My Mafia Husband Gave Her Couture—And Me Her Scraps Chapter 02
I’d barely hung up on my lawyer before Marco came after me.
“Madam, the Don says the other families have arrived. You don’t have to go into the lake anymore. Please change your dress—the ceremony resumes in the chapel in ten minutes.”
The gown was soaked through, the hem plastered with mud, my fingertips stiff with cold.
“Where’s my backup dress?” I asked.
Marco’s eyes flickered. He led me to the dressing room.
The door swung open on two long rows of gowns. The left side was entirely Sienna’s—champagne, moonlight white, smoky pink, even the spare shawls sorted by shade.
The right side held no wedding gown. Just a single black dress.
The waist had been taken in, the stitches hidden inside the lining, the alterations invisible from the outside.
Marco said quietly, “The Don said you aren’t picky. Wear this for now.”
I ran my fingers along the waistband. Perfect. He remembered my measurements. He just remembered them so he could still hand me the scraps.
Sienna’s voice drifted in from the doorway.
“Elena, don’t blame Dante. I got your gown dirty by accident. I had this dress altered ahead of time—I was worried you wouldn’t have anything that fit on short notice.”
She stepped inside. Her white gown was like snow, the hem trimmed with handmade lace from a Paris atelier that produced only three pieces this year.
I looked at her.
“So this is what you didn’t want?”
Sienna paled a shade, then her face softened into hurt. “I only thought black was more dignified. It suits you.”
Black. At a wedding.
Like showing up for a funeral.
Dante came in after her. “Elena, Sienna’s thinking of you. Don’t take that tone with her.”
I hung the black dress back on the rack.
“I’m not wearing it.”
The dressing room went quiet.
Dante took a step closer, his gaze falling on the bruised blue at my wrist. He frowned. “Change first. Don’t catch your death.”
I caught the smell of cedar on him, and the faint trace of gunsmoke.
I used to love that scent. Once, all he had to do was come near, and I could swallow every slight I’d suffered.
Beside us, Sienna let out a soft laugh.
“Dante, don’t go soft too soon. The statement isn’t signed yet. Once she’s had time to catch her breath, we’ll be the ones bullying her again.”
Dante’s hand stopped mid-air. So did I.
So this small tenderness was only meant to coax me into swallowing tonight’s disgrace.
Dante turned his head, his voice dropping. “Sienna.”
Sienna lowered her eyes at once. “I’m sorry. That was the wrong thing to say.”
But the words were already out—a needle through the last thin layer of the dream I’d been keeping alive.
I pulled my hand back. “Call off the wedding.”
Dante’s face went cold through and through. “Elena. Don’t test my patience.”
I pulled on my own coat and opened the dressing room door. The chapel was already packed.
Every member of the Moretti family. Delegates from the other Houses. Reporters who’d been watching this wedding for weeks. Every lens, every pair of eyes turned to me.
I didn’t shrink from any of them.
The half-drenched, mud-streaked gown. The old coat. The face bleached white with cold.
And still on my head, that veil made from the scrap of lace off Sienna’s skirt.
I walked, step by step, down the red carpet running through the center of the chapel.
Behind me, Sienna—wearing the white couture that should have belonged to the bride—slipped her hand lightly through Dante’s arm.
Someone murmured:
“Has the Don’s wife been swapped out? Who’s the bride here, exactly?”
Dante didn’t answer.
I didn’t look back.
The answer had been laid out in front of them all along.