Chapter Six

The manor’s side door closed behind me. At some point rain had started to fall—fine and freezing, soaking my hair and shoulders.

When I pushed open my room door, my mother Marianne rushed out, eyes red, and grabbed my wrist with a death grip.

“Anna! What happened? Outside—outside, those horrible things—everyone’s saying you…”

“Mom, I’m tired.” My voice was shredded.

“Anna…” She trembled, dragging me inward. “What if Adrian Vail backs out? Your name is ruined! Tell me—who was that man? I’ll go beg him. Beg him to admit you were in a normal relationship…”

She shook my shoulders, incoherent with panic, eyes full of desperate tears.

I stayed silent. That name was a forbidden zone no one could touch. If I said it, I’d only pull my mother deeper into the mud.

Then her phone rang.

When she saw Vail’s number, her face went pale. She answered with shaking hands.

The call was short.

After she hung up, she stared at me blankly. “They… Vail says the wedding is still happening. Same date.”

My head snapped up. “What?”

“How could that be?” she whispered. “Adrian Vail… a man like that—how could he…”

Yes. Adrian Vail. Rumor said he was reckless and loose, but he was the Vail family’s only heir—powerful, and by all accounts devastatingly handsome. Women wanting to climb into his orbit could line up from the harbor to city hall.

Why would he insist on marrying someone like me—Corleone’s adopted daughter with a complicated origin, now publicly disgraced?

My mother couldn’t understand it. But relief loosened her fingers. She clutched my hand again.

“Anna, promise me—live well with him. Cut it off with that man. Please.”

I closed my eyes and answered softly, clearly.

“Mom. Don’t worry. I cut it off a long time ago.”

The moment the words left my mouth, there was a knock.

Two guards stood outside, expressionless.

“Miss Xiao, under orders, please remain in your room. Do not go out.”

The soft imprisonment began.

The door shut. The lock slid from the outside.

In the days that followed, my mother was the only one allowed in. She brought meals daily, watched me barely touch them, and cried with helpless urgency.

“Anna, eat a little… you can’t keep going like this.”

I looked at my increasingly pale reflection in the mirror and forced a small smile at my mother’s fear.

“It’s fine, Mom. Thinner… looks better in a wedding dress.”

She turned away to wipe her tears.

Time froze inside four walls.

Outside the window, the manor’s air shifted day by day. Servants hurried, cars came and went bringing flowers and ribbons for another wedding. I was forgotten dust.

On the wedding morning, before dawn, the manor was already awake. Muffled bustle pressed through the heavy curtains. I sat at the vanity, staring at the stranger in the mirror—gaunt, exhausted.

Steady footsteps in the hall stopped at my door.

“Sienna.” Lorenzo’s voice.

I didn’t answer.

He knocked twice more, his tone sinking. “Open the door.”

“…What is it?” I asked hoarsely.

A pause outside. He hadn’t expected me to ask him back.

“Today is… a special occasion. Wearing it isn’t appropriate.” Another pause. “And if someone bumps it, you might… feel uncomfortable. So I’m leaving it with you to keep.”

I knew what *it* was.

That pinky ring. That switch linked to pain and humiliation.

“Keep it,” I said calmly. “I don’t need it.”

“It’s useless now.”

Silence snapped tight outside. “What does that mean?”

I could imagine his frown, the suspicion flickering in his eyes—his hand perhaps rising to the door, ready to demand—

But fate didn’t give him time.

A sharp voice from downstairs cut through: “Sir! The convoy’s here—Don wants you downstairs now!”

A few seconds of silence. Fabric brushed. He must have pocketed the ring.

“Sienna,” his voice returned to hard warning, “behave today.”

His footsteps moved away.

I listened until they disappeared. My mouth curved in something bitter.

He would never know: that ring was already scrap metal.

Just as he’d never known that I was about to walk into another wedding.

Half an hour later, engines roared; the convoy drove off.

His wedding had begun.

I lifted a corner of the curtain and watched the long black line vanish. Then I let it fall, turned, and opened the wardrobe—

A simple pearl-white satin wedding dress hung there, quietly glowing.

I put it on. In the mirror I was pale and silent, the white fabric stabbing bright as a farewell.

Downstairs, a low engine sound.

My mother took my hand, eyes red. “The car’s here… let’s go.”

I looked at the room one last time, lifted the hem, and went downstairs.

A black sedan waited at the side door. A man in a dark suit opened the door and bowed.

“Miss Xiao. Please. Mr. Vail is waiting.”

I slid into the back seat.

The door shut. Everything outside sealed away.

The car started, rolled out through the side gate, turned at the junction—

and went the opposite direction of the black convoy.

As the scenery reversed outside the window, I suddenly remembered a rainy night, his mouth at my ear, his whisper:

“Remember, Anna. You’ll always be mine.”

Now he was on his way to a glittering cathedral of his own wedding.

And I, in my wedding dress, was going to another man.

From now on, we would walk different roads.

No overlap.

Nothing to do with each other.