Chapter 19 "The gown "
The Maybach’s headlights sliced through the pine-dark drive as Elena stepped from the college gates, Viktor’s shadow at her heels.
The ride home was quiet, her mind replaying the lecture hall victory Natasha’s white face, the electric hush, the way the entire campus now whispered her name like a curse and a prayer.
She was Elena Romeo.
And she was winning.
Back at the estate, the marble foyer glowed under crystal chandeliers.
Elena kicked off her Louboutins, toes sinking into the fur rug, and padded upstairs alone.
Lucas had texted during her last class: Late night. Business. Be good, butterfly.
She’d replied with a heart emoji and a photo of her red lips pursed in a kiss.
In the bedroom, she spread her assignments across the mahogany desk lit notes, psych flashcards, a half-finished essay on trauma and resilience .
She finished them methodically, highlighter between her teeth, the satisfaction of crossing items off her list warming her chest.
Normal.
Hers.
Dinner waited on a silver tray: grilled salmon, asparagus, a glass of chilled rosé.
She ate at the desk, scrolling Instagram (Sriya had already posted the lecture hall clip, captioned Queen shit 👑).
Her phone buzzed.
Elena: When will you come?
Lucas: Coming baby. (Sent in 0.2 seconds)
She smiled, soft and secret.
Assignments done, she stood, strip her clothes in her undergarment .
She grabbed her worn copy of The Butterfly Garden , slipped in wireless headphones, and burrowed under the thin silk blanket.
Soft indie playlist hummed Lana Del Rey’s velvet melancholy, the kind that made you feel loved in the dark.
The words blurred into dreams:
He kissed her like she was the only light in his endless night…
Her eyes grew heavy, but she kept reading, legs tangled in sheets, one hand absently tracing the black diamond choker at her throat.
The bedroom was a sanctuary of flickering lamplight and whispered secrets, silk sheets tangled around Elena's bare legs as she lay propped against a mountain of pillows.
Lana Del Rey's haunting melody drifted through her wireless headphones "Heavy is the crown..." the lyrics weaving through her soul like threads of forgotten dreams.
In her lap rested The Butterfly Garden, its worn pages open to a tender scene where the heroine finally confronted the shadows of her past, finding solace in a lover's arms.
Elena's fingers traced the words absently, her free hand resting over the black diamond choker at her throat, the platinum butterfly pendant warm against her skin. For the first time, the story felt like her a woman emerging from darkness, wings unfurling. Her heart beat steady, no longer a frantic prisoner in her chest.
A hesitant knock shattered the quiet, soft as a held breath against the heavy oak door. Elena tugged one headphone free, brow furrowing.
The grandfather clock in the hall tolled ten somber chimes, its brass pendulum swinging like a scythe. Servants knew better than to disturb her this late Luca's standing orders were ironclad: her peace was sacred.
"Enter," she called, her voice carrying the newfound authority of a queen.
The door creaked open on oiled hinges, revealing Giovanna, the young Italian maid with doe eyes and trembling hands. She clutched a parcel brown kraft paper wrapped in coarse twine, stained faintly at the edges, no label or return address. Giovanna's olive skin had drained to ash, her uniform rumpled as if she'd run from the front gates.
"Madam Elena," she stammered, voice barely above a whisper, "this... this came for you. The delivery boy he wouldn't give his name. Said it was urgent. Left it at the gate and... ran."
Elena's pulse quickened, a cold prickle crawling up her spine. The air in the room thickened, the lamplight suddenly too dim, shadows too long.
"Leave it on the desk," she said, forcing calm into her tone, though her fingers tightened on the book until the spine creaked.
Giovanna set the box down with hands that shook like autumn leaves, the faint thud echoing unnaturally loud. She curtsied jerky, panicked and fled, the door clicking shut behind her like the seal of a tomb.
Elena stared at the parcel. It sat there, unassuming yet wrong, its dimensions too perfectly fitted for a woman's form, the twine knotted with deliberate care. Memories clawed at the edges of her mind unmarked packages from Russo's men, containing "gifts" that were always screams in disguise. But she was Elena Romeo now. Wives of kings didn't cower.
Just open it, she told herself, sliding from the bed. The cool marble bit her bare feet as she pulled on Luca's oversized black t-shirt, the hem brushing her thighs, his scent cedar smoke and leather wrapping around her like armor. She retrieved the dagger from her nightstand, its hilt engraved with a tiny butterfly, and approached the desk.
The blade sliced through the twine with a whisper, paper unfolding like shedding skin.
Inside lay folds of white silk, once pristine, now ruined.
A gown.
Her mother's wedding gown.
Elena's breath exploded from her lungs in a ragged gasp. The fabric cascaded across the desk ivory lace bodice embroidered with delicate roses, tulle skirt billowing like frozen clouds, the train pooling in dark, crimson stains. Blood.
Flaking, rusted patches soaked through the hem, the bodice, the sleeves arterial spray frozen in time, the metallic tang rising sharp and nauseating, invading her nostrils like a physical assault.
She hadn't seen her mother.
Not alive.
Not dead.
Never.
Isabella had been murdered when she was just a toddler eighteen months old, too young to form memories, too young to remember a face, a voice, a touch. All she had were photographs faded Polaroids hidden in a shoebox under her childhood bed, stolen glimpses of a woman with Elena's eyes and dark waves. Isabella Moretti.
smiling in a sunlit garden, cradling baby Elena, the white gown pristine in wedding portraits. But those images were ghosts on paper. Elena had no scent of jasmine, no lullabies, no mother.
This was the first time she'd ever seen the gown.
The secret Russo and Tommaso had buried the one piece of Isabella they never let her touch, never let her mourn. Whispers in the Kane household: "The little bitch doesn't deserve to see it." It was their trophy, locked in a vault, a forbidden relic of the woman they'd erased.
Now it was here.
Bleeding.
Her knees buckled. She gripped the desk, nails digging into polished mahogany, vision tunneling to black spots. Tucked in the blood-crusted bodice: a yellowed envelope, typed text in cold, anonymous font no handwriting, no signature:
"Bunny ♡"
Not Tommaso's scrawl.
Someone else.
Someone watching.
Fingers numb as frostbite, Elena tore it open. Inside, a single sheet of crisp paper:
"This is your mother's gown, Bunny. The secret they kept from you.
The one you were never allowed to see.
Isabella Moretti bled out in this silk when you were in diapers.
Slit from throat to womb while she screamed for her baby.
Now it's yours.
Wear it to your grave.
A Friend ♡"
The world shattered.
Elena screamed a raw, primal wail that tore from her gut, echoing off the vaulted ceiling like a wounded animal's death throes. The letter fluttered to the floor.
The gown spilled across the rug like a corpse. She scrambled back, dagger clattering forgotten, colliding with the bedframe. Her body folded knees to chest, arms wrapped tight, rocking on the cold marble as sobs wracked her frame.
She'd never seen it before.
Never touched her mother's legacy.
Russo and Tommaso had stolen her twice: first her life, then her existence. This gown was proof tangible, bloodied proof of the mother erased from her world. The little girl inside her wailed: She was real. She loved me. They took her from me completely.
Lana's voice looped mockingly in the dangling headphone: "I was born to live and die for you..."
The door exploded inward wood splintering, brass handle shearing.
Luca Romeo.
Gun drawn, eyes feral with terror he'd heard the scream from the estate's front drive, vaulted the hood of his Maybach, sprinted up three
flights in seconds. "Butterfly "
His gaze swept the room: the gown, the letter, her.curled fetal, face buried in her knees, body shaking with silent heaves.
The gun hit the floor with a clatter.
He was on her in a heartbeat, massive arms enveloping her trembling form, pulling her into his lap like she weighed nothing. "Baby look at me " His voice cracked, raw with helpless rage, scarred hands cradling her face, thumbs swiping tears that wouldn't stop. He searched her body.arms, legs, throat for fresh wounds, breath ragged against her hair.
Elena clung to him, nails digging into his shirt, sobs wrenching her apart. "Luca.it's Mamma's the gown they hid it from me.never let me see blood everywhere she was real and now someone sent it not Tommaso "
Luca's jaw clenched to granite as he snatched the letter, eyes scanning the typed poison in one lethal sweep. No handwriting. His blood turned to napalm.
"Someone's playing a deeper game," he growled. But he crushed her closer first lips pressed to her temple, rocking her slow, steady, like a lifeline in a storm.
"Shh, butterfly. I've got you. Whoever sent this? They're dead. But this gown? It's yours now. Your mother's fire in silk."
She shook harder, face buried in his chest, inhaling his scent to drown the blood.
" I touched it finally and it's hers but the blood.Luca, someone knows "
He cupped her face, forced her wild, tear-drenched eyes to his storm-gray and unbreakable.
"Listen to me. You're Elena Romeo. Not Bunny. Not their secret. Mine. They hid her from you? We'll dig up every grave, burn every vault. This gown proves she fought for you bled for you. Now we honor her. "
Her hiccups slowed, fingers twisting in his collar like an anchor. "But who sent it? Why now?"
Luca's eyes darkened predator scenting prey. He stood, cradling her effortlessly, carried her to the marble hearth where embers glowed like dying stars. With one hand, he coaxed the flames higher logs crackling to life while the other never left her waist.
"Doesn't matter. They just painted a target on their back."
He paused, looking at the gown not with revulsion, but reverence.
"Burn it? Or keep it?" he asked softly.
Elena stared through tears, then whispered:
"Keep it. Clean it. Make it mine."
Luca nodded, pride blazing.
"Your mother's warrior."
He hit his comms: "Viktor trace every delivery in Kathmandu tonight. Find the ghost."
Outside, the empire mobilized.
A new enemy lurked.
But inside, Elena held her mother's silk Claimed. Whole.Avenged.
To be continued....