The Chapel That Turned Them Against Me

Back home in Sicily, every daughter of a Don had to follow one rule before marriage: Her fiancé had to enter the Moretti estate’s underground family chapel and undergo one final loyalty test. If he came out still willing to go through with the wedding, it meant the marriage had earned the Family’s approval. Both of my younger sisters married the men they loved at twenty, after their fiancés passed the ritual without incident. But I was already thirty, and I had never married. Because over the years, every man who claimed to love me would follow my father into that underground chapel. The moment he came out, he would break up with me. Some looked at me with disgust. Some hated me. One even pulled a gun on me the moment he stepped out of the chapel. I asked my father countless times what was inside. He would only tell me that it was a loyalty test every man who wished to marry a Don’s daughter had to pass. Then my new boyfriend went in. An hour later, he came charging out, slammed me to the ground, and wrapped both hands around my throat. His eyes held nothing but fear and hatred. Just before I lost consciousness, I heard him roar at my father, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner what she really is?”