I Married His Brother, But He Still Chose My SisterChapter 1
I tried everything to make my husband, Damiano Moretti, love me. But in the end, he loved my sister, Elena.
On our wedding day, he never showed. I stood there alone in the cathedral, humiliated, while the Moretti Family and even my own blood, the DeLuca crew, watched and whispered behind their hands. Of course they did. Everyone knew Damiano loved Elena. No one believed he'd actually go through with marrying me.
But what shattered me, what tore my soul apart, was that he married her instead. He didn't just choose her. He took her hand in front of the priest and said the words that were supposed to be mine. I felt the vow I'd been promised snap like glass, cutting through everything I thought I was.
Everyone adored Elena. My husband included. I was always second place, even to my own family. I was the eldest, sure, but I was the quiet one, the one without connections or leverage, and to them that made me less. My parents never missed a chance to remind me. Meanwhile, Elena? She had it all: their love, their praise, the respect of both families, invitations to every sit-down dinner that mattered, and my husband.
My hands trembled, heart in shards, tears threatening to spill as I stood there drowning in humiliation. Vittorio Moretti, Damiano's father, the retired Don, was furious. At them, not me. He silenced the room with a single look, the rosary bead beneath his thumb going absolutely still, and comforted me. He promised he'd deal with his son. He urged me to leave, to escape this mess and let him handle it.
But just as I turned to go, Damiano's older brother, Dante Moretti, stepped toward me.
He was dressed in a charcoal suit cut so precisely it looked like armor, tall, handsome, those ocean-blue eyes piercing right through me. He looked like something carved from the old country, the kind of man other men stepped aside for without being asked. I froze as he reached out his hand, my breath catching.
"I won't let you be shamed like this, Serafina," he said. "Marry me."
Gasps echoed through the cathedral. My eyes widened, stunned.
"I've loved you in secret, Sera," he confessed. "And I swear, I'll take care of you and love you for the rest of my life."
That day, I became his wife. The Donna of the Moretti Family.