“Lorenzo, it hurts so much,” Sabina whimpered, her voice soft and frail, her weight folding against him on the cobblestones outside the theater the Family kept as a front.

He hesitated, torn between reaching for her and the fact that I was standing right there. His expression twisted into an uncomfortable mix of guilt and indecision.

I spoke first, breaking the silence. “If it hurts that badly, you should take her to a doctor. You wouldn’t want it to turn into something serious.”

My words surprised him. He wasn’t expecting me to be so calm, so understanding.

Lorenzo’s eyes softened as he reached for my hand. “I’ll take her to the clinic our people use and come back for you. Wait for me at the entrance, okay?”

“Sure,” I replied lightly.

He looked at me a moment longer, as though searching my face for anger, for reproach, for some crack he could pour his guilt into. But I stayed composed and gave him nothing. Finally he released my hand, scooped Sabina up into his arms, and walked off.

I didn’t wait. I wasn’t going to play the fool this time.

As I was leaving, my phone buzzed. Carla, my young associate from the operation.

“Vitale Adriana,” she said, the name spoken low the way the rules demanded, “we’ve got something gone wrong on one of the jobs and nobody can read it. Could you come look?”

Without hesitation, I went.

The hours moved fast while we worked the problem, and the sky was already paling when we traced the broken thread and stitched it clean.

The younger ones showered me with praise. “You’re a genius.”

And then, reluctant to let me go again, “Are you really leaving for the Council’s operation?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“But what about the wedding?” one of them asked carefully.

“Are you really okay with leaving?”

I paused. Then I smiled. “The Council’s work matters more.”

What I didn’t say was that, for Lorenzo, my presence or absence no longer seemed to matter at all.

This world keeps spinning, with or without me.

Dragging my exhausted body home, I opened the door and she was there again.

Sabina Greco.

She was wearing one of Lorenzo’s shirts, her bare legs beneath it as she came out of the master bedroom.

When she saw me, she didn’t even flinch. “Don’t misunderstand, Adriana,” she said easily. “By the time we left the clinic it was so late. I didn’t want to go home with my parents out of the city. Lorenzo was just being considerate. He didn’t want me alone while I’m hurt.”

Before I could answer, Lorenzo stepped out of the bathroom, hair damp from a shower. When he saw me, bracing for me to come apart again, his brow drew tight, readying himself for another fight.

“Adriana,” he sighed, “I don’t want to do this with you first thing in the morning.”

“She’s coming to work with me today and had nothing to wear, so I lent her a shirt.” His fingers found his glass on the counter and tapped against it, a low restless rhythm.

“It’s fine,” I cut in.

They both froze, thrown by how calm I sounded.

Lorenzo stared at me, disbelieving, as if my composure was harder to face than any accusation.

“She slept in the guest room,” he said quickly, getting ahead of it. “Don’t read into things.”

I interrupted again, my voice steady. “I’m not reading into anything. You two grew up under the same roof. The Greco house took you in. You’ve always seen her as a sister. You told me yourself the guest room is practically hers, open to her any time, that she doesn’t need my say to come by. I remember.”

Lorenzo faltered, the fight draining out of him. When he spoke again, his voice had gone softer.

“I’m glad you can see it that way. I really want you and Sabina to get along.”

Before I could answer, the bell rang. The courier I’d arranged.

Lorenzo finally noticed the boxes stacked clean and neat across the front room.

His expression darkened as he crossed to them.

“Adriana, what is this?” he demanded, his voice tight. “You don’t want any of the things I gave you?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but he reached into one of the boxes and lifted out a small music box. Inside, a tiny figurine turned. A bride in a white gown.

His hand trembled slightly as he held it up, and I saw his eyes redden.

“You’re throwing this away too?” he asked, barely above a whisper.

That music box was from years ago, back when we had nothing, back before he’d clawed his way up through the rackets to the rank he wore now. He couldn’t afford a grand gesture or a ring then. He’d given me that little box and promised, “One day, I will make you my bride.”

I had believed him. But reality gave me a slap across the face.

Love doesn’t work when there are three people standing in it. It was too crowded.

And I didn’t want to stay anymore.

To avoid stirring anything I'd have to clean up later, I kept my voice soft. "You're reading shadows where there aren't any. I'm not throwing these things out. I'm only letting the right people handle the restoration. How could I not want them?"

The calm on my face did its work. Lorenzo's shoulders eased the way a man's do when he thinks he's just stepped off a tripwire.

"All right," he said. "I'll have someone build a whole new set of cabinets at the house. Somewhere proper to keep them."

I nodded. "Aren't the two of you due somewhere? Go. I need sleep."

With that I turned for the bedroom, and I had the door locked behind me before he could find another word.

When I woke in the afternoon I tore another day off the calendar by the window. Five left.

A message had come from Don Marchetti, my old mentor and protector on the Council, asking me to come see him about the paper that had just surfaced in the journal that mattered. Lorenzo, out of nowhere, called too. I told him I had to go up to the university. He said he was already downstairs and would take me.

Sabina was sitting in the passenger seat by the time I reached the car.

I hesitated for a single second before sliding into the back without a word.

Her laughter broke the quiet first. "Adriana, don't sulk. Lorenzo's always let me ride up front. Back when he used to drive my father's car, I'd sit beside him every time. They say riding in the back makes it feel like you've hired the man at the wheel. Like a chauffeur. Rude, you know? So I got used to it."

I wasn't sulking. I even smiled, and the warmth was real enough. "Sit wherever you like."

Lorenzo's eyes found me in the rearview mirror again and again, hunting for somewhere to land a conversation.

"On the way over," he started, fingers beginning a slow drum against the rim of his coffee cup in the console, "I heard talk about some cleaner working under the name 'Vitale Adriana.' Word is they pulled off something the Council itself can't stop praising. Real value to the whole organization. Funny thing, it's the same line of work as yours."

I said nothing. Vitale Adriana was the cover name I worked beneath, an alias Don Marchetti had bound me to under Omertà for my own safety.

Before Lorenzo could push, Sabina twisted in her seat, voice dipped in honey.

"Adriana, you've spent so many years at this, and I've never once heard your name come up like that." She gasped and pressed a hand to her mouth, theatrical. "Oh, no, I didn't mean it that way. I just say things plain. No offense!"

For half a breath the doe-eyes went flat, something cold and counting underneath. Then she remembered herself and softened it back into a pout.

Even Lorenzo's look had curdled into something close to disdain.

"Adriana," he said, every syllable padded with that patient, lowering tone, "sometimes you have to accept that people are simply built different. You've run yourself ragged for years, and it's all been aimless. After the wedding, why not let it go? I've climbed far enough that you'll never need to work another day."

I gave him nothing he could hold and turned to my phone, answering Don Marchetti. Their words had stopped reaching me a long while ago.

Two blocks from the university, Sabina asked to be let out.

"Thanks for the ride, Lorenzo. Love you!" she chirped, sliding from the car. Then, with a wink aimed squarely at me, "Sister, I'll go on ahead."

I read the name on the gates of the neighborhood and asked it lightly. "Isn't this the address of the safehouse meant for the bride?"

"Oh," Lorenzo said, easy as breathing. "She's probably calling on a friend."

I let it lie.

He felt the silence and reached to fill it. "She's still hurt. I figured I'd drop her on the way. Don't be so petty about it."

My face stayed level. "Of course. Perfectly ordinary, an older brother seeing his little sister home. Isn't it?"

The words snagged in his throat.

When we reached the university, Lorenzo pulled a great armful of flowers from the trunk and pushed them into my hands.

"I know you've been low these past few days," he said, coaxing. "I'm sorry, all right? Let this be me making it right."

"And the wedding dress, you're right, forget it ever happened. I'll have one cut for you fresh by the best designer in the city. How's that?"

His face was full of expectation, as if I owed him gratitude for the effort.

I glanced at his phone, where he was scrolling through one extravagant gown after another, but whatever interest I'd once had for it was long gone.

None of it touched me now. I was leaving soon.

I pushed the phone gently aside and pressed the flowers back into his arms. "Pick whichever you want. My mentor is waiting."

As I turned to go, Lorenzo caught my hand. "Adriana," he said, and there was a tremor in it now. "What's wrong with you? What's really going on?"

For the first time, his face held confusion, and beneath it something that looked very much like panic. Like loss.

What’s wrong with me?

What was wrong was that I had already decided to leave. But I didn’t want a sit-down over it, so I patted Lorenzo’s hand gently.

“We’ll talk about it after I’m done, okay?”

Don Marchetti was thrilled with the work I’d turned in.

“This is incredible work. But... are you sure you’re ready for the Council’s inner circle? The life there can be dull, you know. Going dark, no name of your own, nothing but the operation, day in and day out. Can you handle being cut off from everything?”

I nodded, the memory of Lorenzo’s condescension in the car still fresh in my mind.

I straightened my posture and spoke with quiet determination. “Don’t worry. I won’t bring shame to your name.”

He removed his reading glasses and folded them with great care. “You?” Then he chuckled, shaking his head, and set them aside. “You’re one of the finest hands I’ve ever raised. The Council asked for you by the name they don’t even know belongs to a woman. Let me be clear. I’m the lucky one to have you sworn to this.”

Leaving his study, I spotted Carla scowling at the window overlooking the courtyard.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Vitale,” she fumed, “wasn’t that your betrothed I just saw down there? He was sharing a drink at the café across the street with some woman, heads together like a pair of lovebirds. That’s so out of line. Does the man not understand respect? Isn’t this basically a breach of the pact?”

I smiled faintly. “It’s fine. That’s his… sister.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Sister?”

I understood her disbelief. Lorenzo had lost both his parents young, a street orphan, and the Greco household had taken pity on him and given him shelter. Later, when Lorenzo rose through the rackets to capo, he naturally looked after Sabina, his so-called little sister.

But Carla wasn’t convinced. She let out a short, derisive breath through her nose, and her indignation only grew. “Really funny. Sister? Yeah, right. This is the oldest trick the doe-eyed ones run. Let me handle this for you. I’ll tear her apart.”

I quickly grabbed her arm. “Don’t act rashly.”

After all, I’d tried that before. I’d argued, accused, made my case, only for Lorenzo to look at me coldly and say, “Adriana, you’re being ridiculous. You, of all people, should understand what Sabina is to me. Jealousy like this is beneath you.”

He was right. Jealousy was meaningless. Especially now. I didn’t want to stir up any trouble before I vanished.

So I told Carla there were still a few days before I went dark, and asked her to keep it under Omertà.

She hesitated. “So… are you still going through with the wedding?”

I shook my head. My thumb found the small ring on my finger and turned it once, slow.

“No,” I said softly. “I’m leaving. There’s no point.”

The words just fell.

Before I could say anything more, Lorenzo’s voice came from behind me.

“Adriana, where are you leaving?”