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.

"Walk away? You want to walk away over something this trivial?"

He looked at me, eyes bloodshot, disgust and impatience all but spilling over.

And yet, when we first swore ourselves to each other, I had been his whole world, his gaze full of love whenever it landed on me.

Marco said flatly, "Adriana, you really are getting more and more boring."

My eyes drifted past him to the glass wall behind his desk, the city's harbor lights smeared cold across it.

Today I was in another plain dark suit, having rushed out without even bothering with my face, faint shadows still smudged under my eyes.

I did look boring.

I asked him, "Then who, in your eyes, counts as interesting?"

Marco blanked for a second and didn't answer.

His phone screen was still open to his messages with Gianna, the wallpaper a photo of the two of them at some seaside resort.

In the light they were laughing in matching colors, cheek pressed to cheek, bright and vivid.

Marco had probably forgotten that we used to be just as warm.

So this was what they called the thrill of something new.

"Marco, do you have any idea? While you and Gianna were off playing on the coast, I was sitting across a table from a tributary associate who could have buried this whole crew, drinking until my stomach bled just to keep him loyal."

"While the two of you had candlelit dinners in places men kill to be seen in, I was alone in this office past midnight, no time to eat, gnawing on cold bread."

"So I'm boring because my head is full of the Family's business, and Gianna's interesting because she travels the world eating and laughing on your arm. Is that it?"

Marco softened his voice. "Adriana... it's not like that..."

"Let's both just calm down, all right? I don't agree to ending this."

He came to my side, reaching out to pull me into his arms, the old possessive gesture of a man marking what he believed was still his.

But all I felt for him now was revulsion.

I shoved him away hard, repulsed, and turned to find that the office door had opened at some point.

Gianna stood there, already crying her eyes out.

"I heard everything. You're leaving him because of me? Adriana, if you have to blame someone, blame me. It's all my fault. Don't be angry with Marco." Two fingers pressed to the hollow of her throat, as if the words had wounded her there.

Marco watched her tears, and pain flickered through his eyes.

"Gianna, this has nothing to do with you."

I just found it absurd.

Gianna walked over and grabbed my hand. "Adriana, it's all my fault. Will you forgive me? Please don't fight because of me, all right?"

Marco chimed in too. "That's enough, Adriana. Gianna already apologized. It's all a misunderstanding. There's no need to be so harsh with her. Isn't she the closest friend of this house?"

I looked at the scene in front of me and let out a cold scoff. "Marco, I'll say it again. We're done. I'll let the two of you have each other."

Marco's brow knotted, but before he could speak, Gianna burst into tears and ran out.

His eyes chased after her wronged little figure, frantic, his anger boiling over. "Adriana, is this what you wanted? Are you happy now that you've blown everything up like this? You've gone too far."

The moment the words left his mouth, he spun around in a panic to chase after Gianna.

The door slammed shut.

The vast, empty office was left with me alone again, only the faint hum of the city beneath the glass and the distant clink of the front-business floor below.

I smiled bitterly. It was fine. I was used to it by now.

Between Gianna and me, he would always put Gianna first.

I went back to my desk. The crew who'd been gawking from across the floor all lowered their heads, the way men do when they sense rank shifting and don't yet know which way to bow.

"What's going on? Isn't the boss's woman Gianna? How did Adriana get dragged into this?"

"No idea. These tangles are such a mess. But Gianna and the boss really are easy to root for."

"Right? You don't think Adriana's the other woman, do you?"

"Hmph. Who knows."

I reached up and slipped one earring free, setting it down on the desk with absolute care.

I gave myself three days to erase every trace of myself from this operation and from the home we'd shared, to withdraw the protection he never knew he stood on, and then leave this territory for good.