The Fiancé My Best Friend Stole

The Fiancé My Best Friend Stole Five years after Luca Bellandi’s disappearance, I met him again at my best friend’s wedding. He was the groom, and I was merely a bridesmaid. Sophia, my closest friend and the bride, clung to my arm joyfully, chattering about their love story. “I’m the one who saved Luca after his car crash. I heard he had a fiancée back then, but I secretly took him to my family’s private hospital for treatment.” “You shouldn’t keep searching for your missing fiancé. All the groomsmen here are so handsome. Let me set you up with someone!” Chapter 1 The first time I saw Luca Bellandi after five years, he was standing at the altar at my best friend's wedding. He was the groom, and I was the bridesmaid. Black Bentleys lined the curb outside St. Bartholomew's in Chicago. Rossetti guards stood beneath the stone arches, and Bellandi men watched the street from behind dark glasses. Every smile in the church had a gun somewhere behind it. Sophia Rossetti sat in the bridal suite in a satin gown, bright with nerves and happiness. She pulled me close to the mirror and whispered, "Elena, I don't think I ever told you everything. When Luca was hit on North Lake Road, I was the one who found him. The Bellandis hadn't reached the scene yet. I put him on a private jet that same night and flew him to Malta for surgery. " She smiled, soft and proud. "He barely remembered anything when he woke up. The doctors said trauma does that. He knew his name, his family, and business details, but the months before the crash were a blur. I kept thinking, poor man. He looked like he had clawed his way back from hell." My fingers went cold around the bouquet. For five years, I had searched for Luca. I had hired investigators, filed requests with police, hospitals, morgues, ports, and border offices, and stood outside underground clinics with his photo hidden inside my coat. His father had held a private mass and told me to let go. His friends begged me to stop killing myself over a ghost. My parents said a dead man didn't deserve the rest of my life. Only Sophia had stayed with me through those nights. She had held me together through the worst of it. She knew I had lost a fiance, but she had never met him. The engagement had been kept quiet because the Bellandi family was bleeding enemies, and after the crash, I stopped showing anyone his photos. Looking at them hurt too much. So when she told me this story with a bride's shy smile, I knew she didn't understand what she was doing to me. Then the door opened, and Luca walked in. He wore a black tuxedo and a Rossetti wedding band. He was leaner than five years ago, sharper around the edges, but I knew him instantly: the scar through one eyebrow, the way he adjusted his cuff links, the cedar-and-tobacco scent. He saw me too. For one heartbeat, his whole body stopped. Then he looked away, crossed the room, and fixed Sophia's veil as if I were no more than another chair in the suite. "The guests are seated. Don't keep the priest waiting." Sophia hooked her arm through his and smiled up at him. "Yes, husband." Then she turned to me, still glowing. "Elena, stand close to me, okay? If I faint, you are legally responsible." Luca didn't look at me again. He only turned to the groomsman at the door and said, "Watch the list. Nobody enters the main hall without an invitation." Several of those men knew me. They had seen me beside Luca years ago, had opened car doors for me, had called me Miss Vane with careful respect. Today, they stared at the carpet and pretended not to recognize the woman who had once belonged at his side. That was when I understood. Sophia didn't know. Luca did. He remembered enough to turn away. Chapter 2 When the ceremony began, I stood three steps behind Sophia and watched Luca keep his eyes on her face. When her hand trembled around the bouquet, he took it and rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. At the Bellandi family's underground range, I had once fired a gun for the first time and nearly dropped it when the recoil jarred my wrist. Luca had taken my hand just like that and murmured, "Don't be scared. I've got you." He was still gentle. He still remembered how to hold someone like she was precious. He just didn't do it for me anymore. "Do you take Sophia Rossetti as your wife," the priest asked, "to stand with her through honor and disaster, through the rise and fall of both families?" Luca paused. His gaze slid toward me for less than a second, and the church seemed to disappear around us. There was pain in his eyes, but it was gone before I could trust it. "I do," he said. Sophia cried. The church burst into applause. I clapped too, quietly, because Sophia looked so happy and because I didn't know what else to do with my hands. People glanced back as if they were waiting for me to crack. I wanted to ask why he could only look at me when no one was watching. I didn't. My throat had closed too tightly for a scene. The reception was held at a Rossetti lakeside hotel. Before dinner, Luca's underboss, Anthony, stopped me near the ballroom doors. He lowered his head, almost ashamed. "Ms. Vane, Mr. Bellandi said you should rest if you feel unwell." I looked at him. "He sent you to tell me to leave?" Anthony didn't answer. Of course he didn't. I took out my phone and sent Luca a message. [You saw me. You know who I am.] His reply came fast. [Go home, Elena. Don't make this harder than it has to be.] Harder for whom? I stared at the words until they blurred. Across the room, Sophia was in Luca's arms for their first dance. She stood on her toes to whisper something in his ear, and he lowered his head to hear her better. His hand rested at her waist with the ease of habit. For a moment, I thought I might be sick. Then Sophia saw me and waved, bright and innocent. She mouthed, [Are you okay?] I nodded because I couldn't hate her. Not yet. Not when she looked at me with the same concern she had used to hold me together all those years. I left before the cake was cut. At home, I sat on the floor of the Lakeview penthouse in my bridesmaid dress and tried to breathe. This was the home Luca and I had chosen before our wedding. His glassware, records, and coat were still exactly where he had left them. For five years, I had lived beside his absence as if loyalty could warm a room. Now he was alive, married, and calling me trouble. Chapter 3 The next afternoon, the doorbell rang. On the camera, Sophia stood outside with two guards and three suitcases. Luca was beside her, a black coat over one arm. I opened the door without thinking. Sophia rushed forward and hugged me. "Elena, you scared me. I called you all morning. You left the wedding like you were going to vanish into the lake." She sounded so honestly worried that the little anger I had managed to gather turned into something softer and worse. I let her hold me for two seconds, then carefully stepped back. "I'm fine." "You don't look fine." She looked around the apartment and shivered. "God, this place is depressing. Luca said your building has the best private security in Lakeview, so we thought we could stay a few days. The Rossetti estate has been getting threats, and with the baby..." Luca finally looked at me. "Sophia is pregnant. I wouldn't bring her here if there were another safe option." I wanted to ask if he heard himself. Five years ago, this was supposed to be our home. Now he stood in the doorway with his pregnant wife and asked for shelter as if I were an old family contact. Sophia touched my wrist. “Only a few days. I know it’s a lot to ask after the wedding, but I didn’t know where else to go. You’re the only person I trust.” That was the cruelest sentence of all. I stepped aside, but I looked at Luca before he crossed the threshold. “Sophia can stay because she is my friend and she is pregnant,” I said. “You are here because she needs protection. Don’t confuse that with forgiveness.” Sophia released a breath and hugged me again. “Thank you. I knew you wouldn’t turn me away.” I didn’t hug her back this time. My eyes stayed on Luca. “Sophia gets the guest room,” I said. “You get the couch, the guards, or the hallway. I don’t care which. But you don’t get to walk through this apartment like it still belongs to you.” “My bedroom and study are private.” That night, Sophia made tea in my kitchen and talked about the wedding, the baby, and the doctors in Malta. Luca had been strange after waking up, she said, always polite, always guarded, never fully hers. "Sometimes I think part of him stayed in that crash," she said, trying to laugh. "He can be so cold. You know men like that, right? Mafia sons with too much pride and no emotional vocabulary." I held the mug with both hands because they wouldn't stop trembling. "Yes," I said. "I know." Across the room, Luca stood in the hallway and listened. I saw him in the dark reflection of the window. He watched me like he was waiting for me to accuse him. I said nothing. Chapter 4 Sophia hated my penthouse the moment she settled in. By the third morning, she was wandering barefoot across the charcoal rug with a blanket around her shoulders, wrinkling her nose at the black marble, dark shelves, and gray walls. "Elena, babe, why does your home look like a Bellandi interrogation room? Anyone would lose their mind here." I set down my coffee. "Someone used to like it this way." "A man likes black, so you paint your whole life black?" She shook her head. "You need something that belongs to you. My sheets are blush pink. Luca hates them, but he sleeps in them anyway." Luca was standing by the window, fastening his cuff link. His hand stopped. Sophia smiled at him. "He complains every time, then still crawls in like a good husband." I remembered the pink sheets I bought years ago. Luca had stood beside the bed for half a minute, then taken his pillow to the guest room. Back then, he said, "Elena, don't dress me like the hero in your dollhouse." I had laughed and pretended not to be hurt. Later, I changed the sheets to gray. Sophia kept talking, unaware. "So if your fiance couldn't even handle pink sheets, maybe he didn't love you enough." The cup burned my fingers. I almost dropped it. I tried to smile. "Maybe he didn't." The room went quiet. Sophia looked confused, but Luca's voice turned cold before she could ask. "Or maybe he came back and found out the woman waiting for him hadn't waited at all." My breath caught. Sophia frowned. "Luca, what does that mean?" "Nothing." He looked at me instead of her. "Some people like to make a shrine out of old love. It makes them look loyal. It doesn't mean they were faithful." "You think I wasn't faithful?" I asked. "I think five years is a long time," he said. "Long enough for grief to turn into something else." I wanted to ask about three years ago. I wanted to ask whether he had come back, whether he had seen something, whether a single misunderstood moment had been enough for him to erase everything I had suffered. But Sophia was standing between us, pale and lost, and I couldn't drag her into a history she didn't know existed. So I lowered my head and whispered, "Then you should have asked me." Luca's jaw tightened. For one second he looked like he might cross the room. Instead, he turned to Sophia. "Rest. The doctor said no stress." After they went to the guest room, I stayed in the kitchen until my coffee went cold. I had learned to be quiet with pain. That night, I opened the drawer beside my bed and took out the engagement ring Luca had given me five years ago. I had kept wearing it on a chain under my clothes after the crash. At the wedding, I had moved it back to my finger because seeing him alive made me stupid for one last day. The diamond looked smaller than I remembered. Chapter 5 A week later, Sophia insisted on taking me to the Velvet Club, the Bellandis' private place on the north side, where families traded favors and insults without raising their voices. "You need air," she said while fixing my hair in the mirror. "And you need to meet someone who isn't a ghost." She meant well. That was the problem. Every kind thing she did made it harder to hate her. I wore a black velvet dress, light makeup, and Luca's ring on my finger. I didn't wear it to fight for him. I wore it because I was too weak to take it off before I had to. When we arrived, Luca was already at the main table. Sophia went straight to him. He stood at once, pulled out her chair, and asked whether the music was too loud. She smiled and pressed a quick kiss to his jaw. "Elena," Sophia said, pulling me down beside her, "this is Dante Valenti. He's an old friend of Luca's, apparently dangerous, and very single." Dante Valenti sat across from me in a navy suit without a tie, his lazy smile barely hiding sharp eyes. Three years ago, when my search nearly got me killed, Dante had gotten me out and kept unwanted visitors from my hospital room. He looked at me for a long moment. "Ms. Vane. Long time." "Dante," I said softly. Sophia missed the history in that silence. Luca didn't. His gaze settled between us, dark and still, and for the first time all night, he looked less like a husband and more like the man who once hated anyone who stood too close to me. Halfway through dinner, Sophia went to fix her makeup. Luca waited until the conversation moved away from us, then took a black hotel key card from his jacket and slid it toward me. "Suite upstairs," he said. "Dante is staying there tonight." I stared at the card. "Why are you giving this to me?" His mouth curved, but there was no humor in it. "Isn't this what you want? You and Dante already know each other well enough." My face went cold. "Luca." "Don't look at me like that. You found comfort once. Why pretend you're too pure to do it again?" Dante's glass stopped halfway to his mouth. He said nothing, but his eyes sharpened. I should have thrown the card back at him. Instead, I sat there with my hands in my lap and felt something inside me fold in on itself, small and tired. For five years, I had believed love meant endurance. Now he was alive, sitting in front of me, using the only man who had helped me survive as a knife. Slowly, I pulled the engagement ring from my finger. It had followed me through five years of searching. Once it had been a promise. Then it became a grave marker. Now it was only cold metal. I placed it beside the key card. The ring tapped against the black marble. Luca's eyes changed at once. "Elena," he said, and for the first time his voice sounded almost afraid. I couldn't look at him for long. If I did, I might break. "I can't do this anymore. I can't wait for you, hate you, love you, and be punished by you at the same time." Sophia came back then, smiling until she saw our faces. "What happened?" I stood before I could lose my nerve. My legs felt weak. My whole body felt weak. But I still picked up the key card, not because Luca had sent me anywhere, but because I needed one door in that room that did not belong to him. "Nothing," I said. "I'm tired." Behind me, Luca called my name once. I stopped, but I didn’t turn around. “You don’t get to throw me at another man and still look hurt when I walk away.” Then I left.