The scent of my mother's favorite lilac perfume usually brought me comfort. Today, it felt like a suffocating cloud. She stood in the middle of my living room, her arms crossed, her face a mask of cold, bitter disappointment.
"I just don't understand, Millicent," she said, her voice dangerously calm. "I spent my life savings on that dress. Your father and I invited everyone we know. The church was packed. And for what? For my daughter to decide she'd rather go to a place she can't explain to me?"
I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. The words were lodged in my throat, tangled with the memory of duct tape and the smell of damp concrete.
"Do you have any idea how humiliating it was?" she continued, her composure cracking. "Standing there at the empty altar, making excuses for you? People whispered. They pitied us. They said you were always too flighty, too irresponsible for a commitment like marriage. And you know what? For the first time, I wondered if they were right.
That stung more than any slap. "Flighty? Mum, you know me better than that."
"Do I?" she shot back, her eyes filled with unshed tears of pain. "The Millicent I know wouldn't be so selfish. She wouldn't shatter a good man like Pascal. He was devastated, absolutely destroyed. He's been in a business meeting in Shaingai since the day after, probably to escape the shame you caused."
A bitter, hysterical laugh bubbled in my chest, but I choked it down. Shanghai. A business meeting.
"He's a saint, that man," Mum pressed on, seeing my silence as guilt. "He's been calling me every day, checking on me, worrying about you. And you… you can't even look me in the eye and give me a proper explanation. 'Something came up'? That's all you have for me?"
She took a step closer, her voice dropping to a venomous whisper. "You've always been difficult, Millicent, but this? This is cruel. You've broken your father's heart. You've made a fool of our entire family. You're a coward."
The word 'coward' snapped something inside me. The fear, the pain, the three days of darkness. I had endured all of it surged to the surface, overriding the paralyzing shame.
"A coward?" My voice was a raw, broken thing. I slowly, deliberately pulled the collar of my sweater to the side, revealing the yellowing, brutal bruise that wrapped around the base of my neck when I was dragged in by the Rocas men. "Is that what you think this is from, Mum? A stressful business trip?"
At this point, I have to let the cat out of the bag.
Her eyes widened, fixed on the ugly mark. The anger on her face faltered, replaced by dawning, horrified confusion.
"I didn't come to my wedding," I said, each word deliberate and heavy. "I couldn't come. I was in an unknown apartment, locked up with a heavy padlock."
Her hand flew to her mouth. "Oh, my God… Millicent… Who? Why?"
"The 'why' is the business trip," I said, my voice trembling with a mixture of rage and relief. "The 'who' was a man with a raspy voice who kept saying, 'Mr. Pascal says to make sure she misses her big day.'"
The color drained from her face completely. "No… That's… That's a lie. Pascal would never…"
"Wouldn't he?" I pulled out my phone, my hands shaking, and found the record of all that Rocas told me.
"He never went to Shaingai to escape any shame; he went there purposely, Mum," I said, my voice steadier now. "He paid to have me abducted a day before our wedding. The 'devastated' calls to you were just part of the act, to make sure everyone's anger and pity were directed squarely at the 'irresponsible, flighty' bride who ran away."
My mother stared at the phone, then back at the bruise on my neck. The foundation of the reality she had built over the last week crumbled to dust before her eyes. The insults she had rained at me hung in the air, now poisonously misguided.
Tears, real ones this time, filled her eyes. Not tears of anger, but of profound, shattering guilt. "Oh, my baby," she choked out, her hand reaching for me. "My brave, brave girl. I called you a coward. I said those terrible things… and you were… you were…"
She couldn't finish. She broke down, sobbing into her hands.
I stood there for a moment, the truth finally laid bare between us. The relief was so immense it felt like a physical weight lifting from my shoulders. I walked over and sat beside her, placing a hand on her trembling back.
"It's okay, Mum," I said softly, the words meant for both of us. "You didn't know."
When I finally got to my room, I had a long, warm shower. The memory of the wedding and Pascal didn't flash back to me. But it was a memory of him. The Mafia. I never called him that to his face, of course. To me, he was Rocas. But the title clung to him, a shadow he wore as elegantly as his tailored suits.
The memory didn't come as a single image but as an emotion of sensations. The cool silk of his sheets against my bare skin, the scent of his cologne, sandalwood and something dangerously sharp, mingling with the faint aroma of expensive whiskey. The way the city lights from his window painted shifting patterns across his back, my fingers tracing the intricate tattoos that told stories I was too afraid to ask about.
His touch was more than Pascal's. He knew exactly the right places to touch that made me feel good. Who could have imagined a Mafia gangster could be that romantic?
I remembered the weight of him, the solid reality of a man who moved through the world as its master, and how, for a few hours, he made me feel like his queen. It was terrifying and beautiful, a symphony played on the edge of a knife. I had never felt more alive or more lost.
A sharp, digital ringtone shattered the recollection, pulling me back to my real world. I blinked, and the ghost of his touch faded from my skinIt was my phone; Pascal's name flashed on the screen.