Chapter 18 - The Wedding Dress I Burned
One year after the night Elena escaped, Sofia Moretti found the ruined wedding dress stored in a box.
“What are you doing with this?”
Elena stared at the muddy lace.
“I don’t know.”
“Then decide.”
So Elena did.
She took the dress outside.
Luca watched from the terrace.
Elena removed one small piece of clean lace near the sleeve.
She kept it.
Then she burned the rest.
Not because she wanted to erase the night.
Because she no longer needed the dress to prove it happened.
Luca approached afterward.
“You kept a piece.”
“To remember.”
“I thought remembering was the problem.”
“No.”
Elena looked at the ashes.
“Believing the worst thing that happened to you gets to define everything afterward—that’s the problem.”
Luca understood.
Then he reached into his coat.
Elena immediately narrowed her eyes.
“If that’s a ring, you’d better think very carefully about your next sentence.”
Luca stopped.
Slowly, he returned his hand to his pocket.
Elena burst out laughing.
“You were going to propose!”
“I have faced armed men with less anxiety than I’m experiencing right now.”
She laughed harder.
Luca shook his head.
“Forget it.”
“No.”
Elena took his hand.
“Try again.”
He studied her.
Then Luca Moretti—the man who had once been feared across half the city—did something Franklin and Damian never truly had.
He asked.
“Elena Ashford, would you like to marry me?”
No demands.
No threats.
No locked doors.
No debt.
No bargain.
A question.
Elena let him wait.
Just long enough to make him nervous.
Then she smiled.
May you like
“Yes.”
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