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.

4: 4

"Just because I brought the wrong cake?"

I couldn't be bothered to invent a reason. I rose from my chair. "It can be."

"If we sever the union, where do you think you'll go?" Seeing me turn toward the bedroom, he panicked, the words spilling out before he could stop them. "Who wants a cast-off woman with a child, in a world like ours?"

My steps halted.

The air went quiet. Even the low tick of the mantel clock seemed to hold its breath.

"That's not what I meant..." His voice was frantic. "I just can't accept you wanting out."

His eyes flicked to the fruit knife on the table. He snatched it up and pressed the flat of the blade to his wrist.

"You know what it cost me to get you back into this blood union. You can't go back on your word."

I looked into his bloodshot eyes and wanted to tell him that I wasn't the one who had dishonored a vow.

Then I decided there was no point.

In the silence, the blade parted his skin, and dark red blood welled up over the old scar he always kept ready to show me.

The same old trick. Once, it might have softened me all over again.

Now all I felt was numb.

Since a clean severance wouldn't come, that left only the slow way, the one the Family's consigliere would have to argue through.

I drew a deep breath and pulled an easy smile onto my face.

"I was joking. It's only that seeing you with another woman at the clinic today left me a little uneasy."

"I told you, she's a client." He exhaled and set the knife down. "What's gotten into you lately, always thinking the worst?"

"Maybe it's the moods that come after a birth," I said, my voice low, and turned into the guest room.

"Isabella and I will sleep in here a while. I want to clear my head."

I didn't press him, and he said nothing more.

Over the next few days, we avoided the subject by unspoken agreement, each moving through the estate on our own errands.

He was busy preparing for his trip. I was busy preparing to disappear.

Before he left, he slid a bracelet onto my wrist.

"Wait for me to come back. There's something I want to tell you."

It was the Marchetti heirloom, the one I'd seen catalogued in that leather-bound ledger in his study, among the pieces the Family had gathered over generations of tribute and blood.

I'd never once seen him take it from its case, and I had no idea why he was suddenly pressing it on me now.

But I didn't care anymore.

Adriana's posts kept lighting up my phone.

The newest was a sunset burning down over some foreign river.

In a corner of the frame sat a half-finished coffee, and along the rim you could make out the blur of a cuff.

Those agate cufflinks were the birthday gift I'd given Salvatore last year.

Her caption read:

【The dusk here lasts a long time, long enough for two people to walk slowly. I never want this trip with you to end.】

Scroll back and it was just as lively.

One day, a selfie with pastries in front of a grand old palace. The next, a peace sign beneath a lit tower at night.

Scattered through the grid were shots of him kneeling to tie her shoe, holding an umbrella over her.

I saved every screenshot, one by one.

Adriana was living happily now, in her own way.

No one looking at her would ever guess she'd once been a foundling left at the foot of a bridge.

My parents had taken her in out of guilt, and right up until the day they died, they never spoke of it in front of her.

I wondered what she'd do the day she learned where she truly came from.

The day I left for Miami, for the sealed sanctuary an allied Family had promised, untraceable to anyone here.

I set a thick folder on the low table, and beside it the signed severance of the blood oath.

The bracelet and my wedding band sat on top of them.

The note read:

【My assignment will last at least three years. Look over the agreement. If you accept it, sign and send it to the Family's consigliere. If you refuse, then we wait out two years apart and let the courts and the honor of both houses decide.】

...

I'd only just reached the airport when I saw Salvatore and Adriana coming out from inside, still some distance off.

Adriana rose onto her toes and held her phone up in front of his face.

He laughed and slid an arm around her waist, then bent to press a kiss to her forehead.

The two of them brushed right past me.

I didn't make a sound. I kept walking.

Past the security line, Isabella suddenly began to cry in my arms, one small hand winding into a lock of my hair as she pressed closer.

I rocked her, patting her gently, still moving forward, and didn't see Salvatore stop short in the distance.

His dazed gaze searched the crowd.

At the checkpoint, my phone buzzed. A message from him.

【I think I just saw you at the airport?】

I didn't answer. I turned toward the gate.

Beneath my glove, I twisted the plain band on my finger once, slowly, feeling its weight before I let it go.

The plane lifted off.

The night beyond the window glittered here and there, like some grand fireworks display that had never once belonged to me.

I gave a small wave, and all my years tangled up with Salvatore were left behind.