After I Died, My Fiancé Went Mad

I stood beside Luca as he went from a poor boy to the most powerful man in Chicago. I saved him, and an explosion crushed my spine. I would never dance again. Later, I was diagnosed with late-stage cancer. In that time, a woman appeared at his side. Beautiful, clever, from a powerful family. She could stand beside him, sit in on his deals, solve his problems. And I could only sit in a wheelchair. Everyone said I was holding Luca back. I thought so too. So I left him, meaning to go and die alone Chapter 1 When Luca came home, it was already one in the morning. I sat in the living room waiting for him. The steak on the table had gone cold, and the candles had nearly burned down. Today was our tenth year together. Before he left that morning, he had promised me he would be back by eight. I had waited five hours. "Why are you still up?" He took off his coat and came over to me. "Is the leg hurting again?" I didn't answer. He bent to lift me, meaning to move me from the sofa to the wheelchair. A faint scent of roses drifted from his collar. Not my perfume. I saw a lipstick mark on his white shirt. "Did Victoria kiss you?" I asked outright. Luca looked down, and his face changed. "The reception was crowded. She'd had too much to drink and stumbled into me. It was only a brush." "Why didn't you push her away?" "Eve, I've been in meetings for over ten hours today, and two men died at the port. I didn't notice." He lifted me into the wheelchair anyway, then crouched to help me into my slippers. His movements were gentle, no different from usual. He had always been good to me. When my legs hurt at night, he got up to massage them. When I lost my temper and threw things, he never once struck back. Every hospital visit, he pushed his work aside and came with me himself. But that didn't mean there was nothing wrong between us. Three years ago, the warehouse at South Harbor exploded. Luca was trapped inside. I ran in and shoved him clear, and a falling steel beam hit me instead. The doctors saved my life. They couldn't save my legs. Before the accident, I was a candidate for principal dancer at the Chicago Ballet. After it, I could only sit in a wheelchair and watch other people dance. Luca looked after me for three years. At first, he came to rehab with me every day. He said that whether or not I could stand again, he would marry me. Then his business grew and grew, and the time he had for me shrank. Six months ago, Victoria Vale came into his life. She was a lawyer, and a daughter of the Vale family of New York. She helped Luca win the port contract, dealt with the police investigation, and once even took an assassination attempt for him. They never ran out of things to say to each other. Between Luca and me, there was nothing left but pills, rehab, and hospital bills. "What day is it today?" I asked. Luca went blank for a moment. A few seconds later, he saw the cake on the table, and his face filled with guilt. "I'm sorry. I forgot." "It's fine." I picked up the test report from the edge of the table and slid it under the blanket over my legs. It read: malignant spinal cord tumor, late stage, expected survival three to six months. I had meant to tell him tonight. Now I didn't want to. After Luca went to shower, his phone buzzed on the table. A message from Victoria: The witness is safe. Thank you for being with me tonight. I stared at the words "being with me" for a long time. Once, no matter how late it was, Luca would tell me where he had been. Now he only said the company needed him. He wasn't lying to me on purpose. He had simply grown used to keeping me out of his life. When the water in the bathroom stopped, I put the phone back where it had been. Luca came out with a hot towel, laid it over my knees, and set the pills in my palm one by one. "I'm not going in tomorrow. I'll take you to the hospital." "No need." "You've been losing weight too fast." "Because looking at you kills my appetite." His hand paused, but he still handed me the water. "Take your pills first. If you want to yell at me, yell after." I swallowed the pills with my head down, not daring to look at him. If he had been a little crueler to me, leaving might have been easier. Chapter 2 Luca and I had known each other since we were children. My father was a cook at an Italian restaurant, and his was the most insignificant driver in the Moretti family. We lived in the same old apartment building on Chicago's South Side. As a boy, he was always fighting. Once, to get back my dance shoes after someone threw them in a ditch, he was beaten bloody by three boys taller than he was. I cried as I cleaned his cuts. He said, "Don't cry. As long as I'm around, no one gets to bully you." At eighteen, I got into ballet school. Luca didn't go to college. He hauled cargo at the docks with a relative. He worked by day and came to pick me up after class at night. In winter, when it was too cold, he tucked my dance shoes inside his coat to warm them. At twenty-two, we were officially together. By then he wanted to break away from the Moretti family and start a legitimate shipping company of his own. No one would lend him money. I sold the necklace my mother had left me and gave him everything I earned performing. Our first office was an abandoned warehouse. The roof leaked when it rained, and there was no heat in winter. I rehearsed by day, and at night I checked his books, answered the phone, and delivered documents to clients. Luca often said that once the company made money, he would make it up to me. The day the company landed its first big contract, he went down on one knee in the warehouse and proposed with a very cheap silver ring. "Eve, once I stop making you suffer alongside me, we'll get married." I said yes. In those years, we really were poor. To save money, Luca often slept in the warehouse. After my performances I brought him leftover sandwiches, then helped him sort the next day's delivery orders. The first time he met a major client, he didn't have a proper suit. I bought one at a secondhand shop and stayed up all night taking in the cuffs. The next day, that contract earned him his first real money. He didn't buy himself a car. He booked an entire row at the theater where I performed. He brought every worker from the warehouse to watch me dance Giselle, and after the curtain he stood in the crowd and shouted, "That's my girlfriend!" I thought then that as long as we stayed like this, it wouldn't matter if there was never a wedding. Then the company got busier and busier. I started going to rehearsals alone, and he started carrying a gun when he went out. We moved into a big house, and never again shared a cold sandwich in the warehouse. But that wait turned into six years. First he said the company was just starting and he couldn't be distracted. Then the head of the Moretti family was killed, he was pushed to the front, and he had no choice but to take over the family business. And then I had the accident. He never mentioned the wedding again. The next morning, Luca had a diamond necklace delivered as an anniversary gift. Victoria brought it herself. She wore a white suit and four-inch heels, not a hair out of place. While she stood there in the living room, I saw clearly for the first time that she and Luca lived in the same world. A world of guns, money, ports, deals, and power. A world I couldn't enter. "Luca is busy, so he asked me to bring this." She set the box in front of me. "He didn't forget the anniversary on purpose last night. Something went wrong in our meeting." "Your meeting moved to a hotel?" She smiled a little and didn't deny it. "The client we were seeing was staying there. Luca had a lot to drink, and I saw him to his room to rest. He was afraid you'd read into it, so he asked me not to say." "How long were you in the room?" "About two hours." She looked at my pale face and added, deliberately, "Don't worry. I'll take good care of him." I pushed the necklace box back. "Take it." "It's from Luca's heart." "Then let him bring it himself." Victoria bent down close to me. "Eve, what he needs is someone who can help him, not someone who waits for him to come home every day. You saved his life, so he'll never abandon you on his own. But if you truly love him, you should think of him." I raised my hand and slapped her. She didn't get angry. She only held her cheek and laughed. "You see? Besides losing your temper, what else can you do?" After she left, I tried to stand up from the wheelchair on my own. With both hands braced on the armrests, I could still just lift my body. But there was no strength at all in my legs, and I fell to the floor the moment I left the seat. My knees hit hard, and I felt nothing. That absence of feeling was exactly what frightened me. I crawled to the full-length mirror and saw myself sprawled on the floor. Before the accident, I checked my arches, my knees, and the line of my shoulders in that mirror every day. Now the woman in it could barely sit up. The caregiver tried to help me up. I refused. It took me twenty minutes to climb back into the wheelchair. Once I was settled, I called a former colleague from the ballet. When the call connected, I heard the piano in the rehearsal hall. I hung up without saying a word. Chapter 3 That evening, Luca came home early. He saw the necklace box on the floor, and my untouched dinner. "Victoria was here?" "She was." "She said you hit her." I looked at him. "You're here to take her side?" "No. I want to know what happened." "She said the two of you were in a hotel room for two hours." Luca frowned. "She kept watch at the door while I met a witness inside. It involves the family. I can't tell you." "Why can she know?" "Because she's my lawyer." "And because she doesn't hold you back. Right?" He fell silent. I knew I had hit the mark. Luca was exhausted. His eyes were bloodshot, stubble had grown on his jaw, and there was a fresh cut on the web of his right hand. Before, when he was hurt, I would tend to it. Now I needed someone's help just to get from the sofa to the medicine cabinet. "Eve, I have never once thought you held me back," he said. "Then why don't you tell me anything?" "Because I don't want you touching any of this." "But you're willing to let Victoria touch it." "She knows how to handle it." After those words, we both went quiet. He explained quickly. "I don't mean you can't. I just—" "I understand." I turned the wheelchair and went back to the bedroom. That night, the pain came on suddenly. I fell from the bed to the floor and couldn't reach the call button. Luca was on the terrace on the phone. I heard him say to Victoria, "I really can't hold on much longer." Victoria asked, "Because of her?" He paused a few seconds, then said, "Everything." I lay on the cold floor and made no sound. It was ten minutes before Luca came in and found me. His face went white. He carried me back to bed and called the private doctor. The doctor gave me a painkiller injection. As I drifted, I felt Luca holding my hand the whole time. "I'm sorry," he kept saying. "Eve, I'm sorry." But the next morning, Victoria's call took him away again. I opened my phone and saw photographs of the two of them at last night's gala. Luca in a black suit, Victoria beside him, her hand on his arm, the two of them facing the reporters together. The headline read: Moretti and Vale Families May Be Joined by Marriage. In the photograph, they really did look like a match. Chapter 4 A week later, I asked to move to St. Alban's sanatorium. Luca refused. "There's a doctor at home, and a caregiver. Why do you insist on leaving?" "Because I don't want to wait for you to come home every day." "I can go in to the company less." "You can't." "I can." "Something happened at the port last night, and you were gone in half an hour. Luca, you have hundreds of people to feed and a whole family to run. You can't stay here and look after me forever." He gripped the armrest of the wheelchair and said quietly, "I can arrange it." "I don't need you to arrange anything. I just want peace." He looked at me for a long time, and finally agreed. On the day I moved, he packed my clothes himself. My dance shoes were still on the top shelf of the closet. He took them down, wiped them, and put them in the suitcase. "Take them," he said. "When you're a little better, we'll try a new rehab program." I didn't tell him there was no getting better for me. St. Alban's stood on the shore of Lake Michigan, a very expensive private sanatorium. Luca took the best room on the top floor, replaced the existing security, and required the director to report on my condition to him every day. He arranged everything thoroughly. The only thing he didn't do was ask why I had to come here. Victoria came to the check-in too. She carried Luca's documents, took his calls, and knew when his next meeting started. A nurse mistook her for Luca's fiancée. Luca corrected her at once. "She isn't." But Victoria said with a smile, "Not yet." I saw Luca's face darken, but he didn't rebuke her in front of others. When he stepped out to take a call, Victoria came and stood in front of me. "Moving out was the right choice." "There are cameras here. You'd better watch what you say." "I only came to thank you." She lowered her voice. "Next month, Luca is going with me to New York to meet my father. The two families are already discussing the engagement." "He just said you're not his fiancée." "A man always has to soothe the old one first." She handed me her phone. In the photograph, Luca was looking at an emerald ring in a jewelry store. I knew that store. Six years ago, he had ordered my engagement ring there. "He bought it for you?" "Who else?" I asked nothing more. When Luca came back, he crouched in front of the wheelchair and told me he would come every Friday. "Don't," I said. "I'll come." "Suit yourself." After the door closed, I finally took out the test report and gave it to Dr. Grant here. "I'm not doing chemotherapy." He looked at me. "Have you thought it through?" "I have. Pain management only." "Does Mr. Moretti know?" "Don't tell him." Chapter 5 Luca came every Friday. He brought me food, walked with me in the garden, and sometimes worked in my room. I was cold to him. For every ten things he said, I answered one or two. When my legs hurt, I no longer let him touch me. I had to make him get used to being without me. But Victoria came more often than he did. The first time, she brought photographs from a New York charity gala. In them, she and Luca walked the red carpet together. The second time, she wore the emerald ring and said Luca had reached an agreement with her father. The third time, she brought a brochure for a wedding venue and asked me what color Luca liked. "Why do you keep coming to see me?" I asked. "Because you're still in his heart." She said it bluntly. "As long as you're here, he'll never truly accept me." "Then you haven't got what it takes." She smiled a little. "At least I can stand beside him. Can you?" She suddenly yanked my wheelchair backward. The glass in my hand fell to the floor, and I nearly tipped over. "What are you doing?" "Just reminding you. Without someone's help, you can't even sit steady." I raised my hand to hit her. She caught my wrist. "Last time I let you hit me because I wanted to see whether Luca would blame you. And he actually came to ask you first whether you'd been wronged." The smile vanished from her face. "I hate that. You can't do anything, and he still can't let you go." I pressed the call button. She released me and stepped back to the door. "You can tell him. But the Vale family is handling the federal investigation for him. Do you think he'll turn on us for a woman who's about to die?" By the time the nurse came in, she had put her gentle expression back on. I didn't tell Luca about it. Because I wanted to know the answer too. On Friday, when Luca came, I asked him on purpose, "If Victoria and I clashed, whose side would you take?" "Why do you ask?" "Answer me." He frowned. "Eve, she's helping me with something very important right now. Could the two of you not see each other for a while?" I smiled. "I see." "See what?" "Nothing. Go." He sensed something was wrong but didn't know where the problem lay. After he left, Dr. Grant examined me. The tumor was spreading fast. "Two months," he said. "Possibly less." I nodded. Two months was enough to drive Luca away. Chapter 6 I had a lawyer draw up a separation agreement. The house, the company shares, and everything Luca had given me over the years, I didn't want any of it. I took back only the old photographs my mother had left me, and the pair of dance shoes I could never wear again. When Luca saw the agreement, he threw it straight into the trash. "I won't sign." "We were never married. It makes no difference whether you sign." "Then why prepare this at all?" "Because I want you to understand that I don't want you anymore." He stood by the bed, and the look on his face was terrible. "Eve, look at me and say it again." I raised my head. "I don't want you anymore." His eyes went red, but he didn't lose his temper. "Is it because of Victoria?" "No. It's because I've had enough of you." "You're lying." "I used to think you'd love me forever. Now every time I see you, all I think about is why I ended up like this." It was a cruel thing to say. Since the accident, Luca had believed he was the one who had ruined me. He had nightmare after nightmare, all of them full of the sound of the warehouse exploding. I knew how to hurt him the deepest. "If it weren't for you, I'd still be dancing," I went on. "I'd have my own career. I'd have met better people. You looked after me for three years not out of love, but out of guilt. And I'm the same. I kept you only so you'd spend your whole life making it up to me." The color drained from Luca's face. "Is that really what you think?" "Yes." The room was silent for a long time. At last he picked the agreement out of the trash and signed the last page. "If this makes you feel better, I'll sign," he said. "But I won't stop looking after you." "I don't need it." "I'll keep paying your medical bills." "Stop playing the good man." He said nothing more. At the door, he looked back at me. "Eve, whenever you want to come home, you can call me." After the door closed, I grabbed the pillow and pressed it over my face. I didn't cry out loud. Because I was afraid he hadn't gone far yet. Chapter 7 In my third week at the sanatorium, I dreamed of the explosion. Three years earlier, Luca had just taken over the Moretti family. Several of the uncles refused to accept him. In secret they moved a shipment of arms into the South Harbor warehouse, then sold the information to a rival family. I had a performance that day. Ten minutes before I went on, I got a voice message from Luca. He said there was trouble at the warehouse, and told me to go straight home after the show. Gunshots erupted in the background. I didn't go on stage. I drove to South Harbor. The warehouse was engulfed in fire, and the bodyguards held me back, saying Luca was still inside. I ran in through a side door and found him on the second floor. He had been shot in the leg, and a worker was pinned beside him. Together we dragged the worker to the top of the stairs, and then the ceiling began to come down. Luca told me to go first. I saw a steel beam falling and shoved him aside without thinking. When I woke, I was in the hospital. Luca knelt at the bedside, both hands covered in my blood. The doctor told me my lower spine was badly damaged, and no one knew how much would recover. Luca wept on the spot. He buried his face in my palm and said he would rather have died in the warehouse. For the first six months, he truly never left my side. He bathed me, changed my dressings, carried me to rehab. When people from the company brought documents to the hospital, he held meetings in the corridor. The first time I tried to stand, I collapsed into his arms. He held me and said it didn't matter, we'd try again tomorrow. But after failure upon failure, I started smashing things, refusing food, refusing to see my old colleagues. Luca stayed patient. Until one day I heard him in the bathroom, crying with his voice held down. That was when I knew I was wearing him down too. After Victoria appeared, he finally had someone to talk to. She didn't need him to carry her, didn't wake in pain in the middle of the night, and didn't make him face a suffering patient every time he came home. I envied her, and I understood why he needed her. That was what made me despair most. After the agreement was signed, Luca didn't appear for three days. On the morning of the fourth day, I woke to a bouquet of white roses by the bed. The nurse said he had come in the small hours. He sat for two hours, saw that I was still asleep, and didn't wake me. After that, he stopped coming into the room. But I saw him every day. Sometimes his car was parked downstairs. Sometimes, on my way to an examination, I saw him standing at the end of the corridor. The moment I looked over, he turned and left. He hadn't let me go. He had only finally stopped daring to come close. A week later, I fainted in the rehab room. When I woke, Luca was sitting by the bed. He held my hand, his face paler than mine. "The doctor says you're anemic." "Let go." "What treatment are you actually getting? Why do you keep getting thinner?" "None of your business." He looked at the IV bag. It was an ordinary painkiller. The drug's name gave away nothing about the cancer. "I'm bringing a neurologist from New York," he said. "He might be able to treat your legs." "Don't bother." "Why not?" "Because I don't want to stand up anymore." Luca plainly didn't believe it. I had once done eight hours of rehab a day to stand again. Pulled muscles, knees rubbed raw, and I never stopped. "Are you hiding something from me?" he asked. I was about to speak when Victoria pushed the door open. "Luca, the prosecutor is here." She looked at him first, then at me. "We have to get back to the company right now." Luca didn't move. Victoria set a document in front of him. "The witness is only giving us an hour. Miss this, and you'll be formally indicted." Luca gripped my hand. "I'll come back later." "Don't," I said. He left anyway. It was the reasonable choice. If he had stayed, hundreds of employees might lose their jobs, and he himself might go to prison. But as I watched him walk away, it still hurt. That night, Victoria came back alone. "Did you see?" she said. "One word from me, and he follows." "Then what are you here for?" "To show you something." She played a recording. It was Luca's voice. "I can't keep living like this. Every day I go home not knowing whether she'll lose her temper again, or hurt herself. I'm so tired." Victoria asked, "Do you want to leave her?" The recording stopped there. "And after that?" "After that doesn't matter." She put the phone away. "What matters is that he has thought about leaving you." I knew the recording might have been cut. But the things Luca said were true. I had no right to blame him. Over three years I had grown more and more sensitive, harder and harder to live with. I threw things when he came home late, refused the caregiver and let only him carry me, and called him again and again in the middle of important meetings. I had bound him with my pain. It was time to let go. Chapter 8 After that day, Luca didn't come into the room, but he still had things delivered every day. Hot coffee in the morning, soup from my father's restaurant at noon, and a very short note in the evening. Sometimes "remember your pills," sometimes "it's snowing today, stay out of the garden." I sent everything back. The notes I secretly kept in the drawer. When Victoria found them, she took the notes out one by one. "You say you don't want him, and you can't bring yourself to throw away a single one." "Put them back." She tore them up in front of me. I lunged to grab them, and the wheelchair struck the corner of the table. She watched me bend to pick up the scraps and didn't help. "Luca is only doing his duty. Don't mistake duty for love." I picked the pieces up one by one, and the edges of the paper cut my fingers. That night, I taped the notes back together. The words wouldn't piece back together, but I still put them back in the drawer. I knew how pathetic I was. I had decided to leave, and I still couldn't bear to lose a single word he'd left me. My painkillers suddenly stopped working. At first I thought the disease had worsened. Only when Dr. Grant examined the bottle did we find the pills had been swapped for a very low dose of sedatives. "Who's had access to your medication?" he asked. I thought of Victoria. But I had no proof. Dr. Grant pulled the corridor footage. Victoria had been to my room, but there was no camera inside. She could easily claim she had done nothing. "Call the police," he said. "Back up the footage first." "Eve, this isn't a small thing." "I know." I wasn't afraid of offending the Vale family. I was afraid of Luca finding out. He was dealing with the federal investigation alongside Victoria right now. If I accused her at this moment, Luca would surely come to me. Whether he believed me or not, we would be tangled up again. I had no time left. That afternoon, the pain struck again. I rolled off the bed and hit my arm on the corner of the cabinet. The call button was less than two feet away, and I couldn't reach it no matter how I tried. I lay on the floor for more than twenty minutes before Victoria pushed the door open. She didn't call a nurse. "Does it hurt?" she asked, standing over me. "Call someone." "Promise me first that you'll never see Luca again." "Get out." She crouched and kicked the call button farther away. "Why won't you give up? You're already crippled, and now you have cancer. How much longer can you stay with him?" My head snapped toward her. "How do you know?" "My father holds shares in St. Alban's. I can read your file whenever I like." She finally knew the secret I most feared Luca discovering. "If you tell him, I'll give the recording to the police." "You think I'm afraid?" "Of course you are. If Luca learns I mean to harm you, he'll turn on the Vale family. Without my father's help, he'll be indicted, and his company will go bankrupt." Victoria smiled. "And then he'll lose everything because of you." I was shaking with pain and couldn't find a word to answer her. She picked up the separation agreement from the table. "Well done. Keep making him hate you. He'll be safe, and you can die in peace." After she left, I used all my strength to crawl toward the door. By the time the nurse found me, I had lost consciousness. When I woke again, Luca was at my bedside. There was blood on his shirt, from the wound on my arm. "Who did this?" he asked. "I fell." "Why was the medication switched?" "I don't know." "Victoria was here." I saw the murder in his eyes. One nod from me, and he would go after her at once. "She did nothing," I said. "I switched the pills myself. I wanted you to worry." Luca stared at me as if he were meeting me for the first time. "Why would you do that?" "Because I wanted to see whether you'd still come back." The anger on his face slowly turned to exhaustion. "Eve, you can't play games with your own life." "Then don't come anymore, and I won't need to act." He stood up and took two steps back. "Fine." It was the first time he had agreed not to see me again. Chapter 9 On my birthday, Luca didn't come. The nurse wheeled in a very large cake, sent by an anonymous guest. On top was a white swan in a tutu, and beside it the words: For my bravest girl. Only Luca would say that. When we were children, he encouraged me that way before every performance. I had the nurse share the cake among the other patients and kept only a small piece for myself. That night, a single headlight burned in the parking lot below. Luca sat in his car and didn't come up. I sent him a message: The cake was awful. Don't send any more. He replied at once: Next year, a different bakery. I looked at the words "next year" and cried for a long time. I had no next year. A few minutes later, another message: Happy birthday, Eve. I love you. I deleted the conversation and didn't reply. The next day, Victoria told me Luca had stayed in the parking lot until four in the morning. "It's ugly, the way you torture him." "That's between him and me." "Not for much longer. Once you're dead, he'll forget you eventually." I said, "Good." But after she left, I finished that piece of cake. For the next two weeks, Luca really didn't come. Every day I told myself this was the result I wanted. But when I woke in the night, I still looked toward the door. I was used to his footsteps, and used to him saying my name first when he opened the door. Now the room held only the sound of machines. Dr. Grant put me on a stronger painkiller. He told me the cancer had reached my lungs. "If there's anyone you want to see, see them soon." "There isn't." "What about Luca?" "Don't notify him." The doctor sighed. I knew he didn't understand. Anyone normal would want to see the person they loved most before dying. But I didn't dare. If Luca held me even once, I might tell him the whole truth. I would beg him to stay, beg him to be with me the way he used to be. And then everything I had done would have been for nothing. A few days later, I called Luca myself. He picked up at once. "Eve?" His voice was all nerves. I gripped the phone and could barely speak. "I still have some things at the house. Have someone bring them over." "I'll bring them myself." "Have Victoria bring them." The line went quiet for a few seconds. "Why?" "I want to apologize to her. I was too jealous of her before." "Eve, you don't need to apologize to her." "Then tell her for me that I wish you both happiness." Luca's breathing grew heavy. "I won't marry her." "But you need her." "I need her to handle the Vale family and the port. That's all." "Then stop explaining. I don't care." I hung up, leaned over the side of the bed, and coughed up blood. The next day, Victoria delivered my suitcase. She looked to be in a fine mood. "Luca got drunk last night," she said. "He said he doesn't understand how you became like this." "Satisfied?" "Not yet." She took my old dance shoes out of the suitcase and cut the ribbons with a pair of scissors. "What are you doing!" I reached to grab them. She threw the shoes on the floor and put her foot on them. "This is the thing Luca can least bear to throw away. I want to see whether he'll blame me for destroying it." I snatched up the water glass and hurled it at her. She dodged and shoved me out of the wheelchair. My head hit the floor and everything went black. She bent over me and said, "Remember. After you die, I'll stand beside him in a wedding dress. So what if you had ten years with him? The one who wins in the end is me." Footsteps sounded outside the door. Victoria hauled me up at once, and deliberately let my nails rake her face. When Luca pushed the door open, what he saw was her face covered in blood and the scissors in my hand.