Chapter 1

Today was supposed to be my wedding day with Luca, but I stood alone at the altar for 40 minutes.

Luca didn't show.

Neither did my two brothers.

All because half an hour earlier, Sophia had posted a photo of the wedding car in the Moretti family's encrypted group chat.

There was a blood-red cross on the black car door.

She said someone was targeting the wedding convoy. She was trapped in an underground garage, too scared to get out of the car.

Luca was the first to grab his gun and run out of the church.

My oldest brother, Marco, had become Don after our father died. He'd already ordered security to lock down the church and check the cameras, but he still took his personal guards to find her himself.

My other older brother, Dante, who ran the family's business at the docks, even forgot he was holding the Moretti family crest he was supposed to pin on me.

The guards and guests were all there. But of the three men who should have stood beside me, not one stayed.

Cold air crept through my off-the-shoulder gown and into my bones. I clutched my bouquet, my palms so sweaty that the ribbon turned sticky.

I called Luca to ask whether something had really happened in that garage.

Instead, I heard Sophia laughing on the other end.

The so-called blood-red cross was just red rustproofing showing through where a utility truck had scraped off the paint. Security footage had cleared it up ten minutes earlier.

But none of them had come back. They were up in a private dining room on the hotel's top floor, having drinks with Sophia to settle her nerves.

I told them to come back right now.

Luca sounded like it was obvious. "The wedding's not going anywhere. Sophia just had a scare. Don't pick a fight with her right now."

I'd planned this wedding myself, from the venue to the seating chart. After our mother died, I'd also hosted the family's guests and kept the shipping files in order. I'd never cried in front of them, so they acted as if I couldn't be hurt.

But let Sophia's eyes fill with tears once, and they'd drop everything to comfort her.

After I hung up, Claire, the wedding planner, asked quietly, "The guests are all waiting. Are we still going ahead with the ceremony?"

I took off my veil and laid it on Luca's empty chair.

"We're done waiting. The wedding's canceled, and so is the alliance between our families."

Just as I was signing the cancellation form, Luca called again.

"Where's Sophia's spare dress? Someone spilled hot soup on her, and her skirt's ruined. She's crying so hard she can't breathe."

"There's only one bridesmaid dress. No spare."

Marco scoffed on the other end of the line. "Emilia, you can't do anything right, but you sure know how to scheme. You knew she was representing the family today, and you ordered only one dress on purpose."

Then Dante chimed in, "Who are you trying to impress, acting like a spoiled princess?"

Sophia pleaded with them through her tears, "Don't yell at Emilia, you guys. If she doesn't want to bring me a dress, I'll just go down in the dirty one."

Luca heard that and turned his anger on me instead. "Bring the dress up here and apologize to her."

"The wedding's canceled."

The line went quiet for two seconds.

Luca scoffed. "You think you get to cancel? You're 30, and you've already had one broken engagement. Who in New York would take you now? I'm only marrying a Moretti daughter nobody wants because of our history."

I gripped the pen until it dug into the web between my thumb and forefinger. A small blot of ink spread across the form. I looked down and finished the last stroke.

Dante laughed. "Leave her hanging for two days, and she'll remember the family rules."

Sophia quickly cut in, "Don't talk about Emilia like that. She just cares so much about Luca that she can't accept he saved me first."

She sniffled softly. "It's all my fault. If you'd never brought me home, Emilia would have been so happy."

All three men started comforting her at once.

No one noticed I'd already hung up.

Back at the apartment where I lived alone, I took our engagement photo off the wall.

The lease had always been in my name.

While we planned the wedding, Luca had gradually moved some of his things in, but he'd never paid a cent of rent.

Under the families' arrangement, once the ceremony was over, I was supposed to move into the Romano estate and become a proper wife who knew her place.

This had never been a home the Romano family set up for us. It was just my apartment, but Luca had long treated it as somewhere he could come and go as he pleased.

All because our families had spent three years negotiating this marriage.

The Moretti family wanted into the European market, and the Romano family needed protection at the New York ports.

My only job was to marry Luca and put both sides at ease. No one ever asked whether I wanted to.

I boxed up Luca's things and sent them to the Romano family's club, then called Rachel, the leasing agent.

"I'm ending my lease early. Take the fee out of my deposit. Tell the landlord to change the locks and find someone to take over the apartment."

When I hung up, I called Daniel, my lawyer.

"Have the papers ending the engagement delivered to Luca tonight. And send the Moretti family crest back to the estate with a statement that, as of today, I'm no longer bound to marry for the family."

Finally, I called Enzo Bellini, who had reached out to me six months earlier.

"Mr. Bellini, is the job in Palermo still open?"

All he asked was, "Are you going to turn down the job for a wedding again?"

"Not anymore."

I was leaving New York to be an ordinary market development manager at Bellini Shipping.