She Took My Wedding, So I Married the Don Chapter 02

I got in.

Maybe that made me stupid. But stupid felt better than standing in the rain while my family toasted my funeral.

The car smelled like leather and cedar and something darker. Luca filled the back seat the way storms fill skies. Six-foot-six, shoulders that blocked the window, a thin white scar cutting through one eyebrow. Up close, he was even bigger than I remembered.

He shrugged off his suit jacket and laid it over my shaking shoulders without a word.

“Why were you on my parents’ street?” I asked.

“Driving past.”

He was lying. I was too tired to care.

“Where do you want to go?”

I opened my mouth to say Jenny’s, then remembered my best friend was in Cabo until next week. I had nowhere. The realization hit harder than the rain.

Luca watched me figure it out. Then he said something in Italian to the driver, and the car turned toward the river.

Toward Sal’s Garage.

The garage I’d walked into at sixteen with grease under my nails, telling Sal I’d be the best apprentice he ever had. He’d laughed. Then he’d watched me rebuild a carburetor in forty minutes and stopped laughing. My grandpa had taught me engines before I could ride a bike. When he died, the garage became the only place I still felt like me.

What most people didn’t know: the Morettis owned it.

Luca unlocked the side door and led me up a narrow staircase I’d never been allowed to climb. At the top was a small apartment. Clean. Quiet. A kitchen, two bedrooms, a window over the street.

“It’s yours,” he said.

“I can’t pay—”

“Finish my father’s car.” He set the keys on the counter. “That’s rent.”

Then he did the strangest thing. He tipped my chin up with one huge finger and studied my face like a man studying an engine he intended to fix.

“He wasn’t worth your tears, cara.”

And he left.

Sal found me at six the next morning, already elbow-deep in the Shelby’s transmission.

“You’re early.”

“Couldn’t sleep.” I told him everything in flat, cold sentences. No tears. I was proud of that.

Sal’s jaw worked. “Mr. Moretti called me at midnight. Said you’d be upstairs a while. Said anyone who bothers you answers to him.”

I didn’t know what to do with that, so I tightened a bolt instead.

By Saturday, I had a plan.

Mom’s text had arrived Thursday: Final dress fitting Saturday 10am. We’ll all be at the boutique. Leave your key under the mat when you collect your things.

So I went while they were gone.

The house was silent. I packed my clothes, my grandpa’s toolbox, my diplomas—every award they’d never framed. Then I walked into Dad’s study and opened the safe. I’d known the code since I was twelve.

Inside: my birth certificate. My grandmother’s pearls—left to me in her will, “kept safe” by Mom for six years. And an envelope with forty thousand dollars in cash.

My money. The final vendor payments I’d withdrawn and handed to Dad to hold “so you won’t be tempted to spend it, sweetheart.”

I took all of it.

Then I went upstairs to get my wedding dress back.

My closet was empty.

They’d already taken it. Already altered it. Already given my day to her.

I turned around to leave—and froze.

On my bed—my bed—sat Bianca’s ultrasound photo. Tucked beneath it was a folded note in Ethan’s handwriting.

Can’t wait for you to come home, B. She’ll never know. Counting the days. —E

My hands went numb.

The note was dated last August.

Four months before Christmas.