Chapter 182 Fiorella
If anyone had told me a year ago what my life would look like today, I would have laughed in their face and walked away.
Yet here I was, standing in front of a full-length mirror, lips parted in quiet disbelief, staring at the woman looking back at me.
She looked… happy.
Not just smiling - but settled. Rooted. Glowing with something warm and safe and certain.
“Okay, but I'm serious. Turn around slowly so I can judge properly.”
Rosalia's voice drifted from behind me, lazy and teasing as she lounged back against the edge of the bed, one hand resting absent-mindedly on her stomach that was slowly starting to show.
I rolled my eyes but turned anyway, the skirt of the light satin dress flaring around my thighs. It was nothing extravagant-just a soft champagne color, light as a whisper, clinging the slightest bit to my waist as it fanned out.
“It's pre-party, not actually the bachelorette look,” I reminded her.
“Oh, I know,” she smirked. “That’s the scary part.”
Aria squealed from the doorway, phone already lifted to snap photos. “You look like a bride that walked out of a fairy tale and then remembered she left the stove on.”
I laughed, the heat blooming across my cheeks. "Is that a compliment or a warning?"
“Both.”
My mother was calm in the armchair near the window, observing us with quiet amusement. Her eyes were soft, luminous, like someone witnessing a miracle that she hadn't dared pray for.
“I still can’t believe that you are getting married,” she whispered.
“Neither can I,” I said, turning to meet her gaze. “Sometimes I wake up and think I dreamed all of this.”
“You didn’t,” she said with a smile. “You survived for it.
Rosalia sprang up suddenly. "Enough emotional reflection. Tonight, we celebrate!"
She clapped once, sharp and enthusiastic. “Aria, bring out the bags. Fiorella, sit. This will require focus.”
Within seconds, the room was different.
Shoes and perfume bottles lay on the bed like treasure spilled from a chest, as did silk scarves, tiny sparkling handbags, and glittering earrings. Music filled the air, at first soft, then rising, the beat making the floor vibrate beneath bare feet.
“This,” Aria declared, holding up a pair of heels, “is your unofficial queen crown.”
“I can’t walk in those.”
“Good. Rocco can carry you.”
My heart stuttered at his name, even when he wasn't there.
Rosalia noticed immediately, her grin turning sly. “You two have been insufferable lately.”
“You're just mad because Rafael keeps stealing the blankets in his sleep.”
“He also talks in his sleep,” she snapped back. “Do you know how unnerving it is to hear ‘Move the body’ at three in the morning?”
Aria wheezed with laughter as I covered my mouth.
“He’s a romantic,” I coughed.
“That is not a love language!”
Music pulsed. Joy spilled out of us. My mother allowed herself a small glass of wine, her laughter quieter yet no less beautiful when she joined in.
For the first time in so long, the walls between past and present didn't exist.
I wasn't the girl who was hunted.
Daughter of the sad history.
The woman trying to outrun shadows.
Tonight, I was just the bride to be.
The friend.
The lover.
The woman who was about to be married to the man who had changed the shape of her whole world.
⸻
When we reached the rooftop lounge, the city unfolded before us with a sea of glittering lights. The wind danced through my hair. There was music thumping beneath our feet.
Rosalia seized my wrist. "Come here.”
She studied my face closely, gaze filled with understanding older than both of us.
“He loves you very loudly, you know,” she said softly over the music.
“So do you and Rafael,” I replied.
“Yes, but… that's different. You look at Rocco like he is the air at the end of burning lungs.”
A shiver traced my spine.
"He looks at me like I'm the only good thing that ever happened to him."
“And that,” she smiled, “is how I know you’ll last forever.”
Aria leaned in from the other side. “Okay but enough mush. We’re taking shots, symbolic ones, to exes, heartbreaks, fake friends, enemies and bad memories.”
We raised tiny glasses together.
"To the lives that tried to break us," she said.
“And failed,” I finished.
Glass clinked, liquid burned, and laughter burst. Rosalia drank water though while we laughed.
I felt light, free, unburdened.
We danced. We spun. We sang lyrics wildly, terribly, with no concern about who heard.
At some point, my phone buzzed in my hand.
Rocco: Are you behaving?
A slow smile curved my mouth.
Me: Ask your brothers.
Rocco: I'm afraid to.
Me: I miss you.
A second later, it appeared.
Rocco: I'm right here even when you don't see me.
“I’m the luckiest woman alive,” I whispered.
“Say that again in three days with a ring on your finger,” Rosalia said, laughing.
“I’ll say it every day after that too.”
⸻
Later in the night, when after-dinner laughter had softened into small sighs and weary smiles, Mother came to stand beside me.
“You chose well, Fiorella.”
I leaned my head on her shoulder, just as I had when I was a small girl.
“No, Mama,” I said softly. “Love chose me back this time.”
And in that moment, with music humming low, with starlight glittering above like a blessing, I really believed it.
Everything we had endured… Every defeat. Every tear. Every silent prayer. Had led to this joy. To him. To the life that's waiting just beyond the door of tomorrow.