longing in his eyes, no passion.

Only something harder. A resistance carved into his very bones, a refusal to watch anyone be sacrificed for the so-called "greater good."

He called it duty. To me, it sounded like love.

I hit the central lock without a change in expression and slapped the back of the driver's seat. The car roared to life, leaving him behind without a second thought.

The car sped away, flying past him.

In the rearview mirror, he stood unmoving on the empty highway.

A Falcone daughter's wedding procession should have been a dozen black cars, escorted by armed guards. But my journey was so lonely, it was as if I'd been abandoned by the world.

Dante remained.

He stood there until the taillights of my car disappeared, until the highway was empty again.

Only then did he turn, get in his car, and speed toward the cathedral. In his mind, he was going to marry Alessia.

His gut screamed that something was wrong, but his mind couldn't yet piece together what.

The "Sofia" he had seen this morning… had been far too strange.

She hadn't said a word. Not to him, not to anyone.

No tears. No hysterical goodbyes. She didn't even look back at the city she was leaving behind.

That silence was colder than any scream.

That wasn't the farewell he remembered. In his memory, the real Sofia had cried her heart out in front of everyone, clutching at the hands of those around her, her eyes begging him to stop what was happening.

That day, he had ridden beside her car in silence, his jaw tight, feeling that the only thing he could offer was his own silent endurance.

But this time, the person in the car hadn't shed a single tear.

By the time his car screeched to a halt in front of the cathedral, the bell tower's shadow already covered the square.

He walked across the marble floor toward the altar. He reached out with a trembling hand to lift the bride's pristine white veil.

The moment the veil was lifted, his world shattered.

The face beneath the veil was horrifyingly familiar.

"Sofia?"

If Sofia was here... then who was in that car? Who was heading north to her death?

This was all wrong. Terrifyingly, absurdly wrong.

The unease that had been coiling in his chest since dawn finally snapped into horrifying clarity.
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