Chapter 45 - The Night Before
Rain arrived the night before the wedding.
Not gentle rain.
A violent Hudson Valley storm.
Wind ripped through trees.
Thunder rolled across the hills.
At eleven p.m., half the sanctuary lost electricity.
Rosa stared through the lodge windows in horror.
“The wedding.”
Elena laughed.
Everyone looked at her.
“What?”
“You’re laughing?”
“I spent years surviving organized crime, federal trials, hidden relatives, offshore trusts, and two men who were legally supposed to be dead.”
Lightning flashed.
“If rain defeats my wedding, it deserves the victory.”
That broke the tension.
Gino organized generators.
Paul moved chairs indoors.
Nicholas helped secure outdoor tents.
Rebecca and Teresa made coffee for everyone.
Daniel ran around wearing rain boots and a plastic firefighter helmet.
“I’m helping!”
“You’re creating puddles indoors,” Rosa corrected.
“Helping puddles.”
By midnight, the storm intensified.
Dante disappeared.
Elena found him beneath the covered porch staring at the oak tree.
“You’re worried.”
“I wanted tomorrow perfect.”
She joined him.
“Why?”
“Because you deserved one perfect day.”
Elena leaned against the railing.
“Dante, perfect is overrated.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“You met me in an ICU.”
He smiled slightly.
“My standards improved.”
She took his hand.
“The day is already perfect.”
“It hasn’t happened.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She looked inside.
Daniel was chasing Nicholas.
Rebecca was laughing with Carol.
Gino argued with Paul about extension cables.
Rosa was rearranging flowers for the fourth time.
“This is the part that matters.”
Dante followed her gaze.
“Family?”
“People staying.”
That word changed his expression.
Staying.
After decades of betrayal and abandonment, that was what both of them had wanted.
Not rescue.
Not wealth.
Not power.
Someone who stayed.
Dante kissed her forehead.
“Go sleep.”
“You first.”
“Impossible.”
“Why?”
“I have work.”
“What work?”
He refused to answer.
At six the next morning, Elena discovered what he had done.
The storm had passed.
The sky was brilliantly clear.
The oak tree still stood.
The lawn glittered with rain.
And from the lodge to the ceremony site stretched a walkway made from hundreds of wooden boards Dante, Gino, Paul, and Nicholas had spent the night laying so no guest would walk through mud.
Rosa cried.
Carol pretended she didn’t.
Daniel announced that he had supervised everything.
Dante stood at the end of the walkway exhausted and soaked.
Elena approached him.
“You’re insane.”
“Probably.”
“You were supposed to sleep.”
“So were you.”
“I did.”
“That seems selfish.”
She kissed him.
Daniel shouted from the porch.
“You’re not married yet!”
Everyone laughed.
Dante called back.
“Technicality.”
As Elena returned inside to dress, Rebecca stopped her.
“I have something for you.”
She handed Elena a small box.
Inside was an antique pearl hairpin.
“It belonged to my mother.”
Elena hesitated.
“Rebecca—”
“I want something from the Moretti family to finally be passed down with love instead of obligation.”
Elena touched the pearls.
Then hugged her.
Rebecca broke into tears.
Outside, bells began ringing softly.
Guests arrived.
Children filled the sanctuary grounds.
The sky opened into brilliant blue.
And beneath the old oak tree, Dante Bellarosa waited.
May you like
For once, the man who had spent his entire life preparing for war had nothing left to fight.
Only someone to love.
