On the day we were supposed to swear our blood oath, Marco Greco didn't show.

I opened the app and saw the couple video he'd posted with my closest confidante exactly one minute ago.

The two of them in a tailored suit and a wedding gown, kissing on a sweeping green lawn behind some estate that wasn't ours. They looked exactly like a couple.

With a trembling hand, I tapped the like button.

The next second, Marco called.

"It was just a dress shoot I was helping her with. Don't read into it."

Telling me not to read into it. Again.

But this was the 108th couple video they'd filmed together.

"Sure. You two make quite the pair."

Marco went quiet for a moment, then said in an innocent voice,

"Babe, what's that supposed to mean? Those videos are all fake."

"You know I've never gotten along with the woman who shares your social circle. You know that, don't you?"

"I only helped her out for your sake."

My voice caught. "But today was the day we agreed to seal it. I waited for you a long time…"

He clicked his tongue and cut me off, careless and offhand.

"We can swear the oath any day. Why are you being so petty? Jealous of your own confidante now?"

"Be good. We'll talk when I get back."

The call ended, and it felt like my fist had landed in cotton.

But I'd heard her clearly, right there beside him, cooing his name in that sweet little voice.

I drew in a deep breath.

The oath could be sworn any day.

But Marco, the man I bind myself to doesn't have to be you.

…

I dragged my numb body home, back through the quiet streets of the territory he ruled only because I'd handed it to him in the dark.

Marco still wasn't back.

I sat down in the entryway and pulled up Gianna Romano's profile.

The couple videos of her and Marco. I'd watched them more times than I could count.

In them they laughed and teased and played, tender and sweet together.

The laughter echoed through this empty, silent house. A clock ticked somewhere down the hall, too loud.

Like a curse wound tight around me, impossible to shake.

All at once I felt like I didn't quite recognize this Marco anymore.

He'd never claimed our bond to anyone, anywhere, all because he said he didn't like being flashy, that he wanted to build his crew first, earn his respect before drawing eyes.

There wasn't a single photo of the two of us in the house, all because he said he didn't like having his picture taken, that he hated being on camera. A man in his world, he said, learned to leave no trace.

I still remember when we'd first gotten together. I bought a camera, wanting to capture our everyday life.

But the moment I aimed the lens at him, he frowned.

He swung his hand in anger, and the camera fell to the floor, the lens shattered, the whole thing ruined.

We didn't speak for a long time after that, and from then on, we never took another photo together.

I loved him.

I carefully remembered everything he liked and disliked.

I respected every one of his wishes.

And what I got in return was him flaunting his devotion with someone else,

him taking sweet couple photos with someone else.

And that someone else was the woman I'd trusted closest to me…

The sound of the door opening came, and my heart seemed to stop for an instant.

Marco was home.

"Adriana Valente? Why are you sitting there?"

His tone was gentle as water, as if nothing had happened at all.

I didn't answer.

He pressed on, patient. "Are you hungry? I brought dinner home for you."

He gave a little shake of the paper bag in his hand, the restaurant's logo printed on it.

A restaurant I'd mentioned many times, one I loved.

But we'd never gone together.

Because Marco always said he was too busy, always said we'd go some other time.

Something flashed through my mind, and I asked him, my voice shaking. "This restaurant, who did you go with?"

He froze for a beat, a flicker of guilt crossing his eyes. One hand rose, and he cracked his knuckles, slow, deliberate.

"Gianna said she wanted to shoot some footage…"

I tugged at the corner of my mouth in a bitter smile, my fingertips gone numb.

Again.

Going on dates like a real couple, all under the excuse of filming content.

He'd had no time for our place, the little trattoria where the owner knew to seat us in the back. Yet he'd taken someone else there.

"I'm not hungry. You eat."

Marco's voice dropped, light and offhand, the way a made man talks down a debt he has no intention of paying. "Adriana, what exactly are you throwing a fit about? Because I helped Gianna shoot a video and didn't go seal the pact with you?"

I lifted my eyes to him in disbelief, the words I wanted to say lodged in my throat, tears sliding from the corners of my eyes.

His accusations and reproaches poured out without stopping.

"I met Gianna because you introduced us. You were the one who didn't want to see your man and your closest confidante constantly at each other's throats, so you told us to get along."

"Now you've gotten what you wanted, and suddenly you're jealous?"

"Have I spoiled you too much, that you've turned this petty?"

"You know perfectly well the bridal photos were for the network, that the kiss was just an angle."

"Adriana Valente, what more do you want from me?"

Right. What more did I want?

Wasn't it all because of you?

Why was I always making such an unreasonable scene?

I kept my head down, tears dripping, dripping onto the floor.

Breathing had become difficult.

It felt like a piece of candy had lodged in my throat, something I couldn't swallow and couldn't spit out, something that would finally choke me to death.

The paper bag hit the floor with a slap. In a house where men measured every sound, that one landed like a verdict.

Marco and I stayed silent for what felt like a century.

In the end, he grabbed his coat and left.

He didn't come home all night,

and I didn't sleep all night.

When the sky was just turning pale, I found myself opening Gianna's page again, the one every social club in the territory whispered over.

She'd posted a new clip: her and Marco sitting side by side on the balcony, talking.

The footage was sped up. The two of them had talked from dark of night nearly all the way to dawn.

Over these past few years, Marco and I had spoken less and less, our silent standoffs growing more and more frequent.

I'd assumed it was the work, the endless grind of tribute and territory that had turned us into this.

But a long time ago we'd had so much to say to each other, too, enough that it seemed it could never run out in a lifetime.

I stared blankly at the screen, my heart as if a great hole had been hollowed out of it.

All those things he hadn't said to me, in the end he'd said to someone else.

It took me a long while to calm down before I called my mother.

"Mamma… I miss you so much."

She sensed something was wrong. The Donna always did. "Adriana, what is it? Did you and Marco have a fight?"

My nose stung, and I forced myself to speak. "I want to come home."

She sighed, and I heard the slow turn of my father's ring against her finger, the way she'd worn it since the day she buried the man and took his empire. "I never agreed to you being with him in the first place."

"Back then you said you'd follow him no matter what. You gave up your blood, your name, your place at my right hand, just to go and play his courier. You, the heir to everything I built, who couldn't so much as boil water, for his sake…"

I'd loved him too fiercely back then. I hadn't listened to my mother, certain our love would stay the way it was forever.

"Adriana," she stopped bringing up the past, "if you're tired, then come home. Your mother will always be behind you."

I choked up. "Okay."

I packed a few things and set out for the crew's office to withdraw my protection, to file the kind of leaving that, in our world, no one simply does.

Marco had never leaned on a Family. He'd built everything from nothing, or so the soldiers under him believed.

Back then, to be with him, I'd even cut ties with my own mother, with the Valente name and all the weight it carried.

Thinking about it now, I had been so utterly, absurdly wrong.

Gianna had only been a minor face in the social scene at the time, a girl who traded on rumor with no real standing.

When she and Marco first met, the two of them couldn't exchange more than a few words without it turning into a fight.

Gianna blamed Marco for stealing me away from her;

Marco, in turn, hated how she was always urging me to walk away from him.

Then one of their photos together happened to make the rounds, passed from phone to phone through every club and back room in Seaford.

A handsome man and a beautiful woman. The whole network lost their heads pairing the two of them.

Gianna's circle of gossip contacts swelled overnight, and Marco's crew rode the wave too, its reputation rising until the silent partners came knocking and the tribute flowed like it never had before.

At first I hadn't thought much of it, until Marco, for the sake of filming with Gianna, ignored me time and time again, until everyone in the territory believed the two of them were the real thing.

Until I became the mouse in the corner, looking up at the happy life the two of them shared.

I cried, I made scenes, but every time Marco brushed me off, the words were the same: Isn't this all for the crew? Isn't it all so I can give you a good life?

All of it for me.

The unspoken pressure pressed down on me like a heavy lid clamped over my head, smothering me until I couldn't breathe.

But the way I saw it, these were all just excuses.

For the sake of impressing the men who whispered his name in the social clubs, Marco took her to Tahiti, the place he had promised me countless times and never delivered on, the place he was supposed to take me; for the sake of being talked about, he chartered more than a dozen cars to crawl the city for her birthday, and forgot that the same night was our fourth anniversary together, the night I waited and waited for him in vain.

There was so much, so much, that even now, looking back, still leaves me aching and bitter.

By the time I reached the office above the front, Marco was already inside. I slipped my withdrawal letter beneath a stack of ledgers, and Marco, without looking closely, signed it.

Just as I was about to leave, Marco called me back.

He took a velvet box out of the drawer. He opened it, and inside was a glittering aquamarine necklace.

His voice was unusually gentle. "Do you like it? I bought it specially for you."

My heart gave a sudden tremor.

It had been a long time since he last gave me a gift. Let alone bowed his head to apologize to me first.

Before I knew how to begin, Marco's phone buzzed. A message from Gianna.

【So how'd it go, Marco? Did Adriana like that necklace? I've got pretty good taste in gifts, don't I?】

The air froze.

I tugged weakly at the corner of my mouth. So it turned out even the gift meant for me was picked by someone else.

I pushed the box back toward him. "No need. Take it back."

In the past, I would have gotten angry at Marco all over again, but today my heart was strangely calm.

Gianna had been part of my relationship with Marco for far too long, far too deeply. Even in the smallest corners.

The body wash at home had suddenly changed scent, and Marco said Gianna had recommended it, that it smelled wonderful; new sheets and bedding had appeared in the closet, and again Marco said Gianna had recommended this material and pattern, that it was so comfortable, so beautiful.

I don't know when it started, but in his eyes my thoughts and feelings had already come to count for less than a single offhand word from Gianna.

Marco frowned, silent for a moment. Before he could speak, Gianna's next message came through.

【Or maybe I should buy you two some little toys? Didn't you say Adriana loves……】

The voice message wasn't even finished before Marco cut it off.

My whole body went rigid, unable to believe what I'd just heard. My lips went numb. "Marco, you told her even what happens between us in bed?"

Marco was visibly thrown. He cracked the knuckles of one hand, slow, then the other. "Adriana, don't get the wrong idea, I can explain."

There was clearly mockery and teasing in Gianna's voice message.

I couldn't help a cold laugh. What had I become?

"I don't want to hear your explanation, and I'm not something you two can joke about however you please."

But Marco suddenly frowned. "Is it really that serious, Adriana? Gianna's your friend too, not some outsider. What's so wrong about talking about it? Do you really have to be this petty?"

My eyes stung, and I curled my fingers.

"Even now, you still think I'm just throwing a tantrum," I stared at Marco and said, word by word, "Marco, let's break up."

"What did you say?"

Marco's face went livid, the room going still around him the way a club goes quiet when the wrong man walks in. "Adriana, I dare you to say that again."

"I said, let's break up."

Marco tilted his head back against the sofa, pinching the bridge of his nose wearily.