Chapter 1: The Wrong Daughter

                       Sofia's Pov

The dress was not mine.

That was the first thought I had when they zipped me into it. White, too tight in the ribs and too loose in the chest, smelling faintly of my sister's perfume — something expensive and sharp that Chiara always wore. The lace scratched at my shoulders.

"It's your sister's wedding day," my mother had hissed an hour ago, her hands shaking as she pinned my hair. "You have to look the part." It's not her wedding day. It's mine.

Downstairs, my father was crying. Not loud. The kind of crying men do when they think no one can hear them, in the pantry, with a glass in his hand. The debt collectors were coming at six. It was 5:47.

Chiara had left a note. Just three words on the kitchen counter in her perfect handwriting.

“Forgive me. No”. She had taken her passport, her cash, and my father's Mercedes. She had left me.

The doorbell rang. It didn't chime. It pounded. Three heavy knocks that shook the old frame of our house in Mondello. My mother went rigid behind me. "Sofia."

I stood up. The white heels wobbled. I had never worn heels that high. I was a second-year medical student who lived in sneakers and stained scrubs. I had a biochemistry exam on Monday.

"Don't let them take your father," she whispered.

I walked downstairs.

There were two men in the foyer. The first one I didn't know — big, neck like a bull, a scar through his eyebrow. He was looking at the floor, at our cracked tile, like it disgusted him.

The second one I knew.

Lorenzo De Luca.

I had seen him once, three years ago at Chiara's graduation party. He hadn't come for Chiara. He had come with his father to talk business with mine in the study. I was seventeen, bringing in a tray of coffee I was told to bring. He had looked at me then the way you look at something that is not yet ripe. Not with lust. With patience. Like he knew he would see me again.

He was worse now. Thirty-two, maybe. Black suit that cost more than our house. Black shirt. No tie. Hair pushed back, dark, a little too long. His eyes were that terrible Sicilian light brown that looks almost amber in the sun. He was not handsome in a nice way. He was handsome in a terrifying way. He looked at me in the white dress. Slowly. From the shoes up. He didn't smile.

"Where is Chiara?" he asked. His voice was low, calm, with that heavy Palermo accent that makes everything sound like a threat. My father came out of the pantry. His face was red. "Mr. De Luca, please. She… she was scared. She's young… "

"Where is Chiara?" he asked again, not looking at my father. He was still looking at me.

"She ran," I said. My voice came out stronger than I felt. "She left." The big man with the scar snorted.

Lorenzo tilted his head, just a fraction. "And you put on her dress."

My mother appeared on the stairs behind me, clutching the railing. "Please, Don De Luca, we will get the money. Give us one more month. Sofia is a good girl, she studies medicine, she—"

"Your husband stole two million euros from my family, Signora Moretti," Lorenzo said, finally looking at my mother. He said it politely. Like he was commenting on the weather. "He did not borrow it. He stole it. He laundered it through his accounting firm and then he moved it. We want it back. The deal was, we would forgive the debt for a marriage alliance. Your daughter for my family. That was the price your husband agreed to."

He looked back at me. "The contract didn't say which daughter," he said.

Silence fell in our tiny foyer. I could hear the old fridge humming.

My father made a noise, a choked sob. "You can't. Sofia is… she's innocent, she has nothing to do with this—"

"Then you should not have offered a daughter you couldn't deliver," Lorenzo said.

He stepped forward. He smelled like cologne and cold air, even though it was warm outside. He stopped one foot away from me. Close enough that I could see the faint stubble on his jaw, the small silver cross tucked under his shirt.

He lifted his hand. I flinched.

He didn't touch me. He touched the lace strap of the dress where it had fallen off my shoulder. Two fingers, adjusting it. Putting it back in place. His knuckles brushed my skin and I felt a burn.

"What's your name?" he asked, though I knew he knew.

"Sofia," I whispered.

"Sofia," he repeated. Like he was tasting it. "Do you know what your sister was supposed to do? She was supposed to be my wife. To live in my house. To give me children. To erase your father's sin with her obedience." I couldn't breathe. The dress was too tight.

"I don't want to be your wife," I said.

"I know," he said, and for the first time, he smiled. It was a terrible smile. It didn't reach his eyes. "That is why this will be interesting."

He turned to the big man. "Matteo, bring the car."

Matteo nodded and left.

"I am not going anywhere with you," I said, loud now. My hands were shaking. "You cannot just take people. This is not the 1800s. I will call the police." Lorenzo looked amused. Truly amused.

"Call them," he said. He pulled his own phone from his pocket, unlocked it, and held it out to me. "The chief of police in Palermo is my godfather. Please, call him. Tell him Lorenzo De Luca is collecting the debt your father signed for in front of a notary."

I stared at the phone. My father's signature. Of course he had signed something.

My mother was crying openly now.

Lorenzo put his phone away. He reached into his inner suit pocket and pulled out a small black velvet box. He opened it with one thumb.

Inside was a ring. Not a beautiful, sparkling engagement ring. A thick gold band with a black stone in the middle. Old. Heavy. A family ring, I guess.

"Your father has two choices, Sofia," he said quietly, so only I could hear him. "I take you now, we go to the church in Santa Maria, the priest is waiting. You become Sofia De Luca. Your father's debt is gone. Your family lives."

He paused.

"Or I take your father's hands. Because he stole with his hands. That is our law. And then I still take you, because I came for a bride and I do not leave empty-handed."

Behind me, my father collapsed into a chair. I looked at the ring. I looked at my mother's face. I looked at the door where Chiara had run out of.

There was no choice. That was the cruelest part. There was never a choice.

I held out my left hand. It was shaking so hard I thought I would drop.

He didn't put the ring on gently. He pushed it. It was too big — it was sized for Chiara's longer fingers — and it slid on loose and cold.

"Good girl," he murmured in Italian. “Brava ragazza”. He took my wrist — not my hand, my wrist, like I was something he was escorting, something he owned — and pulled me toward the door.

"Wait," I said. "My… my bag. My books… "

"You won't need them," he said.

The outside air hit me. A black Maserati was waiting, engine running. Matteo held the back door open. I had never been in a car like that.

Lorenzo put his hand on the small of my back — the dress was open there — and guided me in. His hand was warm. Possessive.

As we pulled away from my house, from my crying mother in the doorway, from my whole life, I saw my reflection in the dark window. A girl in her sister's wedding dress, with a ring on her finger, sitting next to a man who had just bought her.

And the worst part — the part that made me want to vomit — was that a tiny, sick, twisted part of me was relieved. Because for the first time in twenty-one years, someone had looked at me and not seen Chiara's little sister.

He had seen me.

And he had wanted me anyway.