Weeping For The Bride He Left Behind

“I WAS ALREADY DEAD WHEN THE ROSES ARRIVED My sister Bianca had always loved "joking" with me. When we were little, she joked that no one remembered my birthday-and kept the gag going until I cried, only then producing the birthday cake. On a family camping trip, she had Dad drive off and secretly filmed me chasing the car. Whenever I got angry, she said I just couldn't take a joke. Then, on the day of my proposal, she came up with a "Mafia Queen of the Skies" photoshoot-and I was hoisted on a rusted crane, dangling nearly five meters above the ground. I screamed until my voice broke, begging my fiancé-the mafia Godfather, Lorenzo-to let me down. He didn't save me. He turned his back without a moment's hesitation. "It's only a few minutes. Bianca put a lot of work into planning this 'Mafia Queen of the Skies' shoot. Don't spoil it for everyone." They drove off together to collect the flowers for the proposal, leaving me hanging alone beneath a rope about to snap, with nothing but a promise: "We'll let you down in ten minutes." "She's just putting on an act-she only wants attention," my brother sneered, with no idea that at that very moment I lay sprawled on the ground, blood gushing from me and pooling into a dark stain in the mud. Why did my family's love have to be built on my endless terror? Why did the cold Godfather who had once sworn a blood oath to protect me walk away without a backward glance while I begged for my life? Only when they returned to the estate and saw my shattered, blood-soaked corpse did their lofty, arrogant world finally collapse around them. I watched them fall to their knees, all of them, sobbing and pleading for a forgiveness I would never give. But I could never come back.”