“Lorenzo, I think I might have twisted my ankle just now. It hurts so much,” Carmela said, all pouty.

Lorenzo didn’t say a word. He simply swept Carmela up into a princess carry and headed straight for the upstairs bedroom, not even sparing me a glance.

Across the long table, beneath the oil portraits of dead Falcone men, Donna shot me a pointed look. Her fingers found the heavy gold crucifix at her throat.

“Not only can you not give the blood an heir, but you can’t even keep a man. If Matteo hadn’t married Carmela first, do you really think my son would’ve ever looked at you? How dare you sit at my table? Get upstairs. You ruin my appetite just by breathing the same air.” Her voice dripped with cold contempt, and the crucifix gleamed between her fingers as if it absolved her of every word.

I had always known Donna didn’t like me.

She saw me as the woman Matteo had passed over, the one who had latched onto her son and made a fool of the Falcone name. And after all the children I’d lost, her disdain for me only deepened.

Since she was Lorenzo’s mother, I tried to tell myself it was my fault for failing to carry a child into this family. I felt guilty, especially in the days when Lorenzo would step in and stand between her words and me.

I endured it all.

Right now, though, Lorenzo was so absorbed in Carmela that he didn’t even seem to remember I existed.

For a brief moment, I considered speaking the truth aloud in that room of men who lived and died by silence. But omertà ran in my blood now too, and I quickly pushed the thought aside.

I had already made up my mind to leave. So what was the point in saying anything at all?

I silently made my way up the wide staircase and noticed that Carmela’s bedroom door was slightly ajar.

Something compelled me to move closer.

What I saw made my heart freeze. Carmela, her clothes askew, lying on the bed with Lorenzo over her.

“Lorenzo, you’re still the one who cares for me the most. Matteo can’t give the Don a son, and if you let Adriana carry your child to term, he won’t take the seat. If that happens… I don’t know how much suffering I’ll face.”

Lorenzo gasped between his movements, his eyes darkened with desire. “Is Matteo treating you well? Has he laid a hand on you?”

“Ever since the baby, he treats me like the wife of a Don already. He’s terrified I’ll tire myself. He washes my feet with his own hands. He’s been gentler with me in bed.”

Lorenzo’s expression turned slightly bitter. “As long as he treats you well… as long as you’re happy… I have no regrets.”

“Matteo’s done so much for me. I can’t wear his ring and mean it, but I can give myself to you. Tonight, I belong to you.”

Lorenzo could no longer hold himself back, and their bodies moved harder against one another.

I never knew that the cold, controlled man the whole Family feared could lose himself like this.

Tears fell as I stumbled back to my bedroom.

Lorenzo didn’t come back the entire night.

The next morning, Lorenzo stared at me with deep guilt. The back of his hand passed once over the lapel of his jacket, smoothing it flat.

“Adriana, I meant to come back to you last night. But Mother kept me until dawn, talking. I just… couldn’t get away.”

I didn’t call out his lie. I simply turned toward the door to wait for him.

A bucket of cold kitchen scraps came down over me without warning, and Carmela appeared, holding the slop pail, a mocking smile on her lips.

“Adriana, did you enjoy watching Lorenzo lose his mind over me?” she taunted.

So she had left the door open on purpose.

“Losing a child doesn’t feel so good, does it? But you won’t have to worry about that anymore. After all, you’ll never carry one again.”

“If you still had the nerve to get pregnant, I’d make you feel the price of it. You will never take my place as the woman who sits beside the seat of the Falcone Family.”

“For me, Lorenzo didn’t just hand over his claim to the Don’s chair. He helped put this child in me. And those babies you lost? They’ve become my… supplements.”

My head snapped up, my voice shaking. “What did you just say?”

Carmela chuckled. For half a second her lip went perfectly still, the performance slipping its mask, before she remembered to soften it again. “What? Did you never wonder why, every time you miscarried, Lorenzo told you the child was already buried, that you couldn’t see it? It’s because I told him to keep it from you. Consuming them… it’s good for my health.”

Despair, rage, and disbelief all hit me at once.

So that was the reason Lorenzo never let me see the children.

How could he?

Everything that happened… all of it was for Carmela?

Carmela laughed, and the sound curdled the air of the kitchen like spoiled wine.

"Stop making that pitiful face. Looking for someone to blame, are you? If you want to do that, then blame yourself for being useless! It was only natural that your children were fit to be my nourishment when their mother was someone as weak as you!"

I couldn't take it anymore. I raised my hand and slapped Carmela across the face.

Smack!

Unfortunately, my slap never landed on her face. Lorenzo had swiftly yanked Carmela behind him and took the hit himself.

He then shoved me forcefully to the floor, his anger boiling over. "Adriana Russo, what are you doing?!"

Carmela cried her eyes out. "Lorenzo, I just wanted to comfort Adriana. I meant to tell her not to grieve over the child she lost."

"But she got jealous that I'm the one carrying. She accused me of stealing her place in the famiglia, her future at the head table, and tried to pour all her bitterness on me. I pushed her to protect myself. It wasn't intentional! I already apologized, but she screamed that I should lose mine too, and raised her hand to me!"

Before I could speak a word in my own defense, Lorenzo looked at me with disdain. "Adriana. I never knew you were such a small woman."

"If you couldn't keep your baby, that's your own barren body's failing. Why take your venom out on Carmela and repay her kindness this way? Don't covet what was never yours. Apologize to Carmela. Now."

Barren. Hah.

The more I looked at him, the more he became a stranger to me, a face I had slept beside for years and never once known. "Lorenzo. Tell me. What did you do with the bodies of my lost babies?"

Lorenzo's brow furrowed. His hand drifted to his lapel, the back of his knuckles smoothing the fine wool flat. "I buried them properly, of course. In consecrated ground. Hadn't I told you that?"

His performance was flawless. The Family had taught him well.

"You're right, Lorenzo. I shouldn't covet what was never mine." My thumb found my wedding band and turned it once, slow, around my finger. "Don't worry. I won't raise my hand to Carmela again." Then I left the kitchen without sparing either of them a second glance.

Some flicker of unease must have moved through him. Behind me I heard the sharp catch of his breath, the start of my name in his throat. Carmela cut it short.

"Lorenzo, the slop she had them pour on me has made me sick. Take me to the Family physician?"

Lorenzo hesitated, only for a heartbeat. In the end he did not follow me.

Back inside the rooms that had been mine in this house, I gathered everything Lorenzo had ever given me across all the years of the alliance, and I fed it to the fire one piece at a time. The flames threw shadows that moved like men against the walls.

When my hand closed on the alliance contract, the paper that had bound a minor family's daughter to the Falcone bloodline, my phone chimed. A message on WeTalk. I opened it and read.

[Adriana, I only had to tell Lorenzo I felt unwell and he summoned the finest birthing physicians in the territory.]

[He says if the man he wants is overseas, he'll fly him home by private helicopter tonight. Aren't you jealous?]

I didn't answer. As I finished reading, I lifted my eyes to the alliance contract already curling in the flames, the names on it going black, then to ash.

It made no difference to me whether Lorenzo saw the fire or not. I knew he wasn't coming home tonight.

Sure enough, the phone rang.

"Adriana. Carmela's having trouble with the pregnancy. Matteo's away on Family business, and as her brother-in-law the duty falls to me. Don't be angry with me."

I thought of the photograph Carmela had sent earlier on WeTalk. Her glowing face as she ate fruit Lorenzo had peeled and cut for her with his own hands. She had not looked sick at all.

"Of course. I understand," I said. "A pregnant woman's wellbeing comes first. Take good care of her."

A brief silence on the line. Then Lorenzo spoke, his voice gone soft, the way a knife goes quiet sliding from its sheath. "Adriana. I didn't mean to be harsh with you today. I know our baby just left us. I know you're hurting."

"But Carmela is carrying the Falcone blood, and neither of us can give the Don a son of our own. If something happens to her, I think my mother and father would never recover from it."

I let out a bitter laugh I couldn't hold back. So many excuses. Why did a made man, a contender for the seat, need so many excuses?

"Stay home and rest," he went on, his tone shifting, smoothing, the lapel-stroke I couldn't see but could hear in every word. "Tomorrow is your birthday. I've taken the finest suite in one of our hotels. I have a surprise planned for you. I'll come for you in the morning."

By noon the next day, Lorenzo still hadn't returned to the estate.

I placed the signed dissolution of the marriage pact on the table and arranged for a recording to reach him at a scheduled hour. In the Family, a woman did not simply walk away from a Falcone. So I left the words where he could not pretend he hadn't heard them.

Once that was done, I turned my plain wedding band once around my finger, grabbed my luggage, and went for the airfield.

As soon as I arrived, Lorenzo called again.

"Sorry, cara. Some of the Family's partners showed up without warning to settle next quarter's shipments through the fashion house. I really can't leave right now."

"I had your man handle everything for you. And I remembered you've always wanted me to design a dress for you, right? It's all ready. Once you try it on, it'll look amazing."

"Okay. Thank you."

After I hung up, my gaze drifted to two girls standing near me.

They were huddled together, eyes glued to a phone screen, squealing under their breath as if afraid the wrong man might hear.

"Dio, I can't believe Lorenzo Falcone is not only that handsome but designs such beautiful maternity gowns. I'm starting to wish I were pregnant!"

"You think you can just buy them? Every piece at today's showing was made by Falcone himself for his pregnant woman. Each one's unique, cut from the most expensive cloth money can launder. There must be hundreds of them. She'll never wear them all before the baby comes. I'm so jealous."

"I heard he doesn't want anyone disturbing her, so the showing was by invitation only. Your man's really something, working the floor for the Falcones and slipping us these photos. If it wasn't for him, we'd never get a peek at this."

In the video, Carmela walked arm in arm with Lorenzo, gliding through the elegant gowns made just for her, her smile radiant and carefree.

The Falcone fashion house was a power in its own right, a clean front draped over dirty money, and Lorenzo's hands had a true gift for the work. I used to joke with him, asking him to make a dress for me.

He always brushed it off, claiming the Family kept him too busy to find the time. But for Carmela? He'd cut a hundred pieces without a second thought.

Looking back on what he'd said this morning, the smooth promise of a dress as a surprise, that smug warmth in his voice, it felt so painfully ironic.

Soon they called the flight. I turned off my phone and settled into my seat on the plane bound for a country far beyond the Family's arm.

After picking out Carmela's gowns, Lorenzo went on to the hotel for the surprise birthday party he'd arranged for Adriana.

He pictured how she would look in the dress he'd chosen, soft as something out of a dream.

But instead of his bride, he found his soldier waiting, pale and shaken at the door. "Don Lorenzo. Something's wrong. The madam is gone."