My Sister Popped The Bubble Of My Happy Marriage Chapter 01

I was the overlooked child of the Santoro family. My parents believed my only value was a marriage alliance. My brother Matteo always acted like I was hogging too much of the family’s resources. Only my older sister Serafina secretly cared about me, bringing me dinner when I was locked in my room as punishment.

When I came of age, I married Dante Rinaldi, heir to the Rinaldi family. I thought I’d finally found my place—only to piece together the truth from little things I couldn’t ignore. He’d been cheating on me.

I went half mad trying to find the other woman. My whole family called me “the crazy one,” mocking me. And still, only Serafina stood up for me, giving me a warm hug.

Until I discovered that the woman Dante truly loved was Serafina.

And Serafina’s kindness to me existed only to cover up the family’s embezzlement of my trust fund.

Every beautiful memory was a bubble. I finally saw the truth.

In that moment, I swore I was no longer Santoro’s daughter or Rinaldi’s wife.

I would leave, and I am taking with me all the trust funds that belong to me under my grandfather’s will.

***

I am Celeste Santoro Rinaldi, and I know my husband Dante Rinaldi is cheating on me.

For two years, I combed through his spending records and questioned every woman who might have been close to him. I never caught the one.

Almost everyone around me couldn’t stand my paranoia. Only my older sister Serafina stepped in front of me again and again.

“She is my sister. She has the right to feel uncomfortable!”

Serafina was the public face of the Santoro family. She had been more outgoing and better at socializing than me since childhood. At family dinners, she always sat at Father’s left hand while I sat in the corner of the table.

But she was also the one who loved me most in the family. I envied her. I never truly hated her.

Until my mother’s birthday party, when I overheard her and my husband talking in the staff corridor.

“Serafina, I’m sick of sneaking around. When are we going public?”

“We can’t. Celeste only has me. If I betray her too, she’ll break.”

Through a single door, I suddenly understood.

Every time Serafina helped me track my husband’s movements, she was cleaning up after herself and him.

In that moment, I didn’t want to know when they had started.

This marriage. This family. I was done with all of it.

Dante and Serafina’s footsteps faded. Only then did I realize I was shaking all over.

When I got back to the upper level of the private club, Serafina was already sitting beside Mother, smiling and waving at me.

“Celeste, where did you go?”

She picked up my coat. Her fingers brushed my neck, and I flinched back.

Serafina froze. “Why are you so cold?”

The worry in her eyes was so real that I almost believed everything in the emergency stairwell had been a hallucination.

She reached up to feel my forehead. Her sleeve slipped, revealing a pale white scar on her wrist.

A scar from protecting me when we were kids.

Mother punished me with confinement. Serafina snuck me dinner. When she got caught, Mother slapped her. She fell, and her hand bled everywhere.

That day, she held me. “I’ll always protect you!”

Twenty years later, she still remembered I got cold easily, remembered I went quiet when I was upset.

And she could also watch me chase after my husband like a lunatic for two years, then quietly erase every trace.

I lowered my eyes and avoided her hand.

“Nothing.”

Serafina was about to press further when Dante pushed the door open.

He sat down beside me with an easy expression, as if he hadn’t just been begging Serafina to go public.

“Had some work to handle.”

“What work?”

My voice was soft.

He paused. Serafina was already smiling and pushing a bowl of soup toward me.

“Dante is so busy. Stop interrogating him.”

The two of them played off each other as smoothly as if they had rehearsed it a thousand times.

After the party, when the photographer took the family portrait, a piece of confetti landed in Serafina’s hair.

Dante reached out without thinking and plucked it away.

Serafina tilted her face up to look at him. His fingers lingered in her hair. They both froze at the same time, their eyes meeting like a kiss in midair.

I was standing right next to them.

Serafina looked away first. Dante pulled his hand back as if nothing had happened.

Then the party broke up, and Serafina suddenly leaned against the wall, saying her ankle hurt.

Dante dropped to the floor almost instantly.

“Did you twist it earlier?”

He held Serafina’s ankle, his brows tight. He looked at me, his tone full of blame.

“Your sister isn’t feeling well. Why didn’t you help her?”

I looked at him and said nothing.

In the end, he insisted on driving Serafina home first. I took a taxi alone. Not long after the car pulled away, two messages popped up at the same time.

[Serafina: Dante already dropped me off. Please don’t fight with him over me.]

[Dante: Serafina’s always looked out for you. You can accuse me of having a mistress, but don’t you dare hurt her.]

Three seconds apart.

So in sync.

So touching.