The Mafia’s Stand-In Bride Chapter 04

The Mafia’s Stand-In Bride Chapter 04

They threw me out through the hotel’s back door.

Seeing I barely had any clothes on, a kind security guard gave me his jacket.

I held my torn wedding dress in my arms and stood numb on the side of the road.

Just this morning, I had been daydreaming about this wedding, full of joy.

Now the wedding was finally starting.

And I was the homeless dog they’d thrown out into the cold.

A cold wind blew, carrying a chill with it.

I noticed then that it had started snowing, without me realizing it.

Big, fluffy snowflakes drifted slowly through the air.

I suddenly remembered seven years ago, the day my parents died. It had snowed exactly like this.

Eighteen-year-old me stood alone in front of my parents’ gravestone, watching person after person come to pay their respects.

Loneliness wrapped around every part of me.

Everything was silent between at that moment, like there was nothing left but me.

I was so sad, I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t squeeze a single tear out.

I just sat there alone from sunrise to sunset, until I had seen the last guest off.

Until I was the only one left.

That crippling pain finally spread through my heart, slow and burning.

“Lily!”

When I heard Lorenzo’s voice, I spun around fast.

Even now, I didn’t know how to describe what that felt like.

It was like I was drowning in the middle of the ocean, dying for air, and I finally saw a piece of driftwood I could hold onto.

Right then, my tears burst out before I could stop them.

I threw myself into his arms.

It had snowed so hard that day, it covered both of our heads.

I cried and told him that I didn’t have mom and dad anymore, that I’d never have a home again.

And Lorenzo—my Lorenzo—he kissed my forehead, and told me over and over again.

“From now on, I’ll be your family. I always will be.”

He had been my only support when I was going through the worst time of my life.

All four years of college, we did long distance.

It wasn’t easy getting through four years of barely seeing each other.

Most of the time, we just poured our hearts out to each other over the phone.

After I graduated, he moved back home, took over the family business, and built it into something bigger and better than ever.

He became the youngest don in New York.

But next to him, I was just ordinary.

His mother stopped accepting me, she wanted Lorenzo to marry a woman from a better family, someone who could help his career more.

But Lorenzo went against his mother’s wishes and stayed with me anyway.

He kept his promise—when I turned 25, he married me.

A phone ringtone pulled me back to the present.

It was an email notification.

I wiped my tears away, squatted down by the side of the road, and opened the email.

It was a video.

The second Lorenzo’s younger face popped up on the screen, my tears started falling again.

“It’s December 25, 2019. I just got off the plane, I’m spending Christmas with Lily. She’s so happy today because I got her a surprise.

“Oh silly, it’s just a necklace, and she’s already crying like it’s the best thing she ever got. We have so many years ahead of us. I’m gonna get her so many more nice, expensive gifts.

“I have to go back home tomorrow, and I haven’t been able to bring myself to tell her yet. She’s gonna cry when she finds out.”

The camera flipped and focused forward.

A girl in a pink down jacket faced the camera and held up a big peace sign.

“Look, this fool is really easy to please. Just one snowfall got her this excited. I’m sending this video to you, five years from now, on a timer.

“I’m only giving myself five years—five years from now, I have to make it. I have to marry her. No matter what happens, I have to remember to treat her right. If I don’t, I don’t deserve the version of me that loves her this much, five years ago.”

At the end of the video, Lorenzo yelled out.

“Lily! I love you!”

I turned around in the frame.

In that split second, snowflakes drifted down heavily under the streetlight.

I grinned brightly.

“Lorenzo, I love you too!”

The video cut off abruptly right there.

I was already in tears.

This was the video five-year-ago-Lorenzo meant to send to himself five years later.

But by accident, it popped into my inbox when I downloaded our wedding photos a few days ago.

Five-year-ago-Lorenzo had really, really loved me so much.

It was all so beautiful.

But five-year-later-Lorenzo didn’t love me anymore.

We stopped right before we were supposed to cross the finish line.

This grand wedding—he got to share it with someone else.