She Died on His Wedding

Seven years ago, I crawled on my knees to save Alex Benedetti's ass, and got marked as the bitch who betrayed him.

Seven years later, he came back as New York's deadliest mob boss. Lucy Ferraro, some spoiled mafia princess, was warming his bed while I was on my hands and knees scrubbing his floors.

He let his fiancée treat me like garbage. When I started coughing up blood, the son of a bitch laughed and said I had it coming.

He didn't know the brain cancer was eating me alive.

The day I died, Alex was putting a ring on another woman's finger. He never found out that the girl who took bullets for him—the one he destroyed—was already rotting six feet under while he was saying "I do."

Francesca

Alessandro Benedetti came home with his fiancée the day I was on my knees scrubbing dried blood off the floor.

Pain drilled through my skull like ice picks. My vision blurred.

Familiar rust flooded the back of my throat. I bit down hard on my lower lip and swallowed it back.

The doctors said the tumor was pressing on a nerve. Three months, give or take.

Three months was enough. Enough to watch him take the crown. Enough to know he was safe.

As for why I was still here scrubbing floors in his manor—after what happened seven years ago, nobody hired a "traitor." Nobody except the Benedetti estate. They needed someone to clean up blood, scrub out bullet holes, make the evidence of their "accidents" disappear.

And I needed somewhere to die quietly.

"Don Benedetti."

Twenty voices spoke at once. Respectful. Practiced. I didn't need to look up to know he was back. His footsteps alone made my hands shake.

Seven years. He was finally home.

"Jesus, Alex, this place looks like your grandma's antique shop exploded." Lucy Ferraro—daughter of the Ferraro family, Alessandro's arranged match, and by all accounts hopelessly in love with him.

She kept going, voice dripping honey: "God, this décor is so dated. I hate this carpet. And this furniture? Ugh, zero taste."

"Rip it all out after the wedding, babe." Alex's voice was warm. Indulgent. "The whole house is your canvas."

Each word was a needle to the chest. He'd said something like that to me once.

I pressed myself deeper into the corner. Maybe if I stayed small enough. Quiet enough—

"Wait—since when do we let street trash in here?"

Shit.

Alex stopped. I could feel his stare burning into my back.

"Turn around."

I froze. After a long moment, I raised my head.

I looked into the eyes that had once watched me like I was the moon.

Now they looked at me like shit on his shoe.

"Well, well." A cold smile. "Francesca FUCKING Rossi."

Lucy's eyes went wide. "Wait—THIS is her? The little bitch who sold you out—"

"For money, yeah." Alex cut in. "Sold me to the Irish. And she's got the balls to show her face here."

He crouched down, looked me over like roadkill.

"You look like hell, Frankie."

Hearing that name again twisted something inside me. Nobody called me that anymore.

"So what happened to all that blood money? Huh? Spent it already?"

"I never—" My voice cracked. "Alex, I never took a single dollar."

He laughed. Short. Hollow. "Right. So you sold me out for free then. Just so some piece of shit could get between your legs—that it?"

Lucy pressed a hand to her mouth. "Oh my God. That's—wow. Shameless."

"Please." The word slipped out before I could catch it. "Just—let me explain—"

The slap came fast. Stars burst across my vision and I slammed into the marble column.

"Did I say you could TALK?" Lucy grabbed my hair, yanked my head back. "Did I?"

Blood welled from my split lip. The migraine flared white-hot.

"Lucy." Alex's voice went flat. Calm. "Let her go."

"But—"

"Let her go."

She shoved me. I hit the floor again, mouth flooding with copper.

Alex pulled out a white handkerchief and cleaned his hands. Slow. Careful. Like he'd touched something diseased.

"You know what three years in an Irish prison does to a man, Francesca?"

I couldn't answer. The pain swallowed everything.

"It teaches you patience. How to wait. How to plan." He dropped the handkerchief on my face. "How to make people pay."

"Alex—"

"Don't." The word cracked like a whip. "Don't you DARE say my name. You lost that right seven years ago when you sold me out."

I nodded. Tried to swallow the blood pooling in my mouth. Some spilled anyway.

"I'm sorry, Don Benedetti. For staining your carpet."

That made it worse. He grabbed my jaw, fingers digging in.

"Look at you." Pure contempt. "What happened to that smug look, huh? The one you wore when you gave me up? What—those bastards use you up and throw you away, so now you're crawling back here begging for scraps?"

Something inside me collapsed. I stared at the face I'd spent seven years missing, at the hatred burning in his eyes.

He didn't know the truth.

He didn't need to.

He shoved my face away. My head cracked against the column. The room lurched. Blood ran into my eyes.

"Alex, this is embarrassing." Lucy spat near my hand. "Just—have someone drag her out. Toss her to the dogs."

Alex stood. Took his time. Something cold settled over his face. "Nah. Killing her's too easy." He paused. "She likes being on her knees so much? Fine. Let her scrub every inch of this estate by hand. She misses a single spot—break her legs."

He turned, arm sliding around Lucy's waist as they headed for the stairs.

"Babe, I want to see our bedroom," Lucy cooed.

"It's yours now." A smile in his voice. "All of it."

I lay there on the cold floor and watched them disappear.

A moment later, the creak of bedsprings drifted down.

I pulled the bloody handkerchief away and doubled over, coughing hard. Dark red spattered through my fingers onto the white carpet. I grabbed a rag, tried to scrub it out—but the harder I worked, the worse it spread.

Just like this body of mine. Rotting from the inside out. No amount of cleaning would fix it.

The sounds from upstairs grew louder. I closed my eyes and let the tumor's pain tear through me.

But nothing hurt like watching him hate me.

Three months. I would watch him marry her. Watch him be happy. Watch him forget every single thing we'd ever been to each other.

The night I knelt before Isabella Benedetti in the rain, seven years ago, I'd known this day was coming.

I just hadn't known it would hurt like this.