Revenge Wedding: I Choose The Reaper

On my wedding day, the wedding planner looked at me with pity in her eyes.

She told me the groom had called with a last-minute request. He wanted the name on the floral arch changed from "Elena" to "Sofia."

Five years of loyalty to Dante Romero, and I found out he was planning a "secret" ceremony with his mistress an hour before ours.

He claimed she was dying of cancer. He said it was her final wish to be a bride, and that as a good mafia wife, I should understand. He swore it was just charity.

But I had seen the texts where he called me "furniture."

I had watched him step over my body when I fell down the stairs at a club, just so he could leave with her.

And this morning, I watched Sofia walk into the hotel lobby wearing *my* custom French lace wedding dress, smirking as she clung to his arm.

Dante thinks I'm crying in the bridal suite.

He thinks I will sit in the front row of his "fake" wedding and wait for my turn like a dutiful puppet.

He is wrong.

I wiped my tears and picked up my phone. I didn't cancel the wedding date. I just changed the location to the ballroom next door.

And I changed the groom.

As Dante says his vows to his mistress, I am walking down the aisle to meet the only man the Romero family fears.

The Reaper.

Chapter 1

The reflection in the tri-fold mirror was a stranger's. I was a Vitiello confection. The caged canary. My dark hair was pinned with a severity that pulled at my scalp, my skin a stark, bloodless white against the silk. I resembled a porcelain doll, the kind whose fine-grained cracks are only visible upon close inspection.

I stood in the center of the bridal suite, hemmed in by layers of imported French lace that felt less like a wedding gown and more like a burial winding-sheet.

Five years.

Five years of alliance with the Romero family. Five years of Dante Romero holding my hand at galas, his whispers spooling promises in my ear, swearing on his mother's grave that I was his only sun. I had believed him. I didn't just do my duty; I had offered him my heart.

I turned to the wedding planner, a nervous woman named Claire who was currently pinning the hem of my train. She wouldn't meet my eyes.

"Is something wrong, Claire?"

She swallowed hard, the click of her throat unnaturally loud in the still air. "Miss Vitiello... Mr. Romero called. He... he requested a change for the archway lettering."

"A change?"

"He wants the name on the floral arch to read 'Sofia'."

The oxygen thinned in the room, becoming sharp and unbreathable.

Sofia.

Xu Wei. The dancer. The outsider. The chaotic variable he swore he had excised years ago.

"He said it was a surprise," Claire whispered, her hands shaking. "For a... a secondary reception."

I walked to the window, my train whispering over the carpet like dry leaves. Down on the street, parked in the loading zone, was Dante's black Maserati. He was leaning against the hood, phone pressed to his ear. He was smiling. A soft, tender smile I hadn't seen in months.

I focused on his lips. I knew how to read lips; it was a necessary art for a mafia wife, a way to glean truth in rooms where women were decorative.

I love you, baby. Just a few more days. She doesn't suspect a thing. It's just politics.

A bitter, metallic taste coated my tongue.

A flashback hit me like a physical blow. Last week. I had walked into his office unannounced. He was on his knees. Not praying. He was kneeling in front of a woman with dyed blonde hair. Sofia.

"I have to marry her, Sofia. It's the family. But you are my soul. It's a dying wish of my father to see the alliance. Elena will understand. She's a good mafia wife. She'll look the other way."

I had run then. I had fled before I could vomit. I had convinced myself I heard wrong. I had convinced myself Dante, my Dante, had honor.

But looking at him now, laughing into the phone while I stood in his wedding dress, the denial died.

A rigidness started in my feet and shot up my legs, locking my joints. The steel my father always said I had finally surfaced.

"Claire," I said. My voice was a flat, toneless thing.

"Yes, Miss Vitiello?"

"Change the name on the arch to Sofia. Do exactly as he asks."

"But-"

"And book the East Ballroom for the same time. The one adjacent to his."

"For whom?"

"For me," I said, turning away from the window. "I have a wedding to attend."

Dante walked into the boutique ten minutes later. He smelled of expensive cologne and lies. He wrapped his arms around my waist, burying his face in my neck.

"Sorry I'm late, amore," he murmured against my skin. "Family business. The shipment at the docks was delayed. We might have to push the wedding back an hour or two on the first."

He was lying. He wanted time to marry her first. To make me the second wife. The mistress in my own marriage.

I didn't pull away. I didn't cry. I stood perfectly still.

"That's fine, Dante," I said. "I have plenty to do that day."

He kissed my cheek, relieved. "You're the best. A true queen."

Yes, I thought as he rushed out the door again. And queens don't cry. They declare war.

I waited until the door chimed shut behind him. My hands were trembling, not with sadness, but with a terrible, crystalline clarity.

I reached into my purse and pulled out my phone. I dialed a number I had been too afraid to call an hour ago.

"Father," I said, my voice thin but sharp enough to cut the room's stagnant air.

"Elena?"

"Does the blood oath with Valerio Moretti still stand?"

"Elena," my father's voice cracked. Alessandro Vitiello, a Capo who had broken men's fingers for looking at me wrong, sounded small. Terrified. "That pact is from the old wars. Valerio Moretti is... he is not a man you bargain with. He is the Reaper. He controls the eastern seaboard. He has an army, Elena. A real army."

"Does it stand?" I repeated, my voice flat. "Yes or no."

"Technically, yes. The debt remains unpaid. It was never formally dissolved. But why-"

"Good," I cut him off. "I am getting married on the first of the month, just as planned. But you might want to prepare a different suit. The groom is changing."

I wasn't just leaving the Romero alliance. I was going to burn it to the ground. And I was going to do it holding the hand of the only man Dante Romero feared.

Valerio Moretti.

The penthouse was unnervingly quiet, the only sound the aggressive rip of packing tape being pulled from its roll.

I didn't take much. Just the clothes I bought with my own money. The jewelry my grandmother left me. The rest-the furs, the diamonds Dante had draped over me like gilded shackles-I left piled on the bed in a glittering heap.

The heavy turn of the front door lock was an acoustic violation, a sound that tore through the stillness.

Dante walked in, holding a bouquet of roses.

They were drooping. The petals were browning at the edges, curling in on themselves like dying things.

"For you," he said, breathless, offering them like a last-minute trophy. "The florist was closing."

In the language of flowers, dead roses meant it's over. The irony seemed to be a language he couldn't read.

"Thank you," I said, taking them. I didn't put them in water. I laid them on the marble counter, where they looked like an offering on a tomb.

He shrugged off his jacket, tossing it over a chair. "God, what a day. The Commission is breathing down my neck."

He walked past me to get a glass of water. As he moved, the air shifted. The scent struck me instantly. Not his usual sandalwood cologne.

Vanilla and cheap musk. Her.

And there it was. On the collar of his crisp white shirt. A smudge of bright pink lipstick, a smear of betrayal that broadcast what he was too arrogant to hide.

He was a Made Man. An Underboss. And he was this sloppy? It was not a mere mistake; it was a declaration of my worthlessness. He either thought I was too stupid to notice, or worse, he didn't think I was brave enough to care.

"You have a stain," I said, my voice dangerously steady as I pointed.

He froze mid-sip. His hand flew to his collar, covering the mark. "Oh. That. Just a... spill. I bumped into a waitress at the deli. Clumsy girl."

"Take it off," I said. "I'll wash it."

He blinked, confused by my calm. "Elena, we have maids for that."

"I want to do it. A wife's duty, right?"

He smiled then, that charming, boyish smile that used to make the bones in my knees feel like water. "You're too good to me, baby."

He stripped off the shirt and handed it to me. The fabric was still warm from his skin.

I walked to the laundry sink. I twisted the tap until the water hissed, steaming and hot enough to raise blisters.

I grabbed a bar of rough soap and started to scrub.

I scrubbed the pink stain.

Scrub.

The memory of the fire five years ago rose like bile in my throat. The rival gang had firebombed my car. Dante had pulled me out, his hands burned and bleeding. He had held my soot-stained face, crying, promising he'd always keep me safe.

Scrub.

"I swear on my blood, Elena. You and me against the world."

Scrub.

"She means nothing, Elena. Just a dancer."

Scrub.

The fabric began to thin under my nails. The scalding water turned my skin a blotchy, angry red, but I couldn't feel the burn. I only felt the hollow ache spreading through my chest, a void where my heart used to be.

"Elena?" Dante's voice came from the doorway, hesitant. "Honey, you're going to ruin the shirt."

I didn't stop. I scrubbed harder, funneling every ounce of my betrayal into the grinding motion of my knuckles.

The fabric gave way with a loud, violent rip.

I stopped.

My hands were shaking. The collar was shredded, the threads hanging loose like unraveled lies. The stain was gone, but so was the shirt.

"I guess some stains don't come out without destroying the fabric," I whispered.

Dante walked over and wrapped his arms around me from behind, resting his chin on my shoulder. "Hey. It's just a shirt. You're tense. Pre-wedding jitters?"

I leaned back against him, closing my eyes. I felt his heart beating against my back. It was a steady rhythm. How could a heart so steeped in falsehoods beat with such a metronomic calm?

"Dante," I asked softly. "Are you a one-woman man?"

He kissed the top of my head. "Always. You know that. Since the day I pulled you from that fire."

"And oaths? Do they matter to you?"

"Omertà is my blood, Elena."

Liar.

I turned in his arms. I looked up at him, letting tears pool in my eyes. Not tears of sadness. Tears for the memory of the boy who had died in that fire, leaving this stranger in his place.

"Good," I said. "Because I take my oaths very seriously. Especially the one about betrayal."

He frowned, a flicker of confusion crossing his face. "What oath?"

"If you betray me, I marry another."

He laughed. He actually laughed, the sound vibrating in his chest. "You have a vivid imagination, baby. Who else would you marry? You're mine."

"Go shower," I said, pushing him away gently. "You smell like... the deli."

He kissed my forehead and walked away, whistling a tune I didn't recognize.

I looked down at my red, raw hands. The pain was grounding. It was a reminder that I was still a corporeal thing, even if my marriage was already a ghost.

I would keep my oath.

The Reaper was waiting.

That night, he tried to claim me.

He reached for me in the thick, unbreathing darkness of the bedroom, his hand sliding with a proprietary ease up my thigh. My skin crawled. The sensation was an abomination-like the dry skittering of insects over my bare flesh.

"I have a migraine," I lied, wrenching my body away with a violence that surprised us both. "The stress."

Dante sighed, the exhalation a sound of pure annoyance, not concern. "Fine. Get some rest. You need to look pretty for the photos."

I waited until his breathing settled into a heavy, oblivious rhythm before I slipped out of bed.

I moved like a phantom into the study. I took out a heavy cream card stock. A wedding invitation.

Elena Vitiello & Valerio Moretti.

The ink was black. Sharp. It felt final, like a death warrant.

I placed the invitation inside a small velvet box, the kind usually reserved for a valuable timepiece. I tied it with a black ribbon.

The next morning, while he was slumped over his espresso, I slid the box across the chilly surface of the marble island.

"A gift," I said. "For the wedding morning."

Dante's eyes lit up with a predictable, childish greed. He shook the box. "Cufflinks? That Patek Philippe I wanted?"

"Something better," I said, my voice coated in a false sweetness. "But you have to promise not to open it until the ceremony. Right before you say 'I do'. Keep it in your pocket. It's a... lucky charm."

"I promise," he said, kissing the box. "I love surprises."

"I know you do."

He went to shower. The moment the pipes began to groan, I picked up his phone. He had changed the passcode, but I had watched him enter it yesterday. 0-7-0-1. Sofia's birthday.

Pathetic.

I didn't waste time with his texts. I went directly to the encrypted app the Families used. The Network.

I scrolled past the business deals and turf wars until I found it. A video posted by one of Dante's soldiers, a man named Rocco who was too stupid for his own preservation.

The caption: Boss making moves.

I pressed play.

The video was grainy, filmed in the murky light of a nightclub. It was Dante, in the VIP room of a club.

He was raising a champagne glass, his other arm cinched possessively around Sofia's waist. She was flashing the yellow diamond ring I had seen him offer her last week.

"To Sofia," he shouted over the concussive beat in the video. "To the woman who makes me feel alive! To our future!"

The soldiers cheered.

I checked the timestamp. Last night. 9:45 PM.

My throat constricted, the cartilage seeming to lock in place. While I was at the sink, scouring the lipstick from his collar with boiling water, he was at a secret engagement party. He had come home to me with the scent of that celebration still clinging to his skin.

I checked the comments.

User: Capo_Rocco - "Don't let the Ice Princess see this."

User: Dante_R - "She's blocked. She doesn't know how to use this app anyway. She's just a placeholder."

Placeholder.

The word landed in the profound quiet of the kitchen and stayed there, a dead thing.

I put the phone down just as the bathroom door opened. Dante walked out, a towel draped low around his waist, steam billowing behind him like a battlefield fog.

"Elena, have you seen my phone?"

"On the counter," I said, sipping my tea. My grip on the porcelain cup was perfectly steady. "Dante, Rocco posted a funny video."

Dante froze. The color drained from his face, leaving his skin the shade of old parchment. "What?"

"A cat video. You should see it."

He grabbed the phone, his fingers fumbling with a sudden lack of coordination. He tapped furiously, his eyes scanning the screen. I saw his shoulders sag in a wave of relief when he realized I hadn't "seen" anything incriminating.

But then his phone buzzed. A text.

He read it and cursed under his breath. "Rocco is an idiot."

"Is everything okay?" I asked, a study in feigned innocence.

"Fine. Just... business. I have to go out tonight. A meeting with associates."

"Can I come?"

"No!" He answered too quickly, his voice sharp with alarm. "It's... dangerous. Boring. You stay here. Pack for the honeymoon."

"Okay," I said. "Have fun with your associates."

He dressed quickly, shouting into his phone as he walked out. "Delete it! Delete everything! If she sees it, the Vitiello deal is dead!"

The door slammed.

I waited five minutes. Then I went to my closet and pulled out a dress I had never worn. It was black. Backless. It was a weapon.

"Rocco mentioned they were going to Club Inferno," I whispered to the empty room.

It was time to crash the party.