After leaving the hospital, Adriana drove straight to the workshop.

Lorenzo had set it up for her after the wedding. He'd carried the guilt of it like a stone — she'd surrendered her craft to nurse him back from the wound he took in that old hit, so he'd given her this place to make amends.

She would not take a single dollar of Lorenzo Moretti's laundered fortune when she severed the bond. But this workshop she would claim. Every piece inside it had been born from her own hands, her own sleepless nights, her own talent. She needed it to build a future for herself and the child.

She hadn't been there long when her courier handed her an outgoing inventory log.

Her necklaces. Her bracelets. The pieces from her archival collection — commissions the Family had once paraded as proof of its refinement. Every last one had been signed out and delivered to Vanessa Carbone, on the Don's order.

Rage surged through her chest. She reached for her phone to call him.

Then she saw her own name spreading across the screens, passed hand to hand through every channel the Family didn't control.

The recording was already everywhere. In it, she sat alone in the hospital waiting room. And there was Lorenzo, cradling Vanessa in his arms, murmuring to her like she was something precious.

The talk had erupted beneath it.

"So even Adriana Falcone knows when to keep her mouth shut. Guess she's terrified of losing her place in the Moretti name."

"Vanessa's clearly the one Lorenzo actually wants. Did you see how panicked he looked holding her?"

"Adriana only married into the famiglia because she tended his wound after the hit. She leveraged a debt into a wedding band, and now the truth's catching up."

The words were sharp as needles, but they couldn't pierce a heart that had already gone cold.

Lorenzo saw the recording too. His answer was a seven-figure wire and a single message.

[Vanessa had nightmares and needed me there. Be good.]

Adriana stared at the number on her screen. Nothing stirred behind her eyes.

She dialed his number. When he picked up, her voice was ice stripped of every last trace of feeling.

"Lorenzo, you gave my designs to your kept woman. Did you think to ask me first?"

On the other end, Lorenzo sounded utterly unbothered, even irritated, as though she were the one being unreasonable.

"Isn't the cash I sent you enough to cover it? You were so well-behaved yesterday. What happened?"

Adriana laughed. She hung up without another word and went back to packing.

She didn't leave the workshop until the following day.

Once she finished gathering her things, she would never set foot in that place again.

But when she pushed open the front door of the estate, she found Vanessa curled on the sofa, nestled against Lorenzo, cooing up at him. They looked every bit the picture of a devoted young couple.

Vanessa heard the door and turned. The moment she spotted Adriana, her expression shifted into something small and frightened, and she shrank deeper into Lorenzo's arms.

"Hey, sis."

Adriana's body trembled before she could stop it. She turned the slim band on her finger a slow quarter-rotation, looked at the scene, and let the words fall, razor-edged.

"How thoughtful of you, Don Moretti. Bringing your kept woman under your own roof to convalesce. Was the house feeling too big and empty? Needed a little extra warmth?"

Lorenzo's expression darkened in an instant. He straightened, his gaze locking onto Adriana, disappointment heavy in every syllable.

"Adriana, I actually thought you'd learned your lesson. And here you go again with the passive-aggressive nonsense. Vanessa's ankle hasn't healed. I don't feel right leaving her out there on her own. I brought her back to rest for a few days. What's the problem?"

His words snuffed out the last faint ember of anything she'd still been holding onto.

She looked at the man in front of her, the man who had once loved her down to the marrow of his bones, and felt nothing. Not anger. Not grief. Just a vast, hollow indifference.

She didn't argue. She swept one cool glance over the two of them, turned, and walked toward the bedroom.

The door closed behind her, sealing out Vanessa's soft, theatrical sobs. Sealing out the last fragile thread that still tied her to Lorenzo Moretti.

Adriana slid down against the door until she was sitting on the floor. Her hand drifted to her stomach, and she whispered into the quiet.

"You won't blame Mommy for not giving you a whole family, will you, little one?"

It was a long time before Adriana could bring herself to stand. She moved slowly, gathering her things in the hush of a house that had stopped feeling like hers. The wardrobe held everything she'd prepared for the baby—tiny garments, little shoes, and the patchwork quilt her mother had sewn back in the old country, stitch by stitch, with hands that knew prayer better than thread. She was taking all of it with her.

But the moment she opened the wardrobe doors, her blood ran cold.

Everything inside had been ransacked. The clothes were gone. Every last piece.

She went straight downstairs and found the housekeeper, an old associate who'd served the Moretti estate since before the war. Her voice came out trembling and ice-cold.

"Where are my things?"

The woman's eyes darted away. She stammered, wouldn't lift her head, and glanced toward the garden against her own will, the way people did when they'd been ordered to stay silent and couldn't hold the weight of it.

Adriana's stomach dropped. She followed the faint sounds of laughter across the lawn, and what she saw made her vision blur red.

Vanessa stood on the grass, cooing at the dog at her feet. The dog was wearing the baby clothes Adriana had prepared for her child.

The patchwork quilt her mother had sewn was cut to ribbons. One piece had been tied around the dog's neck as a drool bib.

And the charm her mother had blessed at the chapel, pressed into Adriana's palm for protection the day she crossed the ocean into this Family, was clamped between the dog's teeth, being torn apart.

Vanessa giggled, scratching behind the dog's ears.

"Little Maddie is such a good girl! You look so pretty in your new outfit!"

"Good dog, Maddie."

Maddie.

That name. It was the pet name Lorenzo used for her alone. His word. He used to hold her close and murmur it against her ear, in the dark, when the Family and its blood and its omertà couldn't reach the bed they shared.

Adriana's fists clenched so tight her knuckles went white. The rage crawled up her spine like something alive.

Every ounce of fury she had swallowed, every humiliation she had endured in silence—it all shattered at once.

She crossed the distance in three strides and slapped Vanessa across the face.

The crack rang out, sharp and clean, and for one heartbeat the whole garden went still, as if even the birds knew a line had been crossed.

"Adriana Falcone, have you lost your mind?!"

Vanessa clutched her cheek and shrieked, tears spilling instantly. Her answer had come a beat too fast, her ruined smile twitching too wide before the sobs caught up to it.

Lorenzo came out of the study at the commotion, moving with the contained heaviness of a man others rose for. The first thing he saw was Vanessa, sobbing, hand pressed to her face.

The moment she spotted him, she threw herself into his arms, trembling.

"Lorenzo! She hit me—and she hurt little Maddie!"

His expression darkened. "Adriana, you—"

Adriana's voice tore out of her, hoarse and shaking.

"How dare you let her touch my things!"

Lorenzo's face turned to stone. "Your things? A pile of rags and scraps. Vanessa letting the dog wear them was more than they deserved."

Adriana's chest heaved. Her eyes burned as she lunged past him toward the dog, desperate to save the charm her mother had blessed.

Before she could reach it, the dog bared its teeth and launched at her, snarling, sinking its jaws into her calf. White-hot pain shot through her leg. Its front paws clawed at her knees, scrambling upward toward her stomach.

In that instant, Adriana forgot the pain. She summoned every ounce of strength she had and kicked the dog away.

It yelped, tumbled across the grass, and curled into a whimpering ball.

Blood seeped from the wound on Adriana's calf. Warm liquid trickled down her shin. A sharp cramp seized her lower abdomen, and she doubled over, unable to move.

"Adriana!"

Lorenzo hadn't expected her to actually fight a dog for that charm. Seeing her crumpled on the ground, his mind emptied of everything but alarm. The heir who weighed men's lives without blinking rose to his feet and started toward her.

He hadn't taken a single step before Vanessa grabbed his arm, wailing.

"Lorenzo! Maddie's mouth is bleeding—what's wrong with her? Is she going to die?!"

His hand froze in midair. His gaze drifted to the dog whimpering on the ground. He hesitated for one long moment, the gold signet ring loose and unturned on his finger, then steadied Vanessa on her feet.

"Don't be scared."

He picked up the dog, took Vanessa by the arm, and walked out the front door without looking back. No soldier at the gate moved to stop him. No one ever did.

Adriana watched him go. She bit down on her lip until she tasted iron, refusing to let herself cry. She told herself over and over that he wasn't worth it. He wasn't worth a single tear.

She staggered upright, called a car, and went to the hospital alone.

The moment she walked through the emergency doors, everything she'd been holding together finally gave way. Her vision went black, and she collapsed.

When she opened her eyes again, it was the next day. Her wound had been bandaged. She was cleared to leave.

When Adriana stepped through the door of the Moretti estate, Vanessa was nestled against Lorenzo's side, playing lady of the house as she barked orders at the staff that had served the Family for thirty years.

Lorenzo heard the door and lifted his gaze toward Adriana.

"Starting today, Vanessa is the woman of this house. Everyone answers to her." His eyes settled on Adriana, cold as a blade left out in winter. "Including you."

His stare was ice. Not a trace of warmth. The signet ring on his finger turned once, slow and idle, the way it always did when he believed himself fully in control.

Because she'd kicked Vanessa's dog, he was using his so-called wound from the old hit as an excuse again, stripping her standing as the Don's wife and handing it to a courier who'd clawed her way up from another man's errands.

He expected her to rage. To lose control. To break down and then give in, the way she always had. He expected her to still care.

But she no longer wanted the name Moretti pinned to her chest like borrowed honor. And she no longer cared whether his memory loss was real.

Adriana said nothing. She turned and headed for the stairs.

Vanessa stepped into her path, eyes glittering with triumph and contempt.

"There's still so much I don't understand about running a house like this. I was hoping you could teach me, sis."

Before Adriana could respond, Vanessa grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward the bar.

Adriana's custom coffee machine, the one she'd waited months to have shipped from Italy, had been wrecked beyond recognition.

Rage blazed through her. She wrenched her hand free.

"Who told you you could touch that?"

Vanessa only smiled, smug and unhurried, lifting a steaming cup from the counter.

"You still think you're the high-and-mighty wife of the Don? Lorenzo stopped loving you a long time ago. You're nothing." The words barely left her mouth before she hurled the coffee straight at Adriana.

Scalding liquid hit her neck and slid beneath her collar. Adriana flinched, her skin burning.

The bitter-sweet stench of coffee flooded her nostrils. Her stomach, already wrecked by morning sickness, revolted instantly. She clamped a hand over her mouth and doubled over, retching.

Everything in her stomach came up, all over Vanessa.

Vanessa froze for a few seconds, then let out a piercing scream.

Lorenzo came running. He found Adriana half-collapsed on the floor, dry-heaving, tears squeezed from the corners of her eyes by sheer reflex.

His body moved before his mind caught up. He crossed the room and reached out to help her stand.

Instinct. The kind carved into bone. For a split second, he forgot he was supposed to remember nothing.

Vanessa watched him and felt her chest seize. She cranked up her sobbing.

"Lorenzo, I only asked her how to use the coffee machine, and she threw it at me and vomited on me." Her voice cracked into a pitiful whimper, the answer coming a beat too fast. "I know she doesn't like me. If she wants me gone, I'll go. But why does she have to humiliate me like this?"

Lorenzo's brow furrowed. The concern drained from his face, replaced by cold disgust. His hand left the ring entirely.

"Adriana, you never learn. I told you she's the woman of this house."

Adriana wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes. She looked up at him, and when she spoke, her voice could have cut glass.

"The woman of this house? Whose name is on the alliance pact, Lorenzo? Hers?" She held his gaze without flinching. "Did you forget how to read along with everything else?"

Lorenzo went still. He had never seen this version of Adriana before.

Vanessa recovered first, her smile widening a fraction too far.

"Lorenzo, she's deliberately provoking you. She doesn't respect you at all."

That hit the nerve it was meant to. Fury swallowed whatever was left of Lorenzo's reason.

"Take her outside. She kneels for one hour and thinks about what she's done."

Two enforcers moved immediately, seizing Adriana by the arms. The other associates in the room found somewhere else to look, the way men do when the Don's word turns ugly.

She struggled against their grip, staring at Lorenzo's cold, indifferent face. It overlapped with the face in her memory, the one from before.

The Lorenzo who used to hold her like something precious. Who stayed at her bedside through the night when fever took her. Who noticed every small thing about her.

Who once whispered, in a moment so tender it ached: "Adriana, I'll love you until the day I die."

His love had been so brief.

Numbness and pain crashed through her in equal measure as the enforcers forced her to her knees on the stone outside the front door of the estate.

Then Adriana raised her voice, sharp and clear, aimed straight back into the house.

"Lorenzo Moretti. If you make me kneel out here, and your mother finds out how you've treated me, do you really think your little courier will live to see tomorrow?"

Her voice wasn't loud, but every word landed with absolute certainty.

Lorenzo's eyes narrowed. Carmela Moretti had always stood on Adriana's side.

And the Family's old rules left no room for a woman like Vanessa to set foot through that front door, let alone claim the house as her own. The matriarch had buried better women than her for less.

The air went still. They stared at each other, neither willing to look away.