The Revenge Marriage To My Ex‑Fiancé’s Mafia Uncle

My father didn't even look at the photos.

He looked at me, standing in the doorway of his study with my split lip and my swollen cheek. Then he held out his hand.

"Give me the phone, Sylvia."

"Dad, you need to see this. Julian and Celeste were—"

"I said give it to me."

I handed it over. I was stupid enough to think he wanted a closer look.

He glanced at the screen for maybe two seconds. His jaw went tight. Then he raised the phone and smashed it against the edge of his marble desk.

Once. Twice. A third time, until the screen spiderwebbed and went black.

I stood there with my mouth open.

"What are you doing?"

"Protecting this family." He dropped the dead phone into his wastebasket like it was a used tissue. "Who else has seen these?"

"Nobody. Dad, he hit me. Look at my face!"

"I see your face."

That was all he said. *I see your face.*

My mother came in from the hallway in her silk robe, her reading glasses still pushed up in her hair. She took one look at me and pressed a hand to her chest.

"Sylvia, what happened?"

For one second, I felt like a little girl again. My lip started to wobble.

"Mom, I walked in on Julian. With Celeste. In the bridal suite."

Her hand stayed on her chest. Her face went white.

"Oh, God," she whispered. "Did anyone see? The staff? Was anyone in the hallway?"

I blinked at her. "What?"

"If this gets out, Celeste is finished. No decent family will ever take her. Richard, did anyone else—"

"I handled it," my father said.

"Mom." My voice cracked in half. "I'm the one who got slapped."

She finally looked at my cheek. She winced, the way you wince at a stain on a nice tablecloth.

"We'll get you some ice, sweetheart. And concealer. Tomorrow the lighting will be soft anyway."

I laughed. I couldn't help it. It just came bubbling up out of me, wild and wrong, and both of them stared at me like I was the one who'd done something shameful.

Headlights swept across the study window.

A car door slammed. Then another.

Julian walked in first, fully dressed now, hair combed, not a wrinkle on him. Celeste trailed behind him with her face buried in her hands. She was sobbing so hard her shoulders shook.

My ring was gone from her finger. I noticed that right away.

"Mr. Marlowe. Mrs. Marlowe." Julian nodded politely, like he'd come for dinner. "I thought it was best to bring her home myself."

"Mommy," Celeste wailed, and threw herself into our mother's arms.

Mom held her tight. Stroked her hair. Rocked her.

She hadn't touched me once.

"Shh, baby. It's alright. Mommy's here."

"It's not alright." Celeste lifted her blotchy face. Her mascara ran in perfect black lines. "I didn't want anyone to find out like this. I was going to tell you."

"Tell us what, darling?"

Celeste gulped. Her eyes slid to me, then away.

"I'm pregnant."

The room went dead silent.

The clock on the bookshelf ticked. Somewhere downstairs, a dishwasher hummed. I stared at my sister's flat stomach under her little pink dress and felt the floor tilt under my feet.

"How far along?" my father asked.

Not *how could you*. Not *with who*. Just *how far along*, like he was asking about a quarterly report.

"Seven weeks," Julian answered for her.

Seven weeks. That was the weekend he told me he was in Chicago.

My father rubbed his forehead. He paced to the window and back. Then he turned around, and I watched his face settle into the expression he wore at board meetings right before he fired someone.

"Here's what happens," he said. "The engagement goes forward tomorrow. Nothing changes."

"Dad—"

"The wedding moves up. Two months, not ten. Celeste goes to the house in Lake Como until the baby comes. When it's born, it's yours, Sylvia. Yours and Julian's. Your name on the birth certificate."

I couldn't feel my hands.

"You want me to raise their baby."

"I want you to raise your *nephew*. Your own blood. And keep this family and the Reyes family together, the way we planned."

"That's brilliant, Richard," my mother breathed. "No one would ever know."

Julian said nothing. He didn't have to. The corner of his mouth lifted, just slightly.

Celeste sniffled into Mom's shoulder. Then she peeked at me, and I swear on everything I have, her wet eyes were smiling.

"No," I said.

My father's eyebrows rose. "Excuse me?"

"No. I'm not marrying him. I'm not pretending her baby is mine. I'm not walking into that ballroom tomorrow."

"Sylvia, be reasonable," Mom said. "Think about your sister."

"I am thinking about my sister. I'm thinking she should've kept her legs closed around my fiancé."

Celeste gasped and burst into fresh tears. Mom clutched her tighter and glared at me like I'd stabbed her.

My father crossed the room in three strides.

"Upstairs," he said. "Now."

"I'm not a child."

"Then stop acting like one." He seized my arm above the elbow and pulled. I dug my heels into the rug, and he just dragged me, all the way up the staircase, past the family portraits, past the photo of me at my high school graduation.

He shoved me into my old bedroom. I stumbled into the edge of the bed.

"You'll thank me one day," he said.

The door slammed. A key turned.

I threw myself against the wood and pounded until my fists went numb.

"Dad! Open the door! Dad!"

Footsteps faded down the hall. Nobody came back.

I sat on the floor with my back against the door for a long time. I cried until my swollen cheek throbbed in time with my heart. Then I just sat there, empty.

Sometime after midnight, I heard voices outside.

I pressed my ear to the crack.

"—she won't cooperate, Richard. You saw her face."

"She'll cooperate." My father's voice, low and tired. "Dr. Albright is sending something over in the morning. A mild sedative."

"Is that safe?"

"It'll keep her calm. Pliable. She'll smile, say yes, and sign whatever's put in front of her. By the time it wears off, it's done."

A pause.

"Put it in her tea," he said. "She always takes tea before big events."

"She'll hate us."

"She'll get over it. She'll walk up on that stage like a good girl. That's all that matters."

Their footsteps moved away. A door closed somewhere down the hall.

I stayed on my knees for a moment. My whole body was shaking, but not from crying anymore.

I wiped my face with the back of my hand. Hard. Until the tears were gone.

Then I got up and went to my closet.

Behind the shoeboxes on the top shelf sat my old laptop, the one from college. Nobody in this house remembered it existed. I pulled it down, blew off the dust, and prayed the battery still held a charge.

The screen flickered on. Thirty-one percent.

I opened my old email, my old notes, scrolling with clumsy fingers until I found it. A contact I had saved two years ago and never once touched.

Just a first name. A phone number. Nothing else.

*Viktor.*

I remembered the night I saved it. Julian, drunk on scotch after his father's birthday party, sprawled across our couch with his tie undone. He'd grabbed my wrist and pulled me close, his breath hot and sour.

"Promise me something, Sylvie."

"What?"

"If you ever see my uncle Viktor at a family thing, you walk the other way." His eyes had been glassy, but his grip was dead serious. "Don't talk to him. Don't look at him. And never, ever owe him anything."

"Why? What does he do?"

Julian had laughed, but there was nothing funny in it.

"He's the reason my father sleeps with a gun under his pillow."

I stared at the number glowing on the screen.

Then I opened the calling app, and my cursor hovered over the green button.