While the associate under our protection let his hands wander over me, Salvatore Falcone sat across the room, sharing a love-knot toast with his courier.

To keep from insulting a man whose silence we needed, I drank until the liquor turned to poison in me, until I was so sick I could barely breathe.

Salvatore never spared me a single glance. He was too busy picking the cilantro out of her bowl, murmuring for her to be a good girl and finish her food.

When the dinner ended and his courier said she was bored, he had me put out of the car so he could take her somewhere else for the night.

"The poor thing's been running herself ragged. I'm taking her out to unwind."

"You wouldn't understand the kind of thing young people enjoy, so don't tag along."

"And I intend to make sure she has a good night, so the union before the Family can wait another day."

We had held the wedding five years ago, before the whole table of capos and their wives, and this was the ninety-ninth time Salvatore had decided, alone, to put off binding our names in blood before the Family.

I nodded. If he was always this busy, then there truly was no need to bind that name at all.

…

Through the half-lowered window, Vittoria Marchetti stuck out her tongue and offered me her apology.

"So sorry, Adriana! It's just that Salvatore spoils me far too much. When he's back, I'll make him bring you a late-night plate!"

Before I could answer, Salvatore laughed and patted her head.

"Silly girl. Just because you're a greedy little thing, you think the whole world is like you?"

"Don't mind her, cara. The last thing I need is for you to eat something and start crying poison and allergies again. I don't have the patience for that act."

So it wasn't that he hadn't seen how sick I'd been. He had simply assumed, again, that I was faking it out of jealousy.

On any other night, by now I would have broken down sobbing, scrambling to explain myself, clawing at him for an answer.

This time, I said nothing. I left him with one line.

"Fine. Have fun, you two."

Salvatore froze for a beat. His right hand opened and closed once at his side, the hand that had built his whole legend, as if testing whether it still answered to him. Then he slid back into that teasing tone. "Good. As long as you don't make a scene."

The car pulled away. Right before they left, worried Vittoria might feel stuffy, he thoughtfully rolled every window all the way down.

I get carsick easily. Worst of all in Salvatore's car.

But he never once lowered a window for me.

"The wind drags dust through the whole car. Can you stop being so high-maintenance for once?"

It all came clear in my chest, quiet and final. I slipped the wedding band off my finger, the band of a name I was never given, and threw it into the black river below.

Early the next morning, I went to the Greco club to hand off my work.

From the day Salvatore first rose as the prodigy crowned too young, I had stood at his shoulder, the strategist who built the Falcone Family from shadow, the whole way.

"You're walking away from the Family? Does Salvatore know?" The old Don looked stunned. In our world, a thing like that should not be survivable.

"He'll learn soon enough, once his new consigliera arrives."

With that, I walked out of the back office and through the club toward the main hall, soldiers stepping aside as I passed.

I ran straight into Salvatore, in a fresh shirt, the warm scent of soap still clinging to him.

He rolled his wrist between his fingers and looked down at me.

"I had too much to drink last night. It wasn't safe to drive, so I took a room and slept it off alone. That's why I didn't come home."

It was the first time in ten years Salvatore had offered me an explanation without being asked.

I nodded and said nothing.

"You were called in for something this morning?" he asked.

I lifted my eyes to him, remembering how, the morning after every dinner like that, I would be up by five or six, laying out a whole table of broths and tonics to settle his head and his stomach.

It had been that way since he first took his place at eighteen, so I couldn't fault him for being puzzled, coming home to nothing this morning.

I only nodded. "Something like that."

I turned to go, and Salvatore, who had been frowning faintly this whole time, caught my hand, his face going dark.

"Adriana Costa, that's enough already."

"I'm only moving the date for binding our names. It's not as if I'm calling it off. There's no point throwing a fit over this!"

I hadn't made a scene, though. And I truly had no intention of going through with the union before the Family anymore.

I figured I might as well lay it all out plainly. I was about to answer when a syrupy voice, laced with a pouty little complaint, cut across the room.

"Salvatore! It's all your fault!"

"That thing you had brought to me this morning was the totally wrong size!"

"There's no way it's enough for daily use! You're such a hopeless man when it comes to this!"

A short distance away, Vittoria stood with her hands on her hips, stamping her feet, her cheeks puffed out in irritation.

The moment Salvatore saw her, he shoved past me and crossed the floor, sweeping Vittoria up into his arms. Two soldiers near the door dropped their eyes and pretended to study the windows.

His tone was urgent, stern.

"It's a delicate time of the month and you're running around barefoot on the floor? Do you have a death wish?"

Fragments surfaced in my mind.

Earlier this month, when my cramps were so bad I was curled up in bed, I'd asked Salvatore to send one of his men to pick up some pads and painkillers for me.

He'd frowned. "You want one of my men running an errand like that? My name's on him."

"It's something every woman goes through. Just grit your teeth and deal with it. What a hassle."

By the time I came back to myself, Salvatore had already carried Vittoria off down the corridor.

I pulled my gaze away, pressed down the dull ache in my chest, and picked up my phone to reach the old Don of the Greco Syndicate, who had been trying for months to bring me into his organization across the water.

Once the crossing was arranged, a post surfaced. Vittoria had tagged me in it on purpose.

In the looping clip, a large hand slowly moved over her lower belly.

In the background came her sigh.

"Salvatore, your hand is so warm~"

The caption read: 【My hopeless sweetheart felt so bad about my cramps he swore he'd chase all the pain away! Being held in a man's palm like this feels just too good~】

The girl's intentions couldn't have been more obvious.

I gave it a like, then went back to my own feed and took down the photograph of Salvatore and me from the night we were supposed to be bound before the Family.

……

A visiting Don and his people were sitting down at the estate today, a joint affair between the two houses on neutral ground.

Most of the arrangements being handed off still needed me to oversee them for now.

I was the one receiving the guests, leading them to the lounge to get settled first.

The whole party trailed after me, and the first thing they spotted was Salvatore inside, feeding Vittoria at the dining table.

"We'd heard ages ago that the Falcone prodigy took his own consigliera, Adriana Costa, into his bed and his confidence, but I never imagined the two of them were this devoted."

"And those hands of his are the most precious thing he owns. The legend was built on them. Yet here he is, using them to pick out food for his woman."

That was true. For a man like him, those hands were everything. They were the legend itself.

Which was why, for ten years, I'd handled every last thing for him, terrified something might so much as graze them.

And him? Now he was using those same hands to wait on another woman, hand and foot.

The stream of admiration beside me finally carried over to the two of them.

The moment Vittoria saw me at the head of the party, she put on a wounded face and started in.

"Adriana, look at Salvatore. He keeps forcing me to eat liver. He's fed me until I've gotten chubby."

Salvatore didn't even glance at me as he gently wiped the corner of Vittoria's mouth.

"Be good. Finish this, and then drink the ginger tea too."

The chatter around me died abruptly. I met their awkward stares and kept smiling as I showed them to their seats.

Once everyone was settled, I took out my phone and went on arranging my papers for the crossing into Greco territory.

I didn't know when Salvatore had appeared behind me.

He saw my screen, his expression hardening, his voice low and puzzled.

"Papers for crossing? Whose territory are you crossing into?"

Before I could decide how to answer, he suddenly grabbed my hand, the shock in his voice spilling over.

"Adriana Costa, where's your band? The band of my name?"

"Don't tell me you left it sitting at the estate!"

I knew exactly why he reacted that way.

In eight years bound to him, the band he'd finally given me had never once left my finger.

Yet his own? He'd never worn it before the Family, not even once.

Put it together with everything else, and something flickered behind Salvatore Falcone's eyes. Unease. The kind a Don can't afford to let his men see.

He gripped my hand so hard it hurt, his stare boring into me. "Say something!"

I was about to tell him the truth when Vittoria suddenly shrieked and burst into tears.

"Ahh! It hurts so much, Salvatore, sob, sob, sob—"

Every soldier in the room turned toward the sound. Vittoria had crumpled to the marble floor beside the long table, her open palm split by a fresh, bleeding cut.

Salvatore shoved me aside and crossed the room to her, gathering her into his arms.

"How could you be so careless!"

Tears streamed down Vittoria's face as she burrowed into his chest.

She stole a few glances my way, all wounded innocence and fear.

"I don't know either, sob, sob, Adriana was supposed to have checked everything last night. Vittoria doesn't understand why there'd be such a big shard of glass left on the table—"

"Sob, sob, Salvatore, Vittoria's really in so much pain—"

Salvatore's gaze landed on the bloodstained glass on the polished wood, and the fury rose plain on his face. The men along the wall went very still, the way men do when the temperature in a room drops.

A second later he wheeled on me, roaring.

"Adriana Costa, are you so consumed by scheming now that you'd actually draw blood under my own roof!"

"Get over here and answer for it, now!"

Ignoring the contempt in every pair of eyes around me, I walked up to the two of them.

"I didn't do it."

"If not you, then who! Every man in this Family knows how you keep your hand on everything. My table is always set in order by you, isn't it!"

Done shouting, Salvatore snatched a small ceramic figurine from beside the wine and smashed it against the floor.

Then he grabbed my hands and pressed them down onto the shards scattered across the marble.

Both my hands went bloody in an instant, countless splinters driving into my flesh.

"This is your lesson this time! No one in this house lifts a finger to help her."

"I'll wait until you've reflected properly. Come and answer for it when you've thought it through!"

With that, Salvatore scooped Vittoria up and walked out without a backward glance, his right hand flexing once at his side as he went, as if testing whether it still answered to him.

My eyes stung against my will, my vision blurring.

My tears fell, drop by drop, onto the broken ceramic.

The wounds hurt. My chest hurt worse, until I could barely breathe.

The two little figures on the ornament had shattered apart, and the blessing charm tucked inside spilled out.

This ornament was the one Salvatore had brought back from the old country, blessed by a priest, the day he swore himself to me before God and no one else.

Back then that young man had eyes only for me. He'd said:

"Adriana, I've made a vow before God. We'll be together for the rest of our lives."

And now, it was his own hands that had broken that vow.

I gathered up every last shard, and along with my memories and the last scraps of my reluctance to let go, I threw them all into the trash. My fist closed once around my bare ring finger, around the place where the band of his name should have sat all these years.

As I passed through the main hall, Salvatore had just finished his showing before the Family.

The room thundered with the low approval of made men, glasses raised, heads inclined. Salvatore, radiant with triumph, stepped down, took Vittoria's hand, and led her back up to stand before them all and accept the respect.

This, a Don's most glorious moment, was something Salvatore had lived through many times.

Not long ago I'd happened to overhear the old Don of the Greco Syndicate ask him, "Adriana poured her heart and soul into building your name all these years. She is your consigliera and your wife both, so why have you never once led her out to stand and take that respect at your side?"