After ten years of loving him, the man I had waited for finally came home.

Luca DeLuca had returned from service. Not military service the way civilians understood it. He had done violent, quiet work for the Family overseas, the kind no one discussed at Sunday dinner, and now he was back with honors, debts settled, his name spoken with respect in rooms I would never be allowed to enter.

Everyone said he had come back to marry me.

I believed it too.

I believed that after ten years of separation, longing, and waiting, I had finally reached the ending I had dreamed of.

Until I opened his old phone.

Inside, I found 512 gigabytes of messages. Every single one was for another woman. Even though she had blocked him long ago, even though every message he sent was marked with a cold red exclamation point, he still kept sending them.

Long letters.

Voice messages.

Videos of him confessing his love.

Words of longing so deep they almost sounded desperate.

He had poured into her all the tenderness I had waited ten years to receive.

With a heart heavy enough to sink, I went to the clinic to collect my premarital checkup report. The Bellandi family used a private Catholic hospital on the Upper East Side, discreet physicians who knew how to keep their mouths shut and their records clean. The kind of place where Family business stayed Family business.

But the moment I stepped into the lobby, I saw him.

Luca, the man who had always hated being watched, was kneeling on one knee in the middle of the bustling hospital hall. He held a ring in his hand. His back was straight, his expression solemn, his entire body radiating a determination I had once thought would be reserved for me.

And in front of him stood Serafina Gallo.

The woman he had never been able to forget.

The woman who had once nearly destroyed me.

His voice trembled as he looked up at her.

"Serafina, I gave up my dreams for you. I only ask one thing. Keep the child."

His eyes were red, filled with affection so deep it almost hurt to look at.

"If you agree, we can go before the priest right now."

For a moment, I could not breathe.

That ring in his hand was exactly the one I had imagined countless times in my dreams. I had once pictured him kneeling before me with it. I had imagined the surprise, the tears, the applause, the moment he would finally say he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me.

But now, that ring was not meant for me.

"Serafina," he begged, his voice almost breaking, "please keep the child and marry me. Will you?"

Serafina lowered her eyes, gently touching her stomach with one hand. Her fingers smoothed the front seam of her dress three quick times, precise and practiced, before she slowly extended her other hand toward him.

Luca slid the ring onto her finger.

The ring I had dreamed of for years now gleamed on another woman's hand.

The crowd erupted into cheers. Whistles echoed through the lobby. They embraced and kissed passionately beneath everyone's gaze, while every sound around me sliced into my heart like a blade.

I looked down at the checkup report in my hand. Beside it was my pregnancy test report.

Then, without hesitation, I tore them both to pieces.

Three years ago, I had also been carrying an heir.

Back then, Luca told me that having a child outside the alliance would complicate his standing. The timing was wrong. His position within the DeLuca Family was still rising, and an unplanned birth before the formal ceremony would give the Capos something to whisper about. So he abandoned our first child.

He returned to his work for the Family as if nothing had happened.

I went through the surgery alone. I stayed in the hospital alone. I endured the pain alone. I mourned that child alone.

That child had died three years ago.

And perhaps, my love for Luca had died with it.

He had never once stopped for my child. But for Serafina and her child, he was willing to give up the lifelong dream he had once valued above everything.

So what were my child and I?

A joke.

A cruel, humiliating joke.

And the child now in my womb only made that joke even more unbearable.

After scheduling the procedure, I walked out of the hospital and got into my car. The driver Theo Marlowe had assigned me was off duty. I was alone. But before I could pull away, I saw Luca and Serafina in the parking lot.

Their voices drifted over clearly.

"Luca," Serafina said, "if you really want to marry me, you have two choices."

"Either cancel your engagement, or make Bianca my ceremonial attendant."

My hand froze on the steering wheel.

Luca's voice came after a short pause. His thumb dragged once along the scar at his jaw.

"Canceling the arrangement isn't appropriate. I don't want people talking about you. The families would lose face."

Serafina immediately said, "Then make Bianca my attendant."

I slowly eased my foot off the accelerator.

A strange curiosity rose in me. I wanted to know whether Luca, the man who had always claimed to be upright, honorable, a man of his word, would agree to such a ridiculous demand.

The next second, he laughed.

"Alright, you little troublemaker. Now you can rest easy and marry me, right?"

My heart sank completely.

Serafina was still not satisfied.

"But you have to tell her on the wedding day. If she runs away, I won't have an attendant."

Luca's tone was calm, even indulgent.

"Don't worry. She owes me her life."

"She has been under my protection for ten years. Now that I've finally found someone I want to protect for the rest of my life, asking her for this small favor will preserve her dignity. She'll agree."

She owes me her life.

A small favor.

Preserve her dignity.

Every word struck me like a slap.

So in his eyes, ten years of my waiting, my love, my devotion, and my sacrifices were nothing more than a debt I owed him. A blood debt, the kind this world never let you forget. He thought I should stand at his alliance ceremony as Serafina's attendant. He thought I should watch him marry the woman he truly loved and still smile as if I were grateful.

They leaned against the pillar and kissed, lost in each other as if the entire world had disappeared.

And with that kiss, the last fragile piece of my heart was torn apart.

I pulled the key from the ignition and sat there in silence.

For a long time, I could not move. My body felt hollow, as if all strength had been drained from me. The parking garage was cold and smelled of concrete and exhaust. Somewhere deeper in the structure a car door closed, the sound echoing off stone walls like a gunshot in a chapel.

They kissed all the way to their car. Then they drove away.

Only after their car disappeared did I finally force myself to breathe.

With trembling hands, I called my uncle.

The moment the call connected, I said, "Marlowe, does your company still hire useless people?"

My voice was hoarse.

"I need you to take me in."

Theo Marlowe was surprised at first, then delighted.

"You finally don't want to keep waiting for that man anymore?"

I lowered my eyes and looked at the pile of herbal prescriptions beside me. For months, I had taken those bitter medicines to prepare my body for pregnancy. Every bowl had been hard to swallow. But I had endured it because I thought I was preparing for our future.

Now, every prescription looked like a mockery.

My chest tightened with grief.

"Marriage and children aren't everything," I said softly. "Building a career and staying with family are what truly matter."

My uncle had witnessed my ten-year marathon of love. He knew better than anyone how stubbornly I had waited. So he teased me, but his voice carried warmth.

"Then I'll arrange for you to go abroad. Once you arrive, I'll keep you so busy with the front operations you won't even have time to think about him."

Then his tone turned serious. I heard the faint sound of him removing his glasses, and the slow, deliberate friction of cloth on a single lens.

"The man you waited ten years for, the man who promised to give you a home, how much could he really love you?"

"You were only ever his backup plan."

"With us by your side, there's no obstacle you can't get through."

If I had not seen those love messages, I might have defended Luca without hesitation. I might have told my uncle with absolute certainty that Luca was my soulmate. That he loved me. That he was only slow to express it. That our ten years had meaning.

But the truth was, those ten years of love had been nothing but a cruel joke.

On my way to the hospital earlier, I still could not understand why he had betrayed me. I could not understand why the man who was supposed to marry me had hidden so much longing for another woman. But the moment I saw him proposing to Serafina, everything suddenly made sense.

He had not come home from service to marry me.

He had come home to marry her.

For years, I had feared that the distance between us might change him. I had feared that during those long separations, he might fall in love with someone else. But I never imagined that person would be Serafina.

And to win her over, he had even agreed to humiliate me at their ceremony.

The thoughts tangled violently in my mind. My vision blurred. I could not focus on the road.

By the time I snapped back to reality, it was already too late.

I slammed on the brakes.

A harsh crash sounded behind me.

My car was rear-ended. My body jolted forward, and I gripped the steering wheel tightly, my heart pounding so fast it felt like it might tear through my chest.

Just then, my phone rang.

The screen showed Luca's name.

I pressed my thumb to the pulse inside my wrist until my breathing steadied, then stared at it for a few seconds before answering.

His voice came through, calm and familiar, as if nothing had happened.

"Bianca, the doctor said you've already picked up the checkup report."

He paused.

"Where are you?"

Car horns blared from every direction, sharp and chaotic, dragging me violently back from my thoughts.

Only then did I realize my hands were trembling.

I clutched my stomach instinctively, my fingers digging into the fabric of my clothes. Fear spread through me in waves, cold and suffocating, leaving me unable to speak.

On the other end of the phone, Luca seemed to notice something was wrong. His voice tightened immediately.

"Bianca, that doesn't sound right. Did you get into an accident?"

The concern in his tone was unmistakable.

Once, that kind of worry would have made my heart soften. I would have believed it meant he cared about me, that somewhere beneath his restraint and silence, he still loved me.

But now, I knew better.

Luca was simply that kind of person. He was righteous by nature. He could not ignore anyone in danger. His concern had nothing to do with love.

I lowered my eyes and said quietly, "I was in a car accident."

His breathing changed at once.

"Don't be scared. Where are you? I'm coming right now!"

His voice was urgent, filled with anxiety.

But by the time he arrived, stepping out of the black sedan with Serafina beside him, the traffic cops had already finished handling everything.

When Luca saw that I was not injured, the relief on his face was obvious.

But my gaze did not stay on him.

It landed on Serafina.

She was sitting beside him so naturally, as if that seat had always belonged to her. One of his soldiers held the door for her the way they held doors for family.

A dull ache spread through my chest.

I looked at Luca and asked calmly, "When did the two of you become so close?"