The Fiancé My Best Friend Stole

The first time I saw Luca Bellandi after five years, he was standing at the altar at my best friend's wedding.

He was the groom, and I was the bridesmaid.

Black Bentleys lined the curb outside St. Bartholomew's in Chicago. Rossetti guards stood beneath the stone arches, and Bellandi men watched the street from behind dark glasses. Every smile in the church had a gun somewhere behind it.

Sophia Rossetti sat in the bridal suite in a satin gown, bright with nerves and happiness. She pulled me close to the mirror and whispered, "Elena, I don't think I ever told you everything. When Luca was hit on North Lake Road, I was the one who found him. The Bellandis hadn't reached the scene yet. I put him on a private jet that same night and flew him to Malta for surgery. "

She smiled, soft and proud. "He barely remembered anything when he woke up. The doctors said trauma does that. He knew his name, his family, and business details, but the months before the crash were a blur. I kept thinking, poor man. He looked like he had clawed his way back from hell."

My fingers went cold around the bouquet.

For five years, I had searched for Luca. I had hired investigators, filed requests with police, hospitals, morgues, ports, and border offices, and stood outside underground clinics with his photo hidden inside my coat. His father had held a private mass and told me to let go. His friends begged me to stop killing myself over a ghost. My parents said a dead man didn't deserve the rest of my life.

Only Sophia had stayed with me through those nights. She had held me together through the worst of it.

She knew I had lost a fiance, but she had never met him. The engagement had been kept quiet because the Bellandi family was bleeding enemies, and after the crash, I stopped showing anyone his photos. Looking at them hurt too much.

So when she told me this story with a bride's shy smile, I knew she didn't understand what she was doing to me.

Then the door opened, and Luca walked in.

He wore a black tuxedo and a Rossetti wedding band. He was leaner than five years ago, sharper around the edges, but I knew him instantly: the scar through one eyebrow, the way he adjusted his cuff links, the cedar-and-tobacco scent.

He saw me too. For one heartbeat, his whole body stopped.

Then he looked away, crossed the room, and fixed Sophia's veil as if I were no more than another chair in the suite. "The guests are seated. Don't keep the priest waiting."

Sophia hooked her arm through his and smiled up at him. "Yes, husband." Then she turned to me, still glowing. "Elena, stand close to me, okay? If I faint, you are legally responsible."

Luca didn't look at me again. He only turned to the groomsman at the door and said, "Watch the list. Nobody enters the main hall without an invitation."

Several of those men knew me. They had seen me beside Luca years ago, had opened car doors for me, had called me Miss Vane with careful respect. Today, they stared at the carpet and pretended not to recognize the woman who had once belonged at his side.

That was when I understood.

Sophia didn't know.

Luca did.

He remembered enough to turn away.