It was seven o'clock sharp.
The grand ballroom of the Graystone estate blazed with white roses and candlelight, every neighboring Family represented, the front rows lined with Graystone elders in dark suits and older women in fur-trimmed black. Crystal chandeliers threw fractured light across two hundred faces. Armed men stood at every exit, hands folded, eyes moving.
My ex-mother-in-law and her circle chatted among themselves, their voices low but their eyes bright with anticipation.
This was the wedding that would decide the balance of the Southern Shipping Route.
And yet Nico's gaze never left the entrance. The ceremony had already begun, but there was no sight of me.
It was then that the grand doors swung open and Serafina walked in wearing a princess-white gown, my biological father leading her down the aisle.
A hush fell.
Then whispers cut through it.
"Bianca Graystone is generous," an elder murmured. "To let this unknown girl wear white on her wedding day."
"That girl... I don't recall her name, looks like she is Bianca's sister," another elder replied quietly. "Perhaps the maid of honor. But to think Augusto Ferrante walks his illegitimate daughter in like a bride while his real daughter, this Family's lady, is still not here... it feels ominous."
Serafina's smile stayed perfect, but her fingers dug into my biological father's arm, nails biting through fabric as fury flashed in her eyes.
Sister? Maid of honor? No one, not a single soul, believed she was the bride.
She looked at Nico with expectant, teary eyes, as if complaining that she was being humiliated. Her fingertips drifted to her collarbone, and her eyes glistened with unshed tears that caught the candlelight. They shimmered. They did not fall.
But Nico was already looking past her, almost displeased, his mind somewhere else.
For a fleeting moment, he imagined me walking through those doors, exceptionally beautiful, looking only at him.
A smile almost touched his lips when a white-gloved hand reached out to him.
"Nico." He looked up, the smile turning into a straight line when he saw Serafina's face.
"Nico, how about we... announce our marriage first," she said gently, slipping her hand into his. "What if others start speculating that something is wrong between you and my sister... Just announce that since she is mentally unstable, I will accompany her and care for you."
She motioned subtly toward the priest. Nico's fingers tightened around hers, but his eyes never left the door as the priest cleared his throat.
"Nico Graystone," the priest began ceremoniously. "Do you take Serafina Blackwood as your lawful wife?"
Silence.
Nico didn't react.
He thought that once I walked through the door I might cry, resist, and glare at him with wounded eyes as he declared Serafina to be the mother of his children, but at the end, I would still understand.
The Family would take it normally because a wife with no crew, no connections, no power of her own was a disgrace.
And yet the hall exploded with shocked whispers.
"Serafina?! Then what about Bianca?"
"Dio mio, is the Boss abandoning his wife and taking in another woman?!"
The priest hesitated, then repeated, louder, "Nico Graystone, do you take—"
"Stop."
Nico ordered, and Serafina's smile froze.
I already stripped Bianca of her title, Nico told himself.
She abandoned me when I was dying, ran when I was nothing but a living corpse, only returning once I woke up.
I already made her pay the price.
So maybe just this once... maybe I should marry Bianca first.
It would be a small compensation.
The thought itself annoyed him.
Why was he even considering this now?
"Serafina, I will marry you after Bianca," he said casually, as if discussing the weather. "You will always come first in my heart, but in front of others, we have to keep appearances. That was always the arrangement."
Serafina's eyes widened as Nico reached for his phone and called me.
Straight to voicemail. He frowned.
My phone was never off. A thin line of unwelcoming sensation pierced his chest.
Before he could speak again, a soldier approached him, head lowered, holding a gift box.
"Boss," he said. "Your wife... will not be attending."
Nico turned sharply. "What?"
"She asked me to deliver something instead." The man held out a sealed box. "She said it is a gift. For today."
Nico's entire body trembled in rage.
"A tantrum?! During this time when I am going to be crowned the head of the Southern territories?!"
He took the box and opened it carelessly, ripping off the wrapper...
And froze.
Inside lay a small crocheted dress, soft, meticulously stitched, the yarn pale as moonlight.
Handmade.
His fingers stilled. The unlit cigarette he'd been rolling between his fingers all evening went motionless.
A memory struck without mercy.
"If I ever bring this dress out," I had said once, smiling shyly, "it means we are welcoming a daughter."
His breath hitched before he could stop it.
Beneath the dress was a document.
[Gender Confirmation: Female.]
The box slipped from his hands and hit the floor, a small envelope dropping unseen beside it.
A daughter.
Warmth surged through him, raw, instinctive, possessive.
Nico's fingers closed around the small flash drive in his palm.
For the first time, guilt coiled his mind like a serpent.
If he displayed those documents now as planned and I was labeled insane... then what would that make his daughter?
His jaw tightened.
No.
His daughter would never be looked down upon because he labeled her mother mentally unstable.
Without hesitation, Nico slid the flash drive into his jacket pocket, burying it deep, as if hiding the thought itself.
His face broke into a smile, but despite the immense joy, his chest ached as if someone was squeezing it from the inside.
"It's all because I am away from my child," he reasoned.
"All those days I was spending with Serafina, maybe Bianca delivered our daughter and I didn't even know..."
Without hesitation, he turned.
"Postpone the ceremony and finalize the Southern deal in my office now. My Underboss will handle it on my behalf," he ordered.
The hall erupted.
Serafina's face drained of color. "Nico!"
"Serafina... you prepare flowers and visit Bianca in the hospital later," he said, already moving away. "She has given birth, and you are due. The Graystone Family is entering a golden age."
Serafina grabbed his arm, panic bleeding through her composure. "You can't just leave! The elders! Nico!—"
He shook her off impatiently.
"My daughter comes first."
With a huge smile on his face, he rushed out toward his car and drove off to the hospital.
