On my wedding day, the day the Valente and Greco bloodlines were meant to be joined, my betrothed Marco Greco broke the alliance.

In front of every made man and matriarch gathered in that church, he took Bianca Falcone's hand and announced, loud and clear, that she was the bride he actually wanted to marry.

My father, the old Don Valente, was so enraged that his old illness flared up on the spot. They rushed him to a Family-controlled clinic, but nothing could save him, and he died.

In the darkest hour of my life, only one other man from the old bloodlines stayed by my side, Lorenzo Bianchi.

He comforted me, encouraged me, and pulled me out of the lowest point of my life.

In the end, I married him.

Seven years of marriage. We treated each other with respect and tenderness, the model couple every Family in the Territory envied.

When I got pregnant, I thought I was the happiest woman alive, about to become a mother.

Until the night before the Christmas sit-down, when I happened to see the messages on his phone with a man he trusted.

"Lorenzo, if Adriana Valente ever found out that the baby in her belly is actually your child with Bianca Falcone, how heartbroken would she be!"

"Don't forget, seven years ago, you and Marco already hurt her once."

Lorenzo sent back a careless little smiley face. "Relax, she'll never find out."

"Last time I told her it was just a small procedure. Everything at the clinic is already handled by our own people. There's no way it'll come out."

"Bianca's health is fragile. A pregnancy would be too dangerous for her."

"Once the baby is born, I'll cut off all ties with Bianca for good."

"I'll spend the rest of my life loving Adriana properly. Consider it my way of making it up to her."

I was trembling all over, tears sliding down my face.

So seven years of a loving marriage had all been an illusion.

Lorenzo was no different from Marco. The one he loved was never me. It was Bianca Falcone.

Since he didn't love me.

I would simply step aside on my own and let them have each other.

……

Not long after I set the phone back exactly where it had been, Lorenzo came out of the bathroom.

I lay in bed, pretending to watch the television.

A familiar wave of his cologne drifted toward me, the scent of expensive leather beneath it.

Lorenzo gazed at me with tender affection, his hand settling on my slightly rounded waist.

"Adriana, it's been hard holding back all these days, hasn't it?"

His voice was low and suggestive, and just as his warm lips came down toward mine, I pushed him away.

Lorenzo looked utterly taken aback.

"Adriana, what's wrong?"

In all our years of marriage, it was the first time I'd ever refused him, so he was stunned.

I answered flatly, "I just don't want to hurt the baby."

His expression eased a little. "I already asked the doctor. The baby's stable now. We just can't be too rough."

He leaned in again, his eyes full of tenderness.

The old me would have already melted, unable to help herself.

But now, my whole body felt like it was soaking in cold seawater, unable to feel the faintest warmth between lovers.

Lorenzo was my husband, yet the baby in my belly was his child with another woman.

The thought of it twisted like a knife in my heart.

I pushed him away a second time. "Forget it. I'm too tired today. I'm not in the mood."

Lorenzo didn't press further. He nodded. "You must have had a long day. Let's turn in early, then."

He switched off the television and the lights, lay down, and wrapped an arm around my waist.

It was his favorite way to sleep, and before long he was out.

But my mind raced, and I couldn't sleep a wink all night.

Deep in the night, once Lorenzo was completely under, I slipped out of bed, went to the study, and opened his laptop.

In seven years of marriage, it was the first time.

It took no effort at all to find the folder he'd deliberately buried.

I opened it, and inside were photos packed one after another, at least a thousand of them.

Tokyo, Paris, Istanbul……

Different backgrounds, and in every one of them, Bianca Falcone and Lorenzo held each other, sweet and close.

Both of their faces glowed with happy smiles.

I dragged the mouse and found the last photo.

The date on it was a few months back, at some Family-controlled clinic where names went unrecorded and doctors kept omertà.

Bianca Falcone and Lorenzo Bianchi were locked in a tender embrace.

On the wall behind them, the banner stood out sharply.

"Congratulations, you're about to become a father!"

Looking at that photo, my heart sank into the abyss.

That day, Lorenzo had said he was going to meet an allied Family about tribute. With nothing to do, I'd offered to come along.

But he'd laughed and turned me down, saying the man across the table was old blood, a real lecher, and no place for a Don's wife.

If I came, he said, the sit-down would collapse.

I believed him.

Only now did I understand. He hadn't been sitting across a table from any capo. He'd made an appointment with Bianca to plant a forged bloodline inside my own name.

I closed the laptop and walked out of the study.

I stood on the balcony of the Estate, letting the cold night air wash over me the whole night through. Below, an enforcer moved along the garden wall, his cigarette a small red eye in the dark, and even the dogs had gone silent.

When the sky began to pale at the horizon, I finally made my decision.

This marriage, so perfect on the surface, I didn't want it anymore.

Lorenzo Bianchi, I didn't want him anymore either.

After we got up, Lorenzo dressed while reminding me.

"Adriana, don't forget it's the Christmas sit-down tonight."

"My parents have been preparing that dinner for the whole famiglia for a long time."

"Whatever you do, don't be late."

I sat on the couch, saying nothing.

As he was leaving, he kissed my forehead.

"I'm going to the office to take care of a few things. Come by this afternoon and we'll head home together."

"Also, I've got a surprise waiting for you. Make sure you check for it."

After Lorenzo left, I started packing my bags.

At noon, the surprise he'd prepared arrived, carried in by a soldier who set it down and stepped back with lowered eyes.

The newest Patek Philippe women's watch, along with a lavish spread sent from one of the Family's five-star hotels.

"My woman deserves to be spoiled by me, of course."

That was the line Lorenzo had said most often in our seven years of marriage.

Looking at the watch resting quietly in its exquisite box, my chest ached and swelled with something bitter.

I raised my eyes to the huge wedding portrait on the wall.

In the photo, Lorenzo nestled against me, his face full of happiness.

But deep in his eyes, there was always a trace of melancholy he couldn't shake.

The old me had mistaken it for the weight a man carries when he takes a wife and binds two bloodlines together.

Only now did I understand. It was the sorrow of a man who hadn't been able to marry the woman he loved.

I forced myself to steady my emotions and called my Consigliere-for-hire, telling him to prepare the papers dissolving the alliance pact.

I'd originally booked passage abroad for today, but in the end I rescheduled it to tomorrow.

Because I'd promised Lorenzo I would go home with him tonight for the sit-down.

A person should never break their word. That was what my father taught me.

Thinking of my father, the old Don, my heart felt as though an invisible hand had clenched around it, aching faintly.

Before I was even old enough to understand things, my mother died on a rain-slicked road they always called an accident.

My father raised me all on his own, and never once let another woman near the Valente name.

No matter how hard or exhausting the life got, the thought of taking a new wife never once crossed his mind.

Because he had promised to love only my mother, in this life, and never to let his heart change.

That afternoon, I arrived at the Bianchi Family's tower.

The moment I walked through the doors, men straightened at their posts, and I heard the familiar whispers ripple around me.

"Signora's here to see the Don again."

"They really are so in love."

"Of course. There was a poll in one of the society pages that named the Signora and the Don one of the ten most enviable couples in the Territory."

"They were promised to each other as children, so after seven years their bond is still as strong as ever."

"He's the most feared man in the harbor, she's the most beautiful. The child they have is bound to be gorgeous."

"By then the three of them together, that's what real happiness looks like."

"Sigh. We're all women, so how come I never got a life as good as hers?"

"Just look at the watch on her wrist. It's the newest Patek Philippe, worth a small fortune."

"That's got to be the Don's doing. I heard he gives his wife a new watch every single year."

"Adriana Valente must have saved the whole galaxy in a past life to marry a man as incredible as Don Bianchi."

"Honestly, Adriana comes from good blood too. Her father ran half the harbor Territory before he passed."

"Such a shame the old Don Valente died so young. They say he was buried by pure spite, or the harbor would still answer to his name."

…

I stopped just outside the Don's office.

Lorenzo Bianchi's irritated voice carried through the heavy door, past the soldier who straightened and stepped aside for me.

"I clearly ordered two watches. One standard edition, one limited edition."

"The standard one's already been delivered, and now you're telling me I have to wait on the limited edition?"

"Is that any way to do business under our name?"

"I don't want to hear your excuses. If that watch isn't in my hands within the hour, you'll answer for it to the Family."

So Lorenzo had bought two watches.

I stood outside the door a few minutes before I finally pushed it open and went in.

The moment he saw me, the frown melted off his face and a smile bloomed instead.

"Adriana, you're here."

"Give me one second. Let me finish these papers and I'll be right with you."

I told him there was no rush, we had plenty of time.

Then I sank onto the leather couch, scrolling through my phone, and waited in silence. A clock ticked somewhere behind his desk, unhurried.

Lorenzo was focused when he worked, and he looked good doing it.

For a hazy moment, I thought I saw a little of my father in him.

It wasn't really so strange. Both of them were men other men learned to fear.

Less than half an hour later, my phone buzzed with a notification.

I tapped it open. Bianca Falcone had posted to her social media feed.

Nine photos, all close-ups of her wearing a watch.

"This is the best birthday gift I've ever received."

"They say every new year outshines the last. I say having you outshines everything!"

A few comments popped up beneath it right away.

"Isn't that the Patek Philippe that just dropped?"

"Oh my God, that's the limited diamond-set edition, worth over thirty-seven million!"

"So jealous!"

"No need to guess. I already know exactly who gave it to her."

"I won't say a word. Here's to true lovers finding their happy ending."

I kept scrolling down and never found a comment from Lorenzo.

I looked up. He was still absorbed in his work, his phone lying quietly to one side, two fingers resting flat against the desk.

Only then did it hit me. When Bianca posted this, she'd almost certainly blocked him from seeing it.

A bitter look crossed my face.

As far as I could remember, today was the first time I'd ever seen Lorenzo this furious.

And all of it over a single watch…

At last Lorenzo finished what he was working on, and we drove out toward the Bianchi Estate together, the driver silent behind the glass partition.

On the way, I closed my eyes and pretended to doze.

Lorenzo's phone suddenly rang.

He turned his head to glance at me, and thinking I was asleep, he pressed accept.

"Lorenzo, thank you for such a precious watch."

The voice through his earpiece was faint, but I was close enough to catch every word.

The corner of Lorenzo's mouth curved up.

"It's only thirty-some million. Hardly expensive."

"As long as you like it, that's all that matters."

Bianca sounded moved. "Over all these years, you've given me so many gifts."

"And each one more precious than the last."

"It leaves me so uneasy. If Adriana ever found out about this, she'd be crushed."

"I don't want the two of you to fall out because of me."

Lorenzo gave a light little laugh. "Don't worry. She'll never know."

"Besides, I bought her a watch too."

"Not as pricey as yours, of course."

Bianca's voice dropped low all at once. "Lorenzo, tonight, could you spend it with me?"