He Chose His Ex, I Chose Vengeance

On the day I was supposed to marry Giovanni Moretti, he publicly declared I was his brother's girl.

He called off our wedding at the last minute. His ex, Sofia, had amnesia after a car crash, her memory reset to a time when they were still deeply in love.

So he cast me aside in my wedding dress to play the part of her devoted boyfriend.

For a month, I was forced to live as a "guest" in the Moretti estate, watching him dote on her and rebuild their past, all while promising he would marry me as soon as she recovered.

Then I overheard the truth. Giovanni had the cure for her amnesia locked away in his safe.

He wasn't trapped. He was indulging, savoring a second chance with the love of his life. He was confident I was his property, that I would simply wait until he was done. He told his men he could have us both.

He used his brother's name to humiliate me. Fine. I would use his brother's name to destroy him.

I walked into the office of the true power in the family, Don Domenico Moretti. "Your brother said I am your companion," I told him. "Let's make it real. Marry me."

Chapter 1

Isabella POV:

The day I was supposed to marry Giovanni Moretti, he publicly declared I was his brother's girl, a convenient lie whispered just loud enough for the whole Family to hear while his true love lay broken in a hospital bed, remembering only him.

The heavy oak doors of the chapel were shut. Guests murmured on the other side, their whispers a dull hum through the wood. My wedding dress felt like a cage of lace and silk.

An hour ago, I was ecstatic. Now, a cold dread was seeping into my bones.

The news had arrived like a bullet. A car accident. Sofia Mancini, Giovanni's ex, the one he never truly got over, was in critical condition.

Worse, she had amnesia. Her memory had reset to five years ago, a time when she and Giovanni were deeply in love.

He had rushed to her side without a second thought for me, his bride.

When he finally returned, his face was a mask of strained composure. He stood before me, not looking at my eyes, but at the wall just over my shoulder.

"The wedding is off," he said, his voice flat.

Don Domenico, his older brother and the head of the Moretti family, stood beside him. Domenico's eyes, cold and dark as a winter night, were fixed on me. He was the true power here, his presence a heavy weight in the room. Giovanni was just a Capo, a captain, but Domenico was the Don. His word was law.

"What do you mean, 'off'?" I asked, my voice trembling.

"Sofia... she only remembers me. The doctors say any shock could be fatal," Giovanni explained, his gaze still avoiding mine. "She thinks we're still together."

He was going to pretend for her. He was going to live in a five-year-old fantasy with her while I was cast aside.

"And me?" My voice was barely a whisper. "What about me, Gio?"

He finally looked at me, but there was no apology in his eyes. Only irritation. "Isabella, this is a family matter. It's complicated."

"We were about to become family," I shot back, a spark of anger cutting through the shock.

That's when he did it. He glanced at the guests waiting outside, then at his brother. A cruel, calculated idea flickered in his eyes.

"For now," he said, his voice loud enough for anyone near the door to hear, "Isabella is Dom's companion for the evening. A guest."

The words hit me like a physical blow. Not his fiancée. Not the woman he was supposed to marry. A guest. His brother's companion. He stripped me of my title, my dignity, with a few careless words.

I stood there, humiliated, while he walked away to play the part of a loving boyfriend to another woman. I was left alone in my wedding dress, a ghost at a wedding that never happened.

That was a month ago.

A month of living in the Moretti estate as a "guest." A month of watching Giovanni dote on Sofia, taking her to all our old spots, rebuilding their shared past while erasing mine.

Every night, he would come to my room and tell me it was temporary. "Just until she's better, Bella. Then we'll get married. I promise."

Lies. All of it.

I found the hope I needed in the most unexpected place: a hushed conversation on the evening news about a Sicilian family renowned for ancient herbal remedies. One in particular was said to restore lost memories.

My heart hammered against my ribs. A solution. A way out of this nightmare.

Clutching the information I'd frantically scribbled down, I ran to find Giovanni. His study door was slightly ajar. I was about to knock when I heard voices from inside.

"You can't keep this up, Gio," said Marco, his most trusted soldier. "The Don is losing patience. You know there's a cure."

My breath hitched. He knew?

"The Mancini family sent word. The Sicilians have the medicine. It could fix her memory in a day," Marco pressed.

A heavy silence followed. Then, Giovanni's voice, low and laced with a selfishness that chilled me to the bone.

"I know," he said. "I have it. It's locked in my safe."

"What?" Marco sounded stunned. "Then why haven't you used it?"

"Because for the first time in five years, she looks at me the way she used to," Giovanni confessed, his voice thick with a twisted kind of joy. "This is my second chance, Marco. I'm not giving that up. Not yet."

"This is insane," Marco argued. "What about Isabella? You think she'll just wait forever? She's your fiancée."

Giovanni laughed, a cold, arrogant sound. "Bella? She loves me. She'd never leave me. She has nowhere else to go. I'll give Sofia the cure eventually. After we've had some time. I'll marry Bella, I'll keep my position. I can have both."

His words were a basin of ice water poured over my soul. He wasn't trapped. He was indulging. He was savoring a dream at the expense of my reality, confident I was his property, a thing that would simply wait.

I felt the blood drain from my face. My body went numb, a deep, consuming cold spreading through my veins. I pressed my hand against the wall to keep from collapsing, my fingers digging into the plaster. Tears pricked my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. Not for him.

Every shared glance with Sofia, every tender touch I had been forced to witness, replayed in my mind. It wasn't an act of necessity. It was real for him. Our entire relationship, our engagement, what did it mean? Was it just a placeholder until something better came along?

My palm stung. I looked down and saw my nails had broken the skin, tiny beads of blood welling up. I didn't even feel it.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. A text from Giovanni.

`Stay in your room tonight. Sofia is feeling down. I'll be with her. Remember, you're Domenico's guest. Play the part.`

Play the part.

The words echoed in the frozen cavern of my heart. The coldness didn't just numb me. It hardened me. The grief began to curdle, twisting into a sharp, clear resolve.

Fine. I would play the part.

He wanted me to be Domenico's companion? He wanted to use his brother's name as a shield for his deceit? I would turn his lie into my weapon.

My fingers trembled as I pulled up my contacts. I scrolled past Giovanni's name to the one listed only as "Don."

My thumb hovered over the call button. I took a deep, shaky breath and pressed it.

He answered on the first ring, his voice a low, dangerous hum. "Isabella."

"I need to see you," I said, my voice surprisingly steady.

"My office. Now."

I walked into the lion's den. Domenico Moretti sat behind a massive mahogany desk, the city lights glittering behind him like a sea of fallen stars. He was everything his brother was not: patient, silent, lethal. His power wasn't loud; it was a suffocating pressure in the air. He watched me, his dark eyes unreadable.

I didn't waste time. "I have a proposal."

He leaned back, gesturing for me to continue.

"Giovanni publicly named me as your companion," I began, the words tasting like ash. "Let's make it real. Marry me, Don Moretti."

A flicker of something-surprise? satisfaction?-crossed his face before it was gone. He steepled his fingers, his gaze intense. "You want to marry me to spite my brother." It wasn't a question.

"I want to secure my position," I countered, my voice hard. "And solidify your family's alliances. A marriage between us does that far more effectively than one with a mere Capo."

He was silent for a long moment, the only sound in the room the ticking of a grandfather clock. His eyes never left mine, searching, assessing.

"And why," he finally asked, his voice a silken threat, "do you think I would agree to this?"

This was my gamble. My one and only card to play. "Because for the past two years, you've kept a photograph of me in the bottom drawer of your desk."

The air crackled. The silence stretched, thick and heavy. I had found it by accident once, while looking for a pen. A candid shot of me laughing in the garden, a photo Giovanni had never even seen. At the time, I had dismissed it as strange. Now, I understood.

He didn't move, but a slow, predatory smile touched his lips. It didn't reach his eyes.

"Alright," he said, the word landing with the finality of a death sentence. "We will be married. But understand this, Isabella. There will be no turning back. Once you are mine, you are mine forever."

A shiver traced its way down my spine. I had traded one cage for another, perhaps a more gilded, more dangerous one. But this one was of my own choosing.

"I understand," I said.

"Good." He stood, his towering frame casting a shadow over me. "And there is one more thing."

"What is it?"

"For the wedding," he said, his voice dropping to a low, possessive growl, "I want Giovanni to be the one to carry you to the car. To give you away. I want him to place your hand in mine."

Isabella POV:

Giovanni froze, his face a mask of disbelief. "Marry my brother? Bella, this isn't funny. Stop joking."

He reached for me, a forced smile on his lips, as if my words were just a childish tantrum he could soothe away. His touch felt like spiders crawling on my skin. I pulled my arm back as if burned.

"I'm not joking, Giovanni," I said, my voice as cold as the marble floor beneath my feet.

The truth of it finally seemed to penetrate his thick skull. The color drained from his face. "No. I won't allow it."

"You don't get a vote," I said, turning my back on him and shutting the door to Domenico's penthouse suite, the new home I had just moved into. My home. The click of the lock was the most satisfying sound I had ever heard.

His frantic texts started moments later.

`Bella, open the door. We need to talk.`

`This is a mistake. You love me.`

`I'll fix this. I promise. Just give me a little more time with Sofia. Then it will be our turn.`

I deleted each message without replying. Our turn would never come. I was done waiting.

The next morning, I focused on my new reality. I needed to understand the man I was about to marry. I asked Domenico's head of staff, an older, stern woman named Elena, about his preferences. His favorite coffee, the type of books he read, the music he listened to in the evenings.

I spent the afternoon at a high-end men's boutique and found a set of vintage cufflinks, simple platinum squares with a single, dark sapphire in the center. They were understated, powerful, just like him.

As my driver pulled up to the estate that evening, the headlights illuminated a pathetic scene. Giovanni was standing by the large trash receptacles near the service entrance, his shoulders slumped. He was throwing things away. My things.

A small, hand-painted jewelry box I'd had since I was a child. A collection of worn paperbacks we were supposed to have read together. The matching mugs we'd bought on our first trip upstate. All of it, discarded like garbage.

He hadn't seen me. I watched for a moment, a dull ache in my chest, before telling the driver to continue to the main entrance. The pain was just a ghost, an echo of a love that was already dead.

When he found me in the formal living room a few minutes later, he looked flustered. "Bella. I was just... cleaning out some old stuff. To make more room for... for when we get things back to normal."

It was such a weak, pathetic lie.

"Don't worry about it, Giovanni," I said, my voice light. "It's good to get rid of things you no longer have a use for."

He frowned, not quite understanding the bite in my words, but a flicker of unease crossed his face.

Before he could respond, Sofia appeared, a bright, innocent smile on her face. "Bella! There you are. I was hoping you'd join us for dinner. Gio is taking me for hot pot!" She used a nickname for me, *Bellina*, that felt like sandpaper on my nerves.

She turned to me, her eyes wide. "Dom isn't back yet?"

"He's handling business in Chicago," I replied calmly. "He'll be back tomorrow."

Giovanni shot me a quick, questioning look. How did I know his brother's schedule? He quickly dismissed it, probably assuming one of the staff had told me. He was still so blind.

"Come on, Bella," Sofia insisted, grabbing my arm. "Let's all go together. Like a family."

The irony was so thick I could have choked on it. But I allowed her to pull me along, forced to sit in a car with the man who broke my heart and the woman who was the reason for it.

At the restaurant, Giovanni ordered the spiciest broth for Sofia, the one she loved, even though he had a notoriously weak stomach and couldn't handle anything more than mild.

I watched him as he ate, his face growing progressively paler. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He kept reaching for his glass of water, trying to pretend he was fine.

It used to be my job to watch out for him. I would have ordered a bowl of plain rice for him, made sure he had milk to soothe the burn. I knew him better than he knew himself.

Now, I just watched.

"Isn't this delicious, Gio?" Sofia said happily, completely oblivious to his suffering. "You should have more."

He forced a smile, his lips tight with pain. "It's great."

I saw him wince as he swallowed, his hand moving subtly to his stomach. I kept my own hands in my lap, my expression neutral.

Sofia tried to scoop some vegetables into my bowl. "You're not eating, Bella."

Giovanni's eyes darted to me, a silent plea in them. He wanted me to help him, to save him from this self-inflicted misery, just like I always did. But he couldn't ask, not in front of Sofia. He had to maintain the illusion that he was the strong, perfect boyfriend.

I realized then that his love was a currency he spent differently on different people. For Sofia, he would swallow fire and smile through the pain. For me, he had only ever offered the convenience of habit. He had never been willing to suffer for me. Not once.

Suddenly, a waiter carrying a large tray of drinks stumbled near our table. The tray tilted precariously.

Everything happened in a flash.

Isabella POV:

The tray tipped. Hot soup and glasses flew through the air.

Without a moment's hesitation, Giovanni threw himself in front of Sofia, shielding her with his own body. He grunted as the scalding liquid splashed across his back, but his only concern was her.

"Sofia! Are you okay? Are you hurt?" he asked frantically, his hands checking her face, her arms, his voice laced with pure panic.

"I'm fine, Gio," she said, her voice a little shaken. "Just a few drops on my arm. But you..."

He pulled her into his arms, ignoring the mess and the pain. "It's nothing. As long as you're not hurt." He picked her up as if she weighed nothing and rushed toward the exit, shouting for someone to call a doctor.

He never once looked back at me.

He didn't see the large puddle of broth that had splashed onto my lap, soaking through my dress and searing my thigh. A raw, burning pain shot up my leg, so intense it made my eyes water.

He was gone. He had chosen, again, in a moment of pure instinct. And I was not his choice.

I gritted my teeth against the pain, stood up on shaky legs, and walked out of the restaurant alone. I took a cab to the nearest emergency clinic, my thigh throbbing with every bump in the road.

The doctor said it was a second-degree burn. They cleaned it, applied ointment, and wrapped it in layers of white gauze. I did it all by myself.

Later that night, scrolling through my phone in my sterile, lonely room, I saw Sofia's latest post. A picture of Giovanni gently applying cream to the small red mark on her arm. His expression was one of absolute devotion.

Her caption read: `My hero. So lucky to have a man who would walk through fire for me. `

The pain in my leg was nothing compared to the hollow ache that spread through my chest. He had always been attentive, bringing me flowers, remembering anniversaries. But seeing him with her, I understood. With me, it had been a routine. With her, it was an instinct. It was love.

My phone buzzed. It was Giovanni.

`Just heard what happened. I'm so sorry, Bella. I had to get Sofia checked out. How bad is it?`

I didn't reply.

An hour later, he showed up at my door. He saw the thick bandage on my leg and his face paled with guilt.

"Bella... I'm so sorry," he said, rushing to my side. He had already called a private specialist, who was on their way with the best burn treatments available. It was an over-the-top gesture meant to erase his negligence.

He sat on the edge of my bed and started to unwrap the bandage himself, his touch surprisingly gentle. "I should have checked on you," he murmured, his voice thick with regret. "It's just... with Sofia's condition, my first thought was to protect her. From now on, I swear, you will be my priority."

It was a beautiful lie.

"It's alright, Giovanni," I said, my voice devoid of emotion. "You don't need to make promises you can't keep. After all, I'm Domenico's companion now, not yours."

He flinched as if I'd slapped him. "Don't say that. You're just angry. It's my fault." He took a small, velvet box from his pocket and opened it. Inside was a diamond necklace, glittering under the lamplight. "I was going to give this to you on our wedding day. Please, accept it. Let me take care of you."

I looked at the necklace, then back at his pleading face. I calmly pushed the box back into his hands.

"I can't accept this," I said. "It wouldn't be appropriate for your brother's companion to take such a gift from you."

I stood up, the pain in my leg a dull throb, and held the door open for him. He left, looking utterly defeated, the unopened gift still in his hand.

The following weeks were a blur of quiet healing and blatant disrespect. Giovanni was constantly by Sofia's side. To celebrate her "recovery," he threw her a lavish party in the estate gardens.

It was a fairytale scene. Thousands of twinkling lights were strung through the trees, and the air smelled of roses and champagne. Sofia wore a pale pink dress that made her look like a princess.

Giovanni, dressed in a sharp black suit, presented her with a series of extravagant gifts. A vintage sports car, a rare painting, a purebred white stallion. With each gift, the crowd oohed and aahed.

"They look so perfect together," I heard someone whisper behind me. "Like a prince and his princess. I feel sorry for Isabella Rossi. She never stood a chance."