My Family Gave My Fiancé to My Sister

Champagne flutes chimed beneath the chandeliers as Chicago’s most dangerous families gathered at the Blackstone Hotel for the wedding of Adrian De Luca and Bianca Moretti.

Bianca lifted the skirt of her ivory gown and came toward me with the glowing smile of the evening's rightful hostess. "Elena, you finally made it. Tell me the truth. Doesn't this dress look perfect on me?"

Of course it did. The designer had measured my shoulders and spent three months dyeing silk to the exact shade of ivory I wanted. Someone had simply taken in the waist for Bianca before letting her wear it.

She raised her hand so the black onyx at her wrist caught the light. "And look at this. Adrian said that if I fell in love with something, he'd make sure I got to keep it."

The bracelet wasn't jewelry anyone could simply fall in love with. It carried the De Luca crest, and for five generations it had belonged to the woman who would stand beside the next head of the family.

Three weeks earlier, Adrian had fastened it around my wrist himself.

Now the bracelet fit my sister as if it had been made for her.

My father, Vito Moretti, moved between us before I could answer. “There are reporters everywhere tonight,” he said under his breath. “Her doctor thinks completing the wedding ceremony inside her version of events might unlock the night of the kidnapping. Don’t start something here.”

I hadn't even opened my mouth.

My mother, Francesca, slipped an arm around Bianca. “Our princess looks stunning. Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get some wedding pictures before dinner.”

My brother Matteo took an instant camera from a waiter and pushed it into my hands. "You're the only one who knows how to get a decent angle. Take a few, and don't make Bianca nervous."

My parents, my brother, and my sister arranged themselves beneath the gold lights. The four of them left no room for a fifth person.

I raised the camera as Adrian emerged from the crowd in a charcoal tuxedo, the silver tie pin I had given him last Christmas at his collar. The moment he saw me, he stopped.

Bianca slipped her arm through his and pulled him beneath the gold lights. At my family’s urging, the two of them moved through pose after pose—hands linked, shoulders touching, her veil spread around his shoes—as if they were the only bride and groom in the room.

I pressed the shutter.

Square photographs slid out one after another. In every frame, Bianca and Adrian stood at the center while my parents and Matteo crowded around them, toasting as though this were a real wedding and I were only the hired photographer.

The photographs would tell Chicago only one thing: the De Luca heir had married the younger Moretti daughter.

When the master of ceremonies invited the newlyweds to open the dance floor, Adrian didn’t offer his hand right away. He looked over the crowd and found me.

I ignored his stare. I didn’t cry or ask what the hell he thought he was doing; I simply handed the camera back to Matteo and walked away.

I walked into the dining room, where one hundred and twenty place cards waited beside crystal and silver. I checked the head table first, then every table down to the one nearest the service doors.

Not one card bore the name Elena Moretti.

The maitre d' checked the seating list twice. "I'm terribly sorry, Miss Moretti. I can have another chair brought in."

I looked toward the head table. My family sat on Bianca's left, and Adrian sat on her right. A white iris arrangement filled the place where I should have been. None of them noticed me standing at the door.

"Don't bother."

If there was no place for me, I wouldn't beg for a chair. If no one had the nerve to admit I was engaged, I no longer wanted the engagement.

I left the hotel and stepped into the sharp spring wind off the lake. In the back of my town car, I opened the employment offer I had postponed nine times.

[Vesper Risk Advisory is pleased to offer you a partnership in our London office, leading Cross-Border Risk. This position will remain open until Friday.]

I tapped Accept.

The confirmation arrived less than a minute later, along with a business-class ticket to London four days from now.

Four days gave me enough time to hand over my work and move out of the safe house. It also gave me enough time to cut every one of them out of the rest of my life.