As the runner wheeled Gianna Russo deeper into the back-room, she still turned her head to look back at me.

There was panic in that look, and guilt, and something else she couldn't quite hide. Pity.

As if she were the one who'd won.

And I was the poor fool who'd been kept in the dark, the only one at the table who never saw the cards.

The steel door of the surgery sealed shut.

That left only me and Dario in the guarded room where I patched the Family's wounded.

The air was so heavy I could barely breathe.

Dario stood where he was, watching me with a complicated expression.

I thought he would explain. That he would feel ashamed. That he might even say he was sorry.

But after a moment's silence, his first words left me completely stunned.

"Adriana, I know you're angry."

"But have you ever stopped to think about why we ended up like this?"

I stared at him, almost certain I'd misheard.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Dario wet his lower lip and reached to straighten a tie that was already straight, his face dark.

"You don't understand what I mean?"

"Nine years bound by the blood oath, and every single day it's work, work, another soldier bleeding out on your table. How much of this household have you ever actually managed?"

"On my birthday you were elbow-deep in some shot-up runner. On the night they swore me into the crew you were on call. When my mother took ill you always said you were busy. You couldn't even find the time to sit down and eat a Sunday meal with me."

"Adriana, is there anything in your heart besides that back-room?"

The more he said, the more worked up he got. As if he'd finally found an outlet.

"Every day it's the wounded, the table, your head crammed full of other men's blood."

"But I'm your husband, not one of your patients!"

"Look at yourself. It's the surgeon's gloves and nothing but the gloves, the work and nothing but the work. Bare-faced every single day, you don't even put on a decent dress. Where's there any trace of a woman left in you?"

Word after word, every line landed like a slap across my face.

I stood there, and a cold spread through my whole body.

And Dario wasn't finished.

"I'm a normal man. I need company too, I need someone who cares!"

"Gianna is different."

When he said that name, something even tender surfaced in his eyes.

"She remembers my birthday. She brings me things. She works the knots out of my shoulders when the territory's bled me dry. She'll sit and talk with me, listen to me complain about the men I answer to."

"When I'm with her, that's when I feel like I'm needed."

The room went quiet.

But my ears were ringing.

My heart felt like something was ripping it open, slow and deliberate, each pull leaving me numb with pain.

Nine years.

A full nine years.

I'd gone from a green hand barely trusted to hold a scalpel, grinding my way up step by step to the one cleaner the whole territory called when a soldier couldn't risk a Fed hospital.

Countless nights working blood off my hands before dawn.

Countless men carried in half-dead.

Countless races against the morgue slab.

I'll admit it. I'd shortchanged the family.

But I had never once shortchanged him.

When his crew hit its worst stretch, the tribute came up short and the Family was ready to take it out of his skin.

It was me who handed over every last cent I'd put aside.

Me who swallowed my pride and went to my own bloodline, to the Falcones, to borrow more.

That's what carried him through those impossible months.

He'd be out drinking and entertaining the men he owed until dawn.

No matter how late they dragged me from the surgery, I always left a light on for him.

Kept his dinner warm.

Waited for him to come home.

When his mother was laid low, I was the one who called in every favor I had to find her a quiet surgeon and a safe bed.

I worked the wounded by day.

Sat by her side by night.

Brought her water, fed her, wiped her down, changed the pads.

A full month.

I never once slept through a whole night.

Yet now, the way he told it, I had never cared for this family at all.

He only remembered that I'd missed his birthday. Missed the night they made him.

He'd forgotten all the nights I'd ground myself down for this home, all the hardship I'd swallowed.

Forgotten that what I faced every day was life and death, blood and dying.

Forgotten how terrified I was, every time the phone rang in the dead of night with another man on the brink, that I wouldn't be able to bring him back.

I looked at the man in front of me.

And suddenly he was a complete stranger.

As if in these nine years I'd never truly known him at all.

Seeing me say nothing, Dario took it as confirmation that he'd hit the mark. If anything his expression grew even more self-righteous.

"What? Nothing to say?"

"Adriana, you bear part of the blame for this too."

"If you weren't so cold all the time, like a block of wood no amount of warmth could thaw, I'd never have come to this."

"Now Gianna is carrying my child, my blood, and something this serious has happened."

"You're the cleaner. Saving her is your duty!"

"If you let her die over a grudge between us, that's using your place in this Family for revenge!"

"I'll take it straight to the Don's table!"

"And I'll see to it the whole street hears your name!"

"By then forget the back-room. You won't lay a hand on another wounded man as long as you live!"

As that last line dropped, I suddenly laughed.

Laughed until my eyes burned red.

Laughed until my heart ached.

So it turned out that when it came to a moment like this, the first thing on his mind wasn't to beg me to save her.

It was to threaten me.

With the one thing I cared about most.

With everything I'd spent half my life fighting to earn.

To threaten me.

I closed my eyes slowly.

When I opened them again, the last bit of warmth in them was gone for good.

After a long silence, I drew in a deep breath.

My voice was hoarse, but strangely calm.

"Fine."

Dario faltered.

I lifted my head and looked at him. Every word clear, unmistakable.

"I'll save her."

"But not because of your threat."

"And not because I think I've done anything wrong."

"Dario, remember this."

I lowered my head and smoothed the creases in my coat, my gaze settling on the hands that had pulled more men back from death than he would ever name.

My voice wasn't loud, but every word landed hard.

"I'm saving her only because of the oath I swore over this work."

"From the day I first took up the scalpel for this Family, I made a vow."

"No matter who's lying on that table, no matter what's between her and me."

"As long as there's still breath in her."

"I will not stand by and watch someone die."

With that, I turned and walked toward the surgery.

Behind me was the unreadable weight of Dario's stare.

I didn't look back.

Because from this moment on, he was just the kin of a patient.

Nothing more.

When I finished, I didn't look at Dario again. I turned and walked toward the back-room.

The doors of the surgery.

Dario paced back and forth, restless, his forehead damp with cold sweat.

The moment he saw me come out in my scrubs, he rushed over.

I had on my mask and cap. Only my eyes showed.

Just as I was about to go in, he suddenly called out to stop me.

"Adriana."

I halted and turned to look at him.

His mouth opened, then closed. He hesitated.

After a moment, he asked it anyway.

"You... you wouldn't do anything on the table, would you?"

For an instant the air went still.

I almost thought I'd misheard.

"What did you just say?"

He avoided my eyes, but forced himself to keep going. His fingers drifted up and adjusted a tie that was already straight.

"How do I know you won't use this to settle a personal score?"

"You hate us this much right now. Who's to say you won't let something happen to her on purpose?"

In that moment, I almost laughed.

Not out of anger.

Out of how absurd it was.

Nine years bound to him by blood and tribute.

And he actually suspected I'd take a life on my table to vent.

I looked at him, my voice cold without a trace of warmth.

"Dario, is that the kind of person I am to you?"

He didn't answer.

But the silence was answer enough.

The next second, he spun to the woman standing beside him.

"Donna Marchetti, I want a different surgeon!"

"Or put someone in there to work alongside her!"

"I can't let her open Gianna up alone!"

Mira Marchetti had already been holding back a chestful of anger.

At those words, her face went completely dark.

"Mr. Conti."

"Adriana is the finest hand the Family has ever put in that room."

"She's pulled hundreds of men and women back from the edge in there, and not once has anyone bled out on her watch."

"No one who answers to this house questions her honor."

"If you don't trust her, you're free to take Gianna elsewhere. Right now."

With that, Mira Marchetti turned and walked off. Her ring finger never once touched the table at her side — the matter, everyone present understood, was not finished.

She gave Dario no chance to keep making trouble.

Dario's face shifted from red to white and back. He wet his lower lip and laughed a half-beat too soon, the sound dying in the silent corridor.

But in the end, he didn't dare move her.

Gianna's condition was already critical.

Any more delay, and it wouldn't just be the child. They could lose the woman too.

In the end, all he could do was watch me walk into the surgery.

The heavy doors closed slowly.

Sealing off everything outside.

I drew in a deep breath.

Scrubbed in again, sterilized, pulled on my gloves.

Then took the scalpel the runner handed me.

From this moment on.

I was no longer Dario's wife.

Only the Family's surgeon.

Nothing more.

The work lasted a full three hours.

The hemorrhage from the rupture was far worse than I'd expected.

By the time I finished the last suture, my back was already soaked with sweat.

When I walked out of the back-room, it was three in the afternoon.

I hadn't had a drop of water since the morning's calls came in.

Three straight days without rest had built up an exhaustion that finally hit its limit in that moment.

The instant I pulled off my mask.

Everything went black.

My body tipped backward, out of my control.

In the last second before I lost consciousness.

I heard Dario's anxious voice.

But it wasn't my name he called.

"Doctor!"

"How is Gianna?"

"Is she okay?"

Consciousness dropped into the dark.

How long, I don't know.

Then noise broke through near my ear.

"Adriana!"

"Adriana, wake up!"

I forced my eyes open.

A young runner was crouched beside me, her face full of worry.

She pulled a piece of candy from her pocket without missing a beat and pushed it into my mouth.

"Your blood sugar again."

"You've worked three days straight. Two off-the-books jobs last night, and today the calls and the table back to back."

"Keep this up and even someone made of iron couldn't take it!"

The sugar dissolved slowly.

A little strength came back into my body at last.

Only then did Dario seem to notice I existed.

He looked down at me.

His gaze landed on my face, pale and drained of color.

For an instant his expression froze.

The runner explained, her tone sharp with irritation.

"She fainted. Her blood sugar bottomed out."

But the next second.

Dario let out a cold laugh.

"Blood sugar?"

"Her own bad health is whose fault?"

"If you ask me, she did it on purpose." He reached up and straightened the tie again, the laugh coming too quick.

The runner froze.

Even the other men nearby frowned.

And Dario kept going.

"Dropping right at this moment. Isn't that just to make me feel guilty?"

"Adriana, I know you too well."

"You just want to use this to get back at me, don't you?"

Each word came down like a blow.

Heavier than the three hours I'd stood over that table.

Suddenly I felt a hollow place open in my chest.

It wasn't pain.

It was numbness, complete and total.

So it turned out that when a person is disappointed past all limits.

Even heartache stops coming.

I pushed away the runner's supporting hand.

And slowly got up off the floor.

My voice was calm, even to my own surprise.

"The work is done."

"Gianna is out of danger."

"Someone will see to her from here."

I lifted my head and looked at Dario.

There wasn't a shred of feeling left in my eyes.

"You can go in and see her now."

With that, I turned and left.

From start to finish, I never looked at him again.

Early the next morning.

I made my rounds as usual, moving room to room through the quiet of the safe house.

When I reached the door of Gianna's room, the voice coming from inside made me stop.

"Dario..."

Gianna was propped up in the bed, her voice so soft and coy it could practically drip. Her fingers rested at her collarbone, pressing gently, as if to steady a heart that beat just fine.

"My stomach still hurts so much."

"Did that surgeon maybe botch the work?"

Dario tensed at once.

"Why would it hurt?"

"Do you want me to go get the doctor?"

Gianna bit her lip, the picture of injured innocence.

"I don't know either."

"I heard so many stories yesterday."

"There was a hand who left a blade inside a man he was cutting open."

"And another who forgot a length of gauze in someone's body, and the rot nearly killed them."

At that.

She deliberately paused.

"Dario."

"Do you think... maybe something like that could happen to me too?"

The room went quiet at once.

And standing outside the door, I slowly tightened my grip on the chart in my hands.

"Dario, what if something happens to me too?"

Gianna curled up against the headboard of the back-room cot, her eyes red-rimmed, her voice thick with tears.

"I'm really scared."

Dario sat at the bedside, holding her hand with absurd care, his voice impossibly gentle.

"Don't let your mind run wild."

"The work's done. You're going to be fine."

But the more he soothed her, the harder she cried.

"But my stomach hurts so much..."

"My head's spinning, I keep feeling sick, my whole body's wrong."

As she spoke, the tears kept falling, one after another. Her free hand drifted up and touched her own collarbone, as if steadying her heart.

"Dario, do you think the Falcone woman did it on purpose?"

"She hates me so much. What if she did something while she had me open on that table..."

For a moment the room went quiet. Even the low hum of the generator behind the wall seemed to hold its breath.

I pushed open the door and walked in.

Gianna's voice cut off mid-sentence.

The instant she saw me, her face paled, and she shrank back into Dario's arms on instinct.

As if I were some monster.

Dario looked up.

The last trace of civility was gone from his eyes.

"Adriana, you're just in time."

"Gianna's been in pain this whole time, dizzy, nauseous."

"What exactly did you do to her on that table?"

I lowered my head and paged through the notes I keep that never see a Fed's eye.

My voice was calm.

"Mild abdominal pain, nausea, and dizziness after the kind of work I did are all normal."

"The anesthetic hasn't fully cleared her system yet, and her body's still recovering from the blood loss. This is to be expected."

"A few days lying low and it'll ease up."

The words had barely left my mouth.

Dario let out a cold laugh.

"Normal?"

"Normal would have her hurting like this?"

"I think you're settling a personal score!"

I looked up at him.

And suddenly explaining felt pointless.

"If you doubt the work, bring it to a sit-down. Have the Don's own cleaner look her over."

"Every cut I made, every stitch, every result. It's all there for anyone with standing to see."

"If it really was my hand at fault, I'll answer for every consequence. To you. To the Family."

Dario laughed, beyond furious.

He shot up from his chair, the metal frame screeching against concrete.

"Answer for it?"

"What could you possibly offer?"

"If something really happens to Gianna, can you afford what that costs?"

The air in the room grew tighter and tighter.

All at once, the exhaustion hit me to the bone.

I hadn't slept the night before.

I'd been on my feet all day, keeping the Family's wounded off the morgue slab, right up to now.

And on top of it, I had to stand here and take baseless accusations from the man my bloodline financed and the outsider woman he'd put in my place.

Body and mind, I was at my limit.

I closed the file.

"Think whatever you want."

"There are other men I have to keep breathing tonight."

"Find a nurse if you need anything."

With that, I turned to leave.

The next second.

A hand seized my arm, hard.

"You stay right there!"

Dario clamped down on me.

The grip was tight enough to crush bone.

I frowned and wrenched my arm free.

And it was right then.

A scream came from the cot.

"Aah—"

Gianna's eyes rolled back, and she dropped straight down, stiff as a board.

"Gianna!"

Dario's face changed in an instant.

He all but threw himself at the bedside.

"Gianna! Wake up!"

"Don't scare me!"

But no matter how he shook her, she didn't respond.

His head snapped toward me.

That look could have devoured someone.

"Adriana!"

"What did you do to her!"

I stood where I was.

It was simply absurd.

"I didn't do anything."

"You're still trying to talk your way out of it!"

Dario crossed the room in a few strides.

He grabbed me by the collar of the coat I wore over blood I'd already washed off twice that day.

His eyes were bloodshot.

"It was you, it had to be!"

"You did something on the sly while you had your hands on her!"

"You poisonous bitch!"

"If Gianna doesn't wake up tonight, there is no corner of this Family that will shield you from me!"

The words landed.

He raised his hand.

And slapped me hard across the face.

"Crack—"

The sharp sound of it exploded through the room.

My head snapped to the side.

Blood welled at the corner of my mouth.

Everyone in the room froze.

Even the nurse who'd just stepped in stood rooted in place, her hand still on the door.

Dario seemed not to have expected he'd actually do it.

He stared at his own palm.

A flicker of panic crossed his eyes.

He wet his lower lip and reached up to straighten a tie that was already straight.

But that flicker lasted only an instant.

It was swiftly buried under rage again.

"You brought this on yourself."

He said it.

As if every wrong here were mine.

As if he weren't the one who'd broken the oath that bound him to my blood.

As if the woman lying on that cot were the real victim.

I lifted my head slowly.

My cheek burned.

But inside I was strangely calm.

So calm there wasn't a single ripple.

So it turned out that when your heart truly dies.

You can't even feel the pain.

I gently pushed him off.

Straightened the rumpled coat.

Then set the crooked pin on my chest straight again.

Through all of it I said nothing.

Then I turned and left.

And never looked back.

Back in the room they let me keep at the edge of the compound.

I sat in the chair, silent for a long time.

The handprint on my face still throbbed faintly.

Outside the window the sun was bright.

But I couldn't feel a trace of its warmth.

After a long while, I took out my phone.

And called a woman I'd come up with, back before the Family bound my name to Dario's.

She handled reckonings now, the kind brought before the Don.

"Draw up the papers for me. The full reckoning. Everything I'm owed back."

There was a pause on the other end.

"You've finally decided?"

I gave a quiet "Mm."

My voice was calmer than even I expected.

"The sooner the better."

After I hung up.

I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes.

Nine years bound to that bloodline.

It had finally come to an end.

My phone suddenly rang.

I thought she'd texted back.

I answered without even glancing at the screen.

Donna Winslow's shrill, grating voice came crashing down on me.

"You shameless, worthless woman!"

There was the click of her tongue against her teeth, twice, before the venom came.

"I must have been blind to ever let your name be tied to the Conti household!"

My hand tightened around the phone.

On the other end she was still screaming her curses.

"It's bad enough you can't give my son a child of your own!"

"And now you won't let anyone else carry one either!"

"How can you be this vicious!"

"Dario told me everything!"

"That girl is carrying the Conti bloodline's child, and you nearly put her in the ground!"

"What ectopic pregnancy?"

"I've lived this long and never even heard of such a thing!"

"You're the one with the knife, surrounded by your own people, who knows if you're behind this whole thing!"

"Let me tell you, Adriana!"

"If anything happens to my grandson, there is no Don, no famiglia, no name that will keep me off you!"

One vicious line after another came pouring through.

I sat there in the quiet room at the edge of the compound.

And suddenly I laughed.

Laughed until my eyes went red.

So even now.

They still believed.

I was the one in the wrong.