Cellie's POV
The days leading up to the wedding crawled by like torture. Each morning I woke up in my tiny apartment, stared at the water-stained ceiling, and wished I could disappear. Each night I went to bed remembering the feel of Demetrio's hands on my skin, his voice in my ear, and hated myself a little more.
I'd tried to forget. God, I'd tried. But every time I closed my eyes, I was back in that bedroom with silk sheets and the smell of expensive cologne and the weight of my worst mistake pressing down on me.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. I picked it up to see another text from Penelope.
Dress fitting tomorrow at 10am. Don't be late. Don't embarrass me.
I tossed the phone back down without responding. She'd been sending me orders all week. What to wear. How to act. Who to talk to and who to avoid. Every message was a reminder that I was walking into a lion's den in three days, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
I rolled out of bed and padded to the kitchen, if you could call the corner with a hot plate and mini fridge a kitchen. My apartment was barely bigger than Demetrio's bedroom had been. One room that served as bedroom, living room, and dining room. A bathroom so small I could barely turn around in the shower. Peeling paint and a radiator that clanked all night.
But it was mine. And after the wedding, I could come back here and pretend none of this had ever happened.
The coffee maker sputtered to life, filling the room with the only good smell this place had to offer. I leaned against the counter and stared out the narrow window at the brick wall of the building next door.
What if someone found out? What if Demetrio told someone? What if there were cameras in that room?
My stomach turned over. I grabbed my coffee mug with shaking hands and took a sip, burning my tongue.
He wouldn't tell. He had as much to lose as I did. Maybe more. From what I'd heard, the DeLeons had rules about family. And we were technically family now, or would be in three days.
The thought made me want to throw up.
I spent the rest of the day trying to distract myself. I deep cleaned my apartment even though it was already clean. I reorganized my closet. I started three different TV shows and couldn't focus on any of them. By the time the sun set, I was exhausted but still wired, my mind running in circles.
What would I say to him when I saw him at the wedding? Should I pretend it never happened? Should I acknowledge it? What if he was angry? What if he blamed me?
What if he remembered more than I did?
That thought sent a fresh wave of panic through me. I'd been drunk. Really drunk. But the memories I did have were vivid enough to make my face burn. His mouth on mine. His hands everywhere. The way he'd looked at me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered.
And then this morning, he'd looked at me like I was nothing. Like I was a problem to be dealt with and discarded.
I curled up on my secondhand couch and pulled a blanket over myself, even though I wasn't cold. My phone buzzed again.
Another text from Penelope. Reminder: fitting tomorrow. Be presentable.
I set an alarm and closed my eyes, praying for sleep that wouldn't come.
When sleep finally did find me somewhere around three in the morning, it brought dreams I didn't want. Dreams of grey eyes and dangerous smiles and the feeling of being wanted, really wanted, for the first time in my life. I woke up tangled in my sheets, my heart racing, and had to remind myself that it had all been a mistake. A drunken, stupid, irreversible mistake.
The fitting was every bit as awful as I'd expected. Penelope had dragged me to some boutique in the fancy part of town where the sales clerk looked at me like I'd tracked mud on her pristine white floors.
"We need something appropriate for her," Penelope said, eyeing me with thinly veiled disgust. "Something that doesn't scream desperate."
I bit my tongue and let them parade me around like a doll, pulling dresses off racks and holding them up to me while they debated colors and cuts and what would be "suitable for a DeLeon wedding."
"What about this one?" the sales clerk asked, holding up a pale pink dress with too many ruffles.
Penelope wrinkled her nose. "Too juvenile. She needs to look sophisticated, not like she's playing dress up."
"This blue one is lovely," another clerk chimed in, pulling out a simple sheath dress in a soft powder blue.
I stood there like a mannequin while they circled me, pinning and tucking and critiquing every angle. The fluorescent lights made my skin look sallow. The mirror showed a girl who looked tired and scared and completely out of her depth.
"Try it on," Penelope ordered, shoving the blue dress into my arms.
The fitting room was small and smelled like expensive perfume and desperation. I changed quickly, not wanting to be alone with my reflection any longer than necessary. The dress fit well, skimming my curves without being too tight. It was actually pretty, in a demure, respectable sort of way.
When I stepped out, Penelope circled me like a shark.
"It'll do," she said finally, though she didn't sound happy about it. "We'll need shoes. And you'll wear your hair down," she added, more to the sales clerks than to me. "Natural makeup. Nothing dramatic. And for god's sake, Cellie, try to smile. You're not going to a funeral."
Wasn't I though?
The clerks fussed over accessories while Penelope made phone calls, her voice sharp as she coordinated with the caterers and the florist and whoever else was involved in pulling off a society wedding. I caught fragments of her conversations.
"No, the white roses, not cream. White. Do I need to spell it out for you?"
"Manuel wants the string quartet, not a DJ. Yes, I'm aware it costs more."
"If the cake isn't perfect, you'll be hearing from our lawyers."
She was in her element, commanding and controlling every detail. This was what she'd always wanted. Power. Status. The ability to make people jump when she snapped her fingers.
And I was just another detail to manage.
We left the boutique with the dress in a garment bag and a pair of nude heels that cost more than my monthly groceries. Penelope drove us back toward my neighborhood in her newly leased BMW, a gift from Manuel.
"I need you to understand something," she said as we sat at a red light. Her voice was cold, controlled. "This wedding is the most important thing that's ever happened to me. I've worked too hard and come too far to have it ruined."
"I know," I said quietly.
"Do you?" She turned to look at me, her eyes hard. "Because your track record suggests otherwise. You've never been able to keep yourself out of trouble, Cellie. You've always been reckless and selfish and completely incapable of thinking about anyone but yourself."
The words stung, even though I'd heard variations of them my entire life.
"I won't cause any problems at the wedding," I said.
"You'd better not." The light turned green and she pressed the gas pedal harder than necessary. "Manuel's family is important. Powerful. They have expectations about how people should behave, how family should conduct themselves. If you do anything to embarrass me or them, there will be consequences. Do you understand?"
I understood perfectly. I was a liability. A potential embarrassment. Someone to be managed and controlled and kept on a short leash.
"I understand," I said.
She pulled up in front of my building and didn't bother to put the car in park. "Friday at nine. A car will pick you up. Don't be late."
I got out with my garment bag and watched her drive away without a backward glance.
The next two days passed in a blur of anxiety and dread. I tried to focus on normal things. I went to my part time job at the coffee shop and smiled at customers and made lattes like my world wasn't about to implode. I came home to my tiny apartment and ate ramen for dinner and pretended everything was fine.
But at night, alone in the dark, the panic would set in.
What if someone had seen us leave together that night? What if there was security footage? What if one of the servants had heard something?
What if Demetrio decided I was a threat and dealt with me the way he dealt with all his problems?
I'd heard the stories. Everyone in Chicago had heard the stories about the DeLeon family. About people who crossed them and disappeared. About bodies that turned up in the river or didn't turn up at all. About the don who ran his empire with an iron fist and showed no mercy to anyone who betrayed him.
And I'd slept with him.
On Thursday night, I gave up on sleep entirely. I sat on my couch with every light in the apartment on and watched the sun come up through my narrow window. My phone sat on the coffee table, silent. No more texts from Penelope. No messages from anyone.
Tomorrow was the wedding.
Tomorrow I'd have to see him again.
Tomorrow I'd have to stand in a church and smile while my mother married his father and we all pretended to be one big happy family.
I took a shower as hot as I could stand it, trying to wash away the fear and the memories and the sick feeling that had taken up permanent residence in my stomach. It didn't work. Nothing worked.
By the time Friday morning rolled around, I was running on pure adrenaline and spite. I did my makeup carefully, keeping it natural like Penelope had ordered. I curled my hair so it fell in soft waves down my back. I put on the blue dress and the expensive shoes and looked at myself in the mirror.
I looked like someone who had their life together. Like someone who belonged at a society wedding. Like someone who hadn't made the worst mistake of their life less than a week ago.
I looked like a liar.
My phone buzzed with a text from Penelope. Car's outside. Don't be late.
I grabbed my small purse and headed downstairs, my heels clicking on the worn linoleum. A sleek black town car was waiting at the curb, looking wildly out of place in my neighborhood with its broken streetlights and graffitied walls. The driver was wearing a suit that probably cost more than my rent.
He opened the door without a word, and I slid into the backseat onto leather so soft it felt like butter.
The church was on the other side of the city, in a neighborhood where every building looked like it cost more than I'd make in ten lifetimes. As we drove, I watched the streets change from rundown to respectable to obscenely wealthy. The buildings got taller. The cars got nicer. The people on the sidewalks started looking like they'd stepped out of a magazine.
This wasn't my world. It would never be my world, no matter who my mother married.
By the time we pulled up to the cathedral, my hands were sweating and my heart was trying to beat its way out of my chest.
I could do this. It was just one day. A few hours. Smile, make small talk, avoid Demetrio at all costs, and then go home and never think about any of this again.
The driver opened my door. I stepped out onto the sidewalk and looked up at the massive cathedral with its stone arches and stained glass windows and spires that seemed to touch the sky.
People were already arriving. Women in designer dresses that cost more than my car. Men in suits so perfectly tailored they looked like they'd been born wearing them. Jewelry that caught the sunlight and threw it back in brilliant flashes. The kind of people who belonged in a world I'd only ever seen from the outside.
I took a deep breath and started walking toward the entrance, my heels clicking on the stone steps. Other guests moved around me, some glancing my way with curious expressions. I kept my head up and my face blank, channeling every ounce of fake confidence I'd ever possessed.
"Miss Bianchi?"
I turned to find a man in a dark suit with an earpiece. Security. Of course the DeLeons would have security at their wedding.
"Yes?"
"You're to sit in the third row on the bride's side. Follow me, please."
He led me through the cathedral doors into a space that stole the breath from my lungs. The ceiling soared overhead, painted with frescoes of saints and angels. Marble columns rose like ancient trees. Flowers were everywhere, white roses and lilies and orchids in massive arrangements that probably cost more than I made in a year.
And people. So many people, filling the pews and standing in the aisles, all dressed to the nines, all watching as I walked down the aisle to my seat.
I kept my eyes forward and my chin up, even though I wanted to run. Even though every instinct was screaming at me to get out while I still could.
The guard deposited me in my row and disappeared back toward the entrance. I sat down on the hard wooden pew and clasped my hands in my lap, trying to look calm. Trying to look like I belonged here.
The cathedral filled up around me. Voices echoed off the stone walls, a mix of Italian and English and languages I didn't recognize. I caught fragments of conversation, gossip about business deals and family drama and who was sitting where and who hadn't been invited and why.
"Did you hear about the Russo family?"
"Apparently the deal fell through."
"I heard someone ended up in the hospital."
"Well, that's what happens when you cross the DeLeons."
My stomach churned. This was the world I was being pulled into. A world of deals and threats and violence hidden under expensive suits and polite smiles.
And then I felt it. That prickling sensation on the back of my neck that meant someone was watching me.
I turned my head slightly and my eyes met grey ones across the aisle.
Demetrio.
He was sitting in the front row on the groom's side, his suit tailored so perfectly it looked like it had been made for him. Because it probably had been. His dark hair was slicked back. His jaw was set in a hard line. And he was staring at me with an expression I couldn't read. Not anger. Not recognition. Something else. Something that made my skin feel too tight.
My heart stuttered. Heat flooded my face. I looked away fast, focusing on the altar, on the flowers, on anything but him.
But I could still feel his eyes on me. Could feel the weight of his gaze like a physical touch.
One day. Just get through one day.
The organ music swelled suddenly, filling the cathedral with rich, solemn notes. Everyone stood as one, the rustling of fabric and scraping of feet echoing through the space.
I stood with them and turned to look at the back of the cathedral.
Penelope appeared in the doorway, a vision in white lace and silk. Her dress was stunning, probably designer, definitely expensive. Her makeup was flawless. Her hair was swept up in an elegant style that showed off the diamond earrings glittering at her ears.
She looked like a queen. Like she'd finally gotten everything she'd ever wanted.
The music shifted into the wedding march and she started down the aisle on the arm of some distant uncle she'd barely spoken to in years. Her eyes were forward, focused on Manuel waiting at the altar. She didn't look at me as she passed.
I sat back down as she reached the front, and my eyes inadvertently drifted back across the aisle.
Demetrio was still watching me.
Our eyes locked for a heartbeat, then two, and something passed between us. An acknowledgment. A warning. A promise that this wasn't over, not by a long shot.
I tore my gaze away and focused on the priest beginning the ceremony.
This was going to be a very, very long day.