On the day I was supposed to try on my blood-bound gown beside the man I had been promised to for seven years, I came to the atelier with my heart full of happiness. The boutique was one of the Family's quiet fronts, all silk and shuttered windows, and as I stepped through the door I happened to hear Dario speaking low with one of his men.

"You sealed the union with Lucia before the Family yesterday. At the table, witnessed. And now you're standing here bringing Caterina Russo to try on her gown. You don't worry what she'll do to you when she learns?"

There was a helpless look on Dario's face as he answered in a hoarse voice, "My brother took two bullets on the Carrara road. Lucia is carrying his blood. If I don't step up and take her as my wife, how will they survive inside this life?"

"I'll spend the rest of my days making it up to Caterina. Just keep your mouth shut. She must never know about this," he added.

My heart shattered as the world seemed to collapse around me. Then I turned quietly and made my way to the clinic to arrange the thing I would carry alone. If he could not give a complete bloodline to me and my child, there was no reason to keep the baby.

——

Their conversation had been like an icy dagger piercing through me, extinguishing every bit of joy I'd felt after the report the doctor had handed me that morning.

I had woken excited, slipped out to the clinic to collect the results before anyone in the territory was awake. I couldn't wait to tell him the news to his face here, in this room of white silk. Instead, he hit me with the cruelest truth.

If he was already bound to another woman before the Family, why hold a union with me at all?

I had no time to answer my own question before the atelier's designer came toward me, smiling bright. "Miss Russo, the gown Mr. Falcone commissioned for you has arrived. You can try it on now."

Her words jolted me and pulled me back to the room.

Dario had poured his heart and soul into this union. He had done more than anyone. The ring and the gown had both been drawn and overseen by his own hand, built entirely around what I loved. He had even had words cut into the inside of the band. It read, "Love one another, love without doubt."

I had suggested we hire someone to handle it all, hoping to lighten what he carried. He refused. "Doing it myself is how a man shows he means it," he had said. "I want you to look at these things and always think of me."

When the men of the Family heard, they all praised him. "You'll make a fine husband one day. Caterina, you're a fortunate woman to be promised to him."

Yet who could have imagined that his so-called devotion to me would curdle into something this bitter.

I steadied myself and walked toward the fitting room where the gown was displayed. That was when I saw a familiar figure. Lucia Marchetti.

When she heard the assistant guiding me, she turned and greeted me with a smile, her voice warm and friendly. "Caterina, you're finally here! Come and see how beautiful your gown is!"

Her manner was as easy and kind as ever, like a caring older sister.

Back when Dario's brother still drew breath, I had made the effort to befriend her, brought her small gifts, traded the little confidences women trade, building good ground with the woman I believed would be my sister inside the Family.

If I had not happened to hear what passed between Dario and his man, I would never have imagined she would become the uncrossable wall standing between me and him.

The memory of their voices played again in my mind. My gaze dropped of its own will to her still-flat stomach, and a wave of bitterness welled up inside me.

Whatever else was true, she had a harbor to shelter her. A seat secured. My child and I had no such protection.

With a dark face, I turned my attention to the lovely gown and said, "It really is beautiful. Do you want to try it on?"

The words had barely left my mouth when an incredulous voice cut in. "Caterina, what are you saying? This is your gown. How could you let another woman put it on?"

Dario crossed the room, his tone edged with anger, his eyes full of disapproval.

I stayed calm, my voice indifferent. "What's the harm? I heard Lucia never got to wear a gown when she married your brother. Letting her try it now might make up for that regret."

When Lucia had bound herself to Dario's murdered brother, it had been done in such haste that they only sealed the union before the Family and never held the blood-bound feast. There had been no banquet, no white dress, no witnesses raising their glasses.

Now, with Dario handing her the title of wife, I thought, why not help her fulfill the unspoken dream every bride of the life carries beneath her grief?

Lucia's expression softened when she heard my words. After all, what woman raised inside this world had not once dreamed of standing in the gown, of being looked at like something worth protecting?

Perhaps Dario also felt there was sense in what I'd said, because something shifted behind his eyes and he held his tongue.

Seeing him soften, I caught the hesitation flash across Lucia's face before she asked, tentative as a girl, "Can I really try it on?"

I nodded and gestured for the boutique staff to help her into the gown.

Dario had already dressed in the groom's suit, dark and tailored close, the kind of cut a Falcone wore when the whole territory was watching. When he saw Lucia moving toward the fitting room, he reached up and began loosening his tie as if to change out of it. I stopped him with a single word.

"Lucia is carrying a child. She's already uncomfortable as it is. What if something happens to her and you aren't here to hold her up?"

When he heard that, he went still and stood silently beside me to wait, though the unease in his eyes was vivid as a confession. A man like him did not show his hand often. He was showing it now, and he didn't even know it.

Noticing the change in him, I sneered.

Before long, Lucia emerged from the fitting room on the staff's arm. Her condition hadn't begun to show yet, and her frame was close enough to mine that the gown fit her like it had been cut for her body and no other.

Lucia could not hide the excitement on her face, though she tried to curb it, asking in a small voice, "Dario, how do I look? Is it nice?"

Her voice drew him out of whatever silence he'd sunk into. His gaze, which had rested on her too long, cleared, and he gave a low hum of approval.

Just then another of the staff came near and drew a sharp breath at the sight of her. "Madonna, the gown is stunning on you. The two of you are the most perfect bride and groom I have ever laid eyes on."

The moment the words left her mouth, every face in the room changed. The boutique went quiet in the particular way rooms go quiet in our world, when no one is sure yet who holds the knife.

Lucia threw an anxious glance at Dario, then pressed a hand to her belly a beat too quickly and forced a polite smile. "No, no, you've misunderstood..."

Before she could finish, I clapped my hands together and said it with all the warmth I could pour into a lie. "She's right. Lucia looks absolutely stunning. The dress might as well have been made for her."

How could I not let the whole room appreciate so beautiful a sight?

Hearing me, Dario turned and looked at me with disbelief written plain across his face. He knew me too well. He knew I had always been protective of what was mine, and there was nothing in this world more mine than that gown. Yet now I not only let another woman wear it, I praised her openly, in front of witnesses, where it could not be taken back.

He opened his mouth. "Caterina, you—"

I blinked, innocent as you please, and cut him off, holding his eyes. "Relax. I'm only saying. Anyway, I've just remembered there's something I have to see to. I'll leave the two of you to it."

Without waiting for an answer, I turned and walked straight for the boutique door.

Dario moved to follow me. Lucia's hand shot out and stopped him.

At the door I glanced back once. Dario was easing Lucia toward the fitting room, careful of her, his palm at the small of her back. His touch was gentle and his attention fixed entirely on her, as though no one else existed in his world. As though I had never stood in it at all.

In that moment something in me went still. Was it truly the law of the Family that drove him to take her, the sacred duty to absorb a dead brother's widow, the thing he'd called obligation? Or had he simply fallen for her?

I didn't have the answer. And I had no intention of dishonoring myself before the Family to go looking for one.

The next day I went to the hospital for the examination, as I'd arranged.

When the doctor asked who the child's father was, I answered lightly. "He's busy. He couldn't come."

That morning, when I woke, I had let myself consider telling him about the baby. After several calls that rang into silence, I gave it up.

By the time it was over, I was pale and weak, and I had to lean against the cold wall for support as I made my way out. Something in me had cracked, quietly, where no one could see it.

When I walked into the main lobby, I saw Dario. He was there with Lucia, bringing her in for a prenatal checkup.

When they saw me, they looked dumbfounded. A flicker of surprise crossed Dario's face as he asked, puzzled, "Are you sick? Why are you at the clinic alone?"

Before I could answer, Lucia stepped in. "Caterina, don't take your health lightly just because you're still young. No matter how much the Family keeps you running, you have to take care of yourself. Don't make Dario worry about you."

Her tone carried the warmth of concern, but beneath it sat a subtle distance I couldn't ignore. This was the doctor the Falcones trusted, the one who never wrote anything down and never spoke a word outside these walls. Of course she would bring Lucia here.

I pressed my lips together and answered with a hum. "I've already had my check-up. I just need my medication, then I can go. You two should go ahead with the prenatal exam."

Dario's eyes filled with concern as he started toward me, but Lucia tugged him back by the sleeve.

"Dario, it's almost our turn. Let's go in," she said, rubbing her belly with a wince. "I don't know if it's because I've been overthinking lately, but my stomach hasn't felt right. I'm worried it might affect the baby." Her hand pressed to her belly a moment too quickly.

She leaned on the word baby, and the worry in his eyes dissolved at once. Guilt took its place. "Caterina, you should head home first. I'll come find you after I finish the check-up with Lucia."

I remembered when his brother was still alive, how Dario always called her sister-in-law, the title spoken with the respect a man owed his blood. Now her name came off his tongue with the ease of something already his.

As I looked at the three of them standing together, I couldn't help but realize how much of an outsider I had become. The man who once swore his life on loving me no longer held me in his heart.

I recalled the times he had put me first, no matter what the Family demanded of him. A wave of bitterness welled up in my chest as I choked out, "Alright. You two go ahead."

On the drive home, I stared out the window at the familiar streets flashing past, the same blocks where everyone knew which doors belonged to which name. My mind replayed scenes from a time when we were never apart.

I had known Dario since we were young. Back then he sat beside me, a quiet, studious boy with his nose always in a book, while I was the loud, reckless one. Both of us were children of the life, though neither of us understood yet what that would cost.

My father was always away on the Family's business, and my mother feared I couldn't look after myself, so they kept me close to the school grounds, away from home.

I hated the food they served us, so I always badgered Dario to smuggle me something better from outside. He'd sigh as if I were the great trial of his existence, then always give in. It went on for three years.

After that, we naturally ended up at the same university.

Having known him so long, I couldn't help but lean on him in that unfamiliar place, drawing comfort and steadiness from him. I relied on him for everything, and he never seemed to tire of it.

My mother used to scold me. She said it wasn't right to lean on someone so heavily. I shrugged her words off and repeated them to Dario, half laughing.

He set down his pen and said, easy as anything, "Do you really think I'm some kind of pushover? Caterina, if I didn't want you, I wouldn't bother with you at all."

His feelings for me were never hidden. I had known from the very start. So I shamelessly basked in everything he gave.

When we finally became each other's, his devotion only grew bolder. With him beside me, I felt untouchable, as if nothing in this world, not even the men who came and went from my father's table, could ever reach me.

Knowing all he had done for me, my mother used to joke that the hardest thing I would ever face in life was a day's work.

But now I knew she was wrong. The hardest thing I would ever face wasn't work. It was that the man I loved had sealed his union with another woman before the Family, and I was the last one to know.

Tears blurred my vision as the memories ran on, and by the time I noticed, my face was already soaked.

The driver glanced at me in the mirror and passed back a tissue. "There's no hurdle you can't get over, signorina. Keep moving forward. Good fortune's waiting just up the road."

I took the tissue and thanked him through my sobbing.

After I paid the fare, I was about to call someone to unload all of it when I absently opened my phone. That was when I saw Lucia's latest post, put up just five minutes ago.