Chapter 1 - The Stain on the VeilThe rain outside the Cathedral of St. Jude was cold, relentless, and heavy enough to drown the noise of Chicago's downtown traffic. Inside, the air tasted of old stone, damp wool, and three thousand white lilies whose sweet perfume couldn't mask the metallic reek of betrayal.
I stood three feet from Victor DeLuca’s solid mahogany casket.
I was dressed in head-to-toe black silk, my face concealed behind a floor-length white lace mourning veil—a traditional DeLuca family custom for the widow or primary daughter-in-law. For five years, I had worn the DeLuca name like a coat of armor that never quite fitted right. I had swallowed my pride, played the modest wife, and let my husband’s aristocratic family treat me like an outsider who should be grateful for their scraps.
Five hundred people filled the oak pews. Senators, judges, real estate magnates, and media titans—all gathered to pay their respects to Victor DeLuca, the legendary patriarch of the DeLuca Shipping and Hospitality Conglomerate.
The heavy, iron-reinforced cathedral doors groaned open.
A ripple of low whispers cascaded through the nave like dry leaves caught in a sudden draft. Hundreds of heads turned at once.
Dominic, my husband, was forty-five minutes late to his own father’s funeral.
And Jessica was holding his arm.
My best friend.
The woman who had sat on my plush velvet sofa three months ago, sipping green tea while I wept quietly into a tissue, wondering aloud why Dominic was coming home at three in the morning smelling of unfamiliar perfume and expensive scotch.
“He’s just under a lot of pressure with Victor’s illness, Elena,” Jessica had cooed back then, gently smoothing my hair. “You know how strict his father is. Just give him space. Trust him.”
Now, Jessica walked beside my husband down the central aisle, wearing a backless emerald-green silk evening gown. It was a glaring, offensive slap in the face to every mourner in the room—a dress made for a victory gala, not a funeral.
Dominic didn't look at his father's casket. He didn't look at the priest standing stunned near the altar. He marched straight toward the front-row family pew where I stood alone, his chin raised in arrogant disdain.
He stopped two paces away.
“Move, Elena,” Dominic said, his voice flat, clear, and devoid of warmth.
I stared at him through the delicate web of white lace. “Excuse me?”
Jessica stepped forward, her red-painted lips curling into a sharp, victorious smile. She reached down into her designer clutch, pulled out a heavy crystal tumbler filled to the brim with dark, blood-red Cabernet Sauvignon, and looked me dead in the eye.
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“You heard him, sweetie,” Jessica whispered.
Then, with a slow, deliberate tilt of her wrist, she poured the entire glass of red wine directly over my white lace mourning veil.
