1: 1

After I severed the blood union with my cheating husband, I ran to thirty-three different safe houses, and every time, he found me.

He slit his wrists, swallowed a bottle of pills, threw himself off a bridge into black water. He begged me back with his own life laid on the table like a wager.

The last time, he opened his own throat, and his blood sprayed across my face.

When he came out of the ICU, he still gripped my wrist hard enough to bruise, eyes red, begging to bind the union again.

That time, I finally softened.

He wept with joy, and once we were bound again, he gave me every reassurance I could ask for.

He changed every code and password to my birthday, handed over his accounts, kept the tracker on his phone open twenty-four hours a day.

Slowly, I let my guard down.

In our third year, I nearly died in a difficult labor, and he tended to me with a tenderness that missed nothing.

Even a frown from me sent him rushing over to ask if the incision hurt.

That night, late, I finished nursing and got up to use the bathroom.

Passing through the sitting room, I saw the iPad on the coffee table light up.

On the private account he'd forgotten to log out of, a message from my sister surfaced.

【Still didn't touch her tonight? No live show for me again.】

In the bedroom, rocking our baby to sleep, he answered almost instantly.

【Relax, you jealous little thing. I haven't touched her since she got pregnant.】

【Stop watching the camera and go to sleep. Stay up again and you'll feel awful tomorrow.】

So he had never cut ties with her.

The camera in our bedroom wasn't there to make it easier to watch over me and the baby.

It was there to prove his innocence, the way a made man keeps a witness to swear he was elsewhere when the blood was spilled.

Before the tears could fall, I made up my mind.

The inescapable pursuit of three years ago would not happen again.

......

From the bedroom came the sound of Salvatore Marchetti humming Isabella to sleep, soft and patient.

But my whole body had gone cold.

The thought of it. Every day, in that bedroom, baring my chest to nurse with no guard up, all of it seen by the person I hated most.

It made me gag and retch, and I couldn't stop.

He heard the noise and came out fast, the way men in this house move when something's wrong.

"What's wrong? Not feeling well again?" His brow creased.

I quietly turned the iPad's screen off.

"My stomach hurts a little. Get me a glass of water?"

He did, feeding it to me carefully.

"Any better?"

When I didn't answer, he touched my face, then my forehead.

"Still feeling bad? Should I call for the doctor?"

I looked at the concern in his eyes and asked softly.

"Salvatore, are you still in contact with Adriana Bellandi?"

His eyes flickered. "I cut things off with her ages ago. Why are you suddenly asking?"

When I said nothing, his eyes reddened and he dropped to his knees, his voice pleading.

"I gave you my word, and a man doesn't take back his word. Francesca Bellandi, you can't leave me again."

"Is there something I did wrong that made you misunderstand?"

My nails dug into my palm. I forced down the trembling and managed a smile.

"It's nothing. I just suddenly thought of the past."

He let out a breath, took my hand, and led me back to the bedroom, his tone helpless.

"You never sleep. You just lie there and overthink everything."

Once we were lying down again, he reached for me out of habit.

I flinched away on reflex, turning my back to him. "It's hot."

He paused, then lowered the air two degrees.

"Francesca, I've already changed. You can't punish me over some baseless suspicion."

I said nothing.

A long while passed. He must have thought I'd fallen asleep.

In the dark, the light of his phone came on.

The sound of typing was unusually clear in the quiet room.

Light and fast, mixed with the breath of his soft laughter.

I had no urge to sleep at all.

Without warning, tears slid down and soaked the pillow.

I didn't sleep all night.

The next morning, before he left, he kissed my forehead.

"Don't sit here overthinking. If you feel bad, send word to me right away."

The moment the door shut behind his enforcer's footsteps, I clapped a hand over my mouth and rushed to the bathroom.

A moment later.

I turned on the tap and rinsed the mess from my lips.

Back in the sitting room, I opened the iPad.

His messages with Adriana Bellandi were easy and familiar. They clearly had never broken contact.

Just like three years ago, when I walked in on the two of them tangled together against the hotel's floor-to-ceiling window, cheek to cheek.

I bit down hard on the soft flesh of my tongue, forcing my eyes wide, reading every single word.

Reading how the man who had stopped touching me "for safety" ever since I got pregnant was playing dangerous games with Adriana Bellandi.

Reading how the man who refused to let me come along when he traveled because he "didn't want the distraction" had taken Adriana Bellandi with him to sit-down after sit-down in other cities, sightseeing along the way.

When Adriana Bellandi asked him,【Your sister or me, who do you like more?】, the line he shot back in a second.

【Her figure's gone to hell. She's no match for you.】

Eight little words.

They nailed me, the woman who dropped her guard to bind the union again and bear his child, to a pillar of shame.

Tears crashed down onto the screen and blurred my sight.

I opened my phone, withdrew the request I'd once made to stay, and asked for the sealed assignment overseas.

The man who ran the sheltering Family in Miami called back quickly.

"Francesca, it's good that you're willing to come back to us, but Miami. Are you sure?"

"This one's protected turf, buried deep. You can bring your own, but you won't be able to reach the outside world for at least three years. No enemy will trace you there."

I touched Isabella's face:【I'm sure.】

This time, I would take my child and leave quietly, and Salvatore Marchetti would never find me again.

2: 2

The line had barely gone dead when Adriana sent Salvatore another message.

【Salvatore, we agreed on this from the start. Once my sister carries the heir for us, you sever the union with her. So when?】

【Isabella's still nursing. Let's at least wait until the girl is two.】

【Then swear it to me. She's given us the child now, so from here on you don't touch her.】

【I know, my jealous little thing.】

My hands and feet went cold as I read them pass the words back and forth like tribute across a table.

So all his begging for me to bind myself to him again in blood was because Adriana wanted an heir.

But she was afraid of the pain, and afraid of losing her figure.

So he devised the arrangement of letting me carry it instead.

【Francesca is one of us, we can trust her. Once the heir is born, I'll sever the oath and take the child.】

I laughed out loud, all at once.

And as I laughed, my throat began to tighten.

For three years, everyone in every friendly Family had sworn Salvatore loved me more than his own life.

He'd driven four hours through the dark, past the checkpoints his own men kept, to bring back the fruit pastries I suddenly craved.

When the fever took me, he'd run the Family's business and watch over me at the same time, three days and three nights without closing his eyes, and once my fever broke he was the one who collapsed.

When my legs cramped during the pregnancy, he'd knead my calves every night before bed, and only after I fell asleep would he slip out to ice his own aching, sore knuckles.

So all that tenderness was the wages he paid me, his little tool.

The joke of it was that I'd pitied him, running the Syndicate and caring for me and the child both, so I'd handed over the last of my own work, planning to stay behind these walls and raise our daughter.

Lost in it, I heard the tone sound again.

【I saw you gave her a necklace in the bedroom a couple of days ago. Didn't you say you bought it for me?】

【If you want it, I'll just buy you another one.】

She was getting worked up now.

【That's not the point! You promised that to me. Why would you give it to her?】

【And last time, you said you'd take me out, and then because she got a clogged duct you drove halfway across the territory hunting down a specialist for her, and I waited the whole night and you never showed.】

【Aren't you being too good to her?】

This time he was quiet for much longer before he answered.

【Adriana, whatever else she is, she's still your sister, not your enemy. In the end we're the ones who wronged her. I'm only making up for it.】

Reading his words, I felt nothing but the irony of it.

Adriana was supposed to be the closest person I had.

Our parents died too young, cut down before I was grown, and I'd taken on the burden of raising her when I was very small, which was how I hardened into someone steady, someone who could sit at a table full of dangerous men and never flinch.

Back then Salvatore had said he loved how quiet and reserved I was, then after he met Adriana he changed his tune and said a woman ought to be lively and bright.

It wasn't that I hadn't noticed the special way he treated her.

But when I told him to keep his distance from my sister, he only smiled and ruffled my hair.

Told me not to be petty, that she was going to be his little sister-in-law, family under the same roof.

What came afterward was so dark that I hadn't let myself think about it for a long time.

They grew closer and closer, close enough to share a single glass.

The first time we bound ourselves in the union, even for the rings, he insisted on the style she liked.

On our first anniversary, I walked in on the two of them tangled together, and Adriana didn't tell him to stop. She just fixed her eyes on me and held them there, her hand drifting to the bracelet at her wrist as if it could vouch for her right to be there.

When I demanded, half out of my mind, to know why, her voice was very soft. She said, "An older sister is like a mother. You should share everything with me. All of it."

And he, he kept Adriana tucked behind him and said nothing, offering no defense. A man who could silence a room with a look, and he had nothing to say.

I couldn't bear that the two most important people in my life had betrayed me.

I severed the oath and blocked both their numbers.

I thought our paths would never cross again as long as we both lived.

But he threw himself into pulling me back so completely that I softened again.

Thinking of all this, I laughed like a fool, and the tears kept falling.

I really was stupid. Stupid enough to believe he'd changed, stupid enough to want a heart that was true.

But peel back the disguise, and it had rotted through long ago.

Thank God there was still time.

3: 3

Once I made up my mind to leave, I started clearing out everything I didn't want.

The whole penthouse had been dressed the way I liked it, high above the city Salvatore ruled through his hotels and his shadow rackets. Most of what filled it, I'd chosen myself.

Salvatore said he wanted me to feel at ease here, wanted me to wake up happy and come home happy every single day.

I'd picked the gray-blue curtains.

I'd sat in more than a dozen sofas before settling on that one.

The paintings on the walls, I'd only glanced at them a second too long, and he'd bought them on the spot, the way a Don buys anything that catches the eye of what belongs to him.

Now, thinking it over slowly, none of it had ever really been my home. It was a cage he'd built to fit me exactly, gilded and guarded, with an enforcer always somewhere past the door.

Things I used to love, I now hated even to look at.

So I swept it all into black trash bags.

Once everything was cleared, I pulled out my suitcase and packed only what mattered.

Salvatore came in from the hall and frowned. The two men outside straightened as he passed, then went quiet again.

"Why does the place look so empty?"

I didn't look up, kept packing. "Getting rid of the stuff I don't want. Planning to buy some new things."

"Whatever makes you happy. Just tell me if you're short on tribute." His eyes fell on the bare vanity table. "I've got an arrangement out of town in a few days. Anything you want me to bring back?"

"No need."

"Didn't you say last time you were out of that face cream, that brand you like?"

I was patting Isabella's back, coaxing her to sleep, and didn't lift my head. "I don't really want it anymore."

The things, the man, I didn't want any of it anymore.

...

Before the sealed assignment on the allied Family's turf, everyone traveling under their protection had to be cleared by a doctor first.

I finished Isabella's checkup, and while we were in line waiting for the results, I saw Salvatore and Adriana standing outside the urgent-care clinic.

Her voice came soft and stuffed-up with a cold. "This is all your fault. You had the AC blasting yesterday and gave me a fever."

He pinched her nose, helpless. "And who insisted on doing it in the car? Lesson learned. Not next time."

Her number was called just as his phone rang, so he didn't go in with her.

He hung up, turned around, and there I was, standing quietly.

The instant our eyes met, he froze, then came striding over. The people between us stepped aside without being told.

"Francesca, why are you here? Is Isabella sick?"

He reached out to touch Isabella's face. I took a step back, my voice level.

"Family checkup. I brought Isabella along."

"Oh." His eyes flicked toward the exam room, and he answered before I could ask. "One of our people is ill. I came to keep them company."

I didn't ask what associate was so important that the Don himself had to escort them to a doctor.

"I'm going home first."

I didn't wait for his reply. I turned and left without looking back.

So I didn't see the complicated look in his eyes behind me.

That night he came home earlier than usual. The enforcers in the corridor faded back into the walls as he passed.

I sat in the living room watching TV and ignored him.

He came over carrying a cake.

"Francesca, didn't you say last time you wanted the cake from this place? I took a detour after work and picked it up for you."

I glanced at the logo.

I didn't know the brand.

But last time, following the trail, I'd dug up Adriana's social media, and she'd posted it there.

On the outskirts of the city, ten-plus miles from his office.

I smiled.

Keep one foot in two boats and sooner or later it capsizes.

He saw me smile and thought I was pleased.

"Go on, try it." He held out the spoon.

I didn't take it. My smile faded. "Salvatore, let's sever the blood oath."

No. That came later. My smile faded. "Salvatore, I never said I wanted this place."

He went still. I rarely called him by his full name.

"Then I must have remembered wrong." His breathing turned uneven as he leaned in to kiss me. "Don't be upset. Whatever you want, I'll go get it right now."

I dodged him. Then I turned the plain band on my ring finger once, slowly, feeling its full weight before I let it go. "Salvatore, let's sever the blood oath."

The color drained from his face, inch by inch.