Chapter 2

When I returned to the Upper East Side townhouse Adrian and I had chosen for after our wedding, the front steps were crowded with dark garment trunks and document cases stamped with the Moretti crest.

A card from my mother was clipped to one of them.

Bianca has been followed by reporters since the engagement was called off. She’ll stay here for a few days because security is better. Go back to the estate for now.

I called my mother.

“Elena, perfect timing. The cedar cabinet beside the bridal dressing room is still locked. Bianca’s gown and the family jewelry need to go inside. Send the code to the house manager.”

“Why was my access removed?”

“Adrian had your access removed,” my mother said. “He was worried you might show up without warning, see Bianca in your wedding gown, and cause another scene.”

“Only for a few days. Reporters are watching her everywhere else. After the wedding, everything will go back to normal.”

I pressed my thumb to the lock, but nothing happened.

Adrian and I had chosen this house together. When I was nineteen, he stood with me on the empty second-floor terrace and said, “This will be our home someday.”

We had not even reached the wedding, and I had already lost access to it.

My wedding binder, seating cards, silverware samples, and years of things Adrian and I had kept together had been packed into the cases by the door.

One was not latched properly. When I bent to close it, a narrow walnut frame slipped out and cracked against the stone step.

My mother heard it through the phone.

“If it’s broken, let Adrian buy you another one.”

Another replacement.

When they gave Bianca my bedroom, they bought me a monogrammed Italian leather satchel and expected me to stop crying.

When they gave her the piano my father had promised me, they transferred twenty-five thousand dollars into my account.

When they forgot my birthday, Nico sent me fifty thousand.

Now they had given her my wedding and my future home, and they still believed money could erase what they had done.

They were not my enemies.

They simply believed that everything I loved came with a price tag.

My phone vibrated.

Adrian had transferred one hundred thousand dollars to me.

"Bianca will only be staying in the townhouse for a few days. Consider this compensation. She’s very fragile right now, so don’t come over and frighten her."

I replied with one word.

"Okay."

He called almost immediately.

The relief in his voice was impossible to miss.

“I knew you were still the same understanding Elena.”

I said nothing.

“Once this is over, I’ll give you a much bigger wedding. Anywhere you want. Lake Como, Norway, Iceland—we can stay in a private lodge and watch the northern lights together.”

His voice softened.

“I’ll make all of this up to you. I promise.”

I did not try to tell him again that I had no time left for another wedding.

He would only think I was angry.

Or jealous.

Or trying to punish him.

Something fell in the background. Someone said Bianca was breathing too fast and her fingers were going numb.

The call ended.

I crouched down and reached for the broken frame.

There was no photograph inside, only an old key. Beneath it were unevenly engraved words.

E & A. Our home someday.

Adrian had given it to me when we were sixteen.

That winter, my parents took Nico and Bianca to a family gathering in the Hudson Valley. I came down with a high fever. Adrian found out, came back from school, and stayed beside my bed until morning.

The next day, he pressed a spare key into my hand.

“If no one’s there, come find me. I’ll always leave the door open for you.”

I had believed he would be the last person to lock me out.

Moments later, pain tore through my abdomen, forcing me to catch the stone column and lower myself onto the steps as nausea surged through me.

The family group chat lit up.

Nico: Is the private doctor there yet?

Father: The medical team is on the way.

Mother: I’m sending her medication with the driver.

Adrian: I’m with her.

In under two minutes, doctors, drivers, and security had been arranged.

The Morettis could send a medical team anywhere in New York almost immediately, But they simply never believed that I was sick.

A metallic taste rose in my throat. Dark blood stained my palm.

I returned to the bedroom that had once belonged to Adrian and me and swallowed another painkiller.

Just hold on for two more days, Elena.

In two days, you will never be the extra person in this family again.

I wondered if they would finally be sad when I was gone.