6

3

SALMA

I sat there, staring at Juan, waiting for him to speak.

My heart was pounding in my chest, the weight of his words from the previous night still lingering in the air between us.

He hadn’t told me everything—not yet.

He had stopped just short of revealing what I already feared, leaving me in the dark with more questions than answers.

That morning, I woke up with a sense of unease.

The wedding invitation, the trip, and the strange way Juan had been acting, it was all circling in my head.

But none of that compared to the storm I felt when I learned what came next.

Vito was back.

Juan hadn’t told me directly.

He didn’t need to.

I had overheard him on the phone, his voice low and tense as he spoke to someone.

He mentioned Vito’s name, and I froze, the sound of it hitting me like a physical blow.

I hadn’t heard that name spoken in years, not since that night.

The night that changed everything.

And now, here he was, back in my life.

Not by choice, but by force.

I didn’t know how to react.

I wanted to confront Juan, to ask him what was going on, but I couldn’t find the words.

My mind was racing with a million thoughts, each one worse than the last.

Why was Vito back?

What did he want?

And why now, after all this time?

I had so many questions, but there was one thing that scared me more than anything else: Vito was involved in the mafia.

The word itself made me shiver.

Mafia.

It wasn’t something I had ever been close to, something I had only heard about in stories and movies.

But this… this was real.

Vito was entangled in something dark, something dangerous, and I was caught in the middle of it.

I couldn’t stop thinking about that night with him, the way he had looked at me, the way he had made me feel.

There was something about him, something magnetic, something I couldn’t shake, even after all these years.

But now, knowing what I did, that attraction felt tainted.

Dangerous.

As the day wore on, I couldn’t focus on anything.

I was supposed to be packing for the trip, but every time I tried to fold a shirt or grab my toiletries, I stopped, my mind wandering back to Vito.

I felt trapped in my own head, suffocated by the memories and the fear of what was to come.

I couldn’t help but wonder if this whole thing—this wedding invitation—was a trap.

Was Vito luring me in?

Did he want something from me?

From Juan?

And if so, what was it?

I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts.

I was being paranoid.

There was no way Vito could have orchestrated all of this just to get to me.

He had his own life, his own business to worry about.

But then again, why now?

Why, after all this time, had he come back into my life just as I was about to marry Juan?

The more I thought about it, the more uneasy I became.

Something didn’t feel right.

There were too many coincidences, too many things that lined up too perfectly.

Vito returning to take over Juan’s father’s company, the wedding invitation, the strange way Juan had been acting—it all felt connected somehow, but I couldn’t see how the pieces fit together.

That evening, when Juan came home from work, I was sitting on the couch, my mind still racing.

He looked tired, his shoulders slumped as he dropped his briefcase by the door and loosened his tie.

“Long day?” I asked, trying to keep my voice casual.

He nodded, running a hand through his hair.

“Yeah. Lots going on at the office.”

I hesitated for a moment, then decided to confront him.

“I overheard you on the phone this morning… You mentioned Vito.”

Juan froze for a split second, but quickly composed himself.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice tight. “He’s… back. He’s taking over my father’s company.”

The way he said it, so matter-of-factly, made my stomach churn.

He was avoiding something, I could feel it.