This was the 17th wedding with my fiance, Rafael Holloway. For every one of the previous 16, he’d left me standing alone at the altar for his fragile sworn sister, Natalia Sullivan.
I walked down the aisle holding his arm when the baby in my womb gave a sharp kick.
“Our baby’s been waiting for this day, too,” he whispered and squeezed my hand with a smile.
When the priest began the vows, all eyes in the chapel turned toward us. That was when his phone rang with a call. It was from Natalia again.
Rafael’s expression went stone-cold, and his grip tightened subconsciously.
“Don’t answer it, Rafael.” My eyes were locked on him.
A torn look swirled in his eyes as his thumb hovered over the decline button. Then, the call ended on its own.
I was about to breathe out in relief when the second call arrived.
“Gianna, maybe it’s an emergency. She never calls this much,” he muttered, trying to free his hand from my grasp.
But I held on and reminded him. “Our baby is waiting to hear his father say ‘I do.'”
His eyes widened at the words, then he tore his hand free as if my touch burned him. “She’s Antonio’s only daughter!”
I wasn’t surprised to hear that line again. Antonio Sullivan, his father’s right-hand man, had died taking a bullet for him.
Before his death, his final words, “Take care of Natalia,” ruined my life.
When Rafael checked his phone and read the text from the hospital, his voice cracked. “She took sleeping pills!”
“Again? Last month, she took pills too, and the nurses discovered that the bottle was never opened.” I scoffed.
“Gianna!” he barked my name and shot me a deeply disappointed look. “Before Antonio died…”
“He entrusted his daughter to you for protection! He never gave you a knife to stab into my back!
“Look around you! Our family, men, and unborn baby are all waiting for you to say ‘I do’!”
When the phone rang a third time, Natalia’s weak sob came through the speaker. “Rafael, help me…”
Rafael’s eyes turned cold as he pried off my fingers like I was the crazy one. “Please! A wedding can wait, but a life can’t!”
That was such a familiar line and excuse he’d given on our 16th wedding cancellation.
“Rafael!” My voice echoed through the hall, but he’d turned, looking more final than the last 16 turns.
Whispers rippled among the guests. Some scoffed, some pitied me, and most shook their heads as if they weren’t surprised.
They wouldn’t be because the first wedding had ended the same way. Natalia had suddenly collapsed, and Rafael had rushed her to the hospital.
I’d chased him to the hospital in my wedding gown, only to see her lying pale in bed and clutching his sleeve. When she saw me, her eyes flashed triumphantly.
Rafael never saw the mocking smile she flashed while hiding behind his shoulder.
Our fifth wedding had been an intimate garden ceremony. I’d waited all day in a simple dress for my fiance, who never arrived, while the elders sneered behind my back.
“Can’t even secure her own wedding…”
The cunning elders of Southern Silenzio had never hidden their contempt for me, a Northern Silenzio origin.
