جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 110

Morning arrived in the city like a festival had been announced overnight.Long before the ceremony was scheduled to begin, the street outside Luca De Santis’s estate was already packed with news vans, camera crews, curious bystanders, and reporters who had been awake since sunrise hoping to capture even the smallest piece of the story.The metal barricades placed around the property were almost bending under the pressure of the crowd leaning against them.Microphones stretched over the rails.Cameras lifted high.Every reporter was speaking loudly into their microphones while their cameramen tried to capture the massive mansion behind them.“This is the most talked about wedding in the country right now,” one reporter said while pushing her hair away from her face as the wind blew it across her eyes. “Billionaire heir Luca De Santis is set to marry Serafina Valenti despite weeks of rumors surrounding his missing cousin Matteo De Santis.”Behind her another reporter raised his voice w

Serafina's POVFor a few seconds after Matteo appeared, my brain simply stopped working.One moment I was standing at the altar trying to force the word yes out of my mouth like it was poison stuck in my throat.The next moment Matteo De Santis was standing in the middle of the aisle like a ghost who had decided to attend his own funeral.Alive.Walking.Looking annoyingly calm.The entire garden exploded.People started shouting.Chairs scraped loudly across the ground.Someone behind me gasped so dramatically I thought they were about to faint.Reporters outside the gates started yelling questions like hungry birds who had just found bread.Cameras flashed everywhere.And right in front of me…Luca’s face looked like someone had punched reality straight into his skull.He stared at Matteo like he had seen the devil himself.“You…” Luca whispered, his voice tight while his fingers slowly curled into fists.Matteo kept walking down the aisle like he had all the time in the world.His

The hallway upstairs felt like a different world.Downstairs the party was still going strong. I could hear music drifting up the staircase.Glasses clinking. Someone laughing so loudly it sounded like they had already finished half the champagne supply.But up here everything felt quiet.Peaceful.For the first time all day my head wasn’t spinning.Matteo was still holding my hand while we walked down the long corridor together. His fingers were warm around mine, steady and firm like he had no intention of letting go anytime soon.I glanced at him sideways while we walked.His tie was hanging loose around his neck now. The top two buttons of his shirt were open. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows.He looked… relaxed.I almost laughed out loud.“You know,” I said while raising an eyebrow at him, “grooms don’t disappear during their own wedding reception.”Matteo didn’t even slow down. He just glanced down at me with that calm expression that always made me want to either kiss him

I walked over and picked up the top paper.The headline took up half the page.LUCA DE SANTIS ARRESTED AT HIS OWN WEDDINGI blinked once.Then I started laughing.At first it slipped out of me in a small breath, like a sound that escaped before I even realized it was coming. My shoulders shook as I pressed my lips together, trying to hold it in, but it was impossible. The more I looked around the room the page, most importantly the headline it looked like something out of a ridiculous love movie the funnier it became.A quiet chuckle turned into a real laugh.Then another.Before I knew it I was laughing so hard I had to bring a hand up to my mouth, bending slightly at the waist as if that would somehow stop it. My chest rose and fell quickly while I tried to breathe through the laughter, and a tear even slipped from the corner of my eye.Ahhhh finally!!It took everything in me not to jump for joy.I flipped to the next newspaper.Same headline.Different photo.One picture showed L

Prison is loud. Anybody that tells you prison is quiet has never actually stayed inside one. Metal doors slam all day like angry thunder. Men shout from cell to cell like market women arguing over tomatoes. Somebody is always laughing too loud or cursing somebody’s mother but inside my head everything is calm. Too calm because the moment those iron gates closed behind me I already knew one thing very clearly. This place will not hold me not because I am stronger than prison. Nobody is stronger than prison. But because men are weak and weak men can always be bought. I was sitting on the small metal bed in my cell that evening, leaning back against the wall with one arm resting behind my head while watching two inmates argue across the corridor about a missing cigarette. One skinny man pushed the other. The other one grabbed his shirt. A guard shouted from the far end. “Hey! Break it up before I break both your heads!” Nobody listened. Typical. I watched the