The dress arrived before sunrise.
Elena woke to the sound of her door opening quietly, the soft shuffle of footsteps she didn't recognize. For one disoriented moment, she forgot where she was—then the weight of the walls, the silence, the knowledge crashed back in.
No escape.
Three women stood inside her room. They moved with practiced efficiency, eyes lowered, voices hushed. One carried a long garment bag the color of ash. Another held a velvet box. The third waited by the door, as if guarding the moment itself.
"What's this?" Elena asked, sitting up.
No one answered her directly.
"It's time," one of them said gently, as though this were something sacred instead of cruel.
The garment bag was unzipped.
The dress spilled into the light.
Black silk. Not mourning black, not festive black—something deeper. Heavier. The kind of black that swallowed light instead of reflecting it. The fabric shimmered faintly, like oil on water. Long sleeves. High neckline. A fitted waist that flared subtly at the bottom, elegant and severe all at once.
Beautiful.
And terrifying.
Elena stared at it, her chest tightening. "This is a wedding dress?"
"Yes, Signora," the woman replied.
A wedding dress.
No white. No innocence. No illusion of beginnings, It looked like an ending.
"A shroud," Elena whispered before she could stop herself.
The women exchanged glances but said nothing. They helped her from the bed, their hands gentle, almost reverent, as if dressing her for something holy—or sacrificial.
The silk slid over her skin, cool and heavy. It clung in places she hadn't realized Luca would notice. Every button fastened felt like a nail being driven shut. When they tightened the bodice, she had to inhale sharply.
"Too tight," she said.
"It's meant to fit perfectly," one woman replied softly.
Perfectly trapped.
They pinned her hair back, sleek and severe, no softness allowed. Her reflection stared back at her from the mirror—unrecognizable. Not the woman she had been. Not yet the woman she would become.
A queen carved from shadow, or a prisoner wrapped in silk.
The velvet box was opened last.
Inside lay a necklace—black diamonds set in silver, heavy and unmistakably expensive. A Moretti heirloom, no doubt. A collar disguised as a gift.
Elena didn't resist when it was placed around her neck.
Resistance, she was learning, didn't always look like fighting.
Sometimes it looked like remembering.
When they finished, they stepped back, as if waiting for approval.
"Do I look acceptable?" Elena asked coldly.
One of them swallowed. "You look…powerful."
That wasn't comfort.
The door opened, Luca Moretti entered.
For the first time since she had met him, he stopped completely still.
His gaze moved over her slowly, not with hunger—but with something darker. Calculation. Ownership. And beneath it, something dangerously close to awe.
"That's not a wedding dress," Elena said before he could speak. "It's funeral wear."
"For what?" Luca asked quietly.
"For who I was," she replied.
He stepped closer. "No," he said. "For who you can no longer afford to be."
She lifted her chin. "You dressed me like a symbol."
"Yes," Luca admitted. "Symbols endure."
"And what am I supposed to symbolize?" she asked.
He paused, then answered honestly. "Power. Permanence. Fear."
Her laugh was soft and broken. "Nothing about love."
Luca met her eyes. "Love would make this a lie."
Silence stretched between them, thick and ceremonial.
"They're waiting," he said at last.
Elena glanced once more at her reflection. The woman staring back looked dangerous. Untouchable. Already half-legend.
If this was her shroud, then she would rise from it.
She turned to Luca. "I will walk beside you," she said. "But I will not disappear."
Something in his expression shifted.
"Good," he said. "Because the city doesn't need a ghost."
As they walked toward the doors, Elena realized the truth of it.
This dress wasn't meant to bury her, It was meant to warn the world.
The Black King was taking a bride, and she was dressed like death.