Valentina seized the opening without hesitation. She leaned forward, her gaze soft and devoted as it settled on Dante, as if the entire room had disappeared and only the two of them remained.
"If Adriana weren't here," she asked gently, "would you marry me?"
As she spoke, she reached behind her and pulled out a black duffel bag. With a smooth motion, she unzipped it, revealing stacks of neatly arranged hundred-dollar bills inside.
"There's two hundred thousand dollars in here," she said lightly. "It's not a dowry. Just consider it a gift."
The room fell into stunned silence. Made men, capos' wives, associates who had witnessed blood oaths and betrayals without flinching. None of them moved. The only sound was the low hum of the estate's ventilation pushing conditioned air through a room that had suddenly gone cold.
Dante froze for a brief second, clearly surprised. But it didn't take long for him to recover. His expression softened, and something like emotion flickered in his eyes.
Under the shocked gazes of everyone present, he slowly nodded.
"I would."
The words landed heavily, echoing in the quiet room. A capo near the bar set his glass down without drinking from it. Someone's wife looked at the floor.
All eyes turned to me again, waiting for my reaction.
I stood up from the bed, smoothing out my clothes as I did. I hid the faint amusement in my expression and began clapping, the sound crisp and steady.
"Let's congratulate the couple for finally getting together," I said, my tone sincere and composed. "May you have many children."
Though I meant every word, no one believed me. To them, it must have sounded like suppressed anger, like a sarcastic outburst barely held together. In this world, where every sentence carried a second meaning, sincerity was the most suspicious thing a woman could offer.
Dante frowned deeply, clearly displeased.
"Adriana, how many times have I told you? It's just a stupid game!" he snapped. "What's with this nonsense? Are you crazy?"
"It's our wedding day," he continued, his voice rising. "What do you mean by saying that? Are you trying to call off the wedding?"
Listening to him, I found the entire situation almost laughable. The heir to the Moretti Family, the man who would sit at the head of the table one day, standing in front of a roomful of his own people and telling me that I was the problem.
"Who exactly doesn't want to get married?" I asked calmly.
He didn't hesitate. "We're not even married yet, and your possessiveness is already out of control. I hate being tied down. You'd better fix this disgusting habit today."
As he finished speaking, he turned and slammed the door behind him, the sound echoing sharply through the corridor where two of his soldiers stood pretending to hear nothing.
"You just stay in here," he added coldly from outside. "Narrow-minded and jealous as you are. We can't enjoy ourselves with you around."
Valentina's smug expression lingered as she wrapped her arm around his, leaning into him deliberately. She pressed her tongue once against her canine before the smile came.
"Don't worry," she said sweetly, her eyes still on me. "You stay here. We'll call you when the game's over."
And just like that, on my own wedding day, I was shut out of the room by my husband-to-be. Left alone, I could only imagine him laughing, drinking, and acting intimately with another woman, while the guests outside whispered and gossiped, still holding their envelopes of tribute.
The thought alone made me feel both pathetic and absurd.
Yet to everyone else, this seemed perfectly normal.
No one questioned Dante and Valentina's behavior. No one thought it crossed a line. In a family where the men made the rules and the women upheld them, my humiliation was treated as something expected, as if my role in all of this was simply to endure it quietly.
In the past, I would have lost control. I would have flipped the table, shouted, and demanded an explanation.
And it would have ended the same way every time. Dante would insist that he and Valentina were just friends, that I was the one with a dirty mind. He would accuse me of ruining everything, of not trusting him.
No matter how I argued, he would respond with cold silence. Worse, he would deliberately spend more time with Valentina, just to provoke me, to make me jealous. The underboss who could command a room full of killers into stillness would use that same terrifying patience on me, withholding a word, a glance, a touch, until I broke.
In the end, I would always be the one to give in. I would apologize, lower myself, and beg for his forgiveness like a stray dog. Only then would he interrogate me, forcing me to admit that I was overly possessive, irrational, and that I needed to trust him without question.
Year after year, under that constant manipulation, I had slowly lost myself. I had become someone who followed his words blindly, someone who doubted her own instincts at every turn. The life-debt my family owed the Morettis had become the chain he never had to mention, because I carried its weight for him.
Even now, on our wedding day, I still caught myself wondering if I was overreacting, if I was the one in the wrong. My thumb found the worn edge of the St. Christopher medal at my throat, the one he had given me years ago when I still believed protection and love were the same thing.
But deep down, beneath all that conditioning, I knew the truth.
The ones who were wrong had never been me.
