The Scapegoat Fiancée: I Am No Substitute

Alessia POV

The dining room table was set with the good china, the delicate porcelain with the gold rim that my grandmother had carried all the way from Sicily.

It was a setting for a celebration.

But the banner hanging above the fireplace didn't say Welcome Home Alessia.

It said We are so proud of your recovery, Chiara.

I stood in the doorway, a ghost in a simple black dress I'd scavenged from a box of cast-offs in the attic. It hung loose on my frame, swallowing my diminished figure.

My mother, Isabella, looked up. She was gripping a crystal wine glass, her face pulled tight with Botox and disdain.

"You're late," she snapped. "And you look like a wraith. Couldn't you have put on some rouge?"

"I just got out of federal prison, Mother. The Sephora was closed," I said, my voice dead flat.

My father, Marco, a Capo who valued reputation over blood, grunted. "Sit down. Don't make a scene."

Then Dante walked in.

He was guiding Chiara.

My sister. The murderer.

She looked radiant. Her skin was glowing, her hair a cascade of perfect blonde waves. She leaned heavily on Dante's arm, acting as if the simple act of walking to the table was a marathon she was bravely enduring.

"Alessia!" she squealed, her voice high and breathless. "Oh my god, you're back! I missed you so much!"

She didn't move to hug me. She just clung tighter to Dante.

"Sit," Dante commanded, pulling out the chair at the head of the table for himself. He seated Chiara to his right. The seat of honor. The wife's seat.

I took the chair at the far end, opposite him. The distance felt like an ocean.

Dinner was served. Veal scallopini. My favorite. Or it used to be.

"My head hurts," Chiara whined, pressing a manicured hand to her temple. "Dante, the light is too bright."

Dante immediately signaled the butler to dim the chandelier. "Is that better, cara?"

"A little," she sighed. She looked down at her plate. "I can't cut this. My wrists are so weak today."

I watched, morbidly fascinated by the performance. It was a masterclass in manipulation.

Dante, the man who ordered hits on rival gangs without blinking, the man who controlled the unions and the docks, picked up his knife and fork.

He reached over and began to cut her meat into tiny, bite-sized pieces.

"Here," he said softly. "Eat."

Chiara smiled, a sickly sweet expression. Then she looked at the bowl of fruit in the center of the table.

"Dante?" she whispered.

"Yes?"

"I want a grape. But the skin... it gets stuck in my throat."

The room went silent. Even my father stopped chewing.

This was a test. A display of dominance. She was showing me that while I served her time, she had enslaved my fiancé.

Dante hesitated for a fraction of a second. His eyes flicked to me. I held his gaze, my face a mask of cold stone.

If he did this, there was no coming back.

Dante reached for a grape. With his large, lethal hands, he carefully peeled the skin off the fruit. He held the naked, glistening grape to Chiara's lips.

She ate it, her eyes locked on mine, smiling.

Something inside me snapped. It wasn't a loud snap. It was the quiet, final sound of a tether being cut.

I stood up. The chair scraped loudly against the parquet floor, shattering the silence.

"Where are you going?" my father barked. "We haven't finished."

"I have," I said.

"Sit down, Alessia," Dante ordered, his voice regaining its command. "Don't be disrespectful."

I looked at him. Really looked at him. I saw the weakness behind the power.

"Disrespectful?" I laughed, a dry, humorless sound. "You just hand-fed the woman who killed a man to save her own skin, while the woman who took the fall for it sits here starving for a shred of dignity."

"She is sick!" my mother hissed. "Chiara is fragile!"

"She is a parasite," I said calmly.

"Watch your mouth," my father stood up, his face reddening. "You are a Salinas. You do what is best for the Famiglia."

I reached into my pocket and felt the cool plastic of the burner phone. My flight to Dominica left in four hours.

"I learned a lot in prison," I said, switching to Spanish. The language of the cell block, the language of the cartels I had been forced to align with just to survive the showers.

"Tu hija es una puta, y tú eres un viejo cobarde." (Your daughter is a whore, and you are an old coward.)

My father's eyes widened. He didn't speak Spanish, but he understood the tone. He understood the venom.

"I'm leaving," I said in English.

"You leave this house, you leave this family!" my father shouted, spittle flying from his lips. "You walk out that gate, you are dead to us!"

I looked at Dante one last time. He was still holding a half-peeled grape.

"I was dead the moment you let them take me," I said.

I turned and walked out. I didn't pack a bag. I didn't look back at the crystal or the gold or the rot.

I walked out the front door, past the guards who looked confused, and out the iron gates.

It was midnight.

Happy twenty-fifth birthday to me.