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."