He was willing to sacrifice our blood-union, to counterfeit his love for me, all just to sign a Family pardon that would wipe clean the debt she owed under vendetta.

He even had a son with her.

At dinner, in the long dining hall of the Falcone estate, my mother suddenly teared up, her gaze lingering on the dishes laid before her. She wiped at her eyes, her expression heavy with sorrow.

Lorenzo immediately set down his knife and fork, his face filled with concern as he asked what was wrong.

My father let out a long sigh, gently patting her back. Beneath the tablecloth I could hear the soft clink of the worn silver medallion he always kept turning between his fingers.

"She must be thinking of Vittoria's favorite dishes, and starting to miss her."

"That child, she made a mistake, but we raised her for over ten years under this roof. She didn't deserve to die."

A bitter taste filled my mouth.

She didn't deserve to die?

Then what about me?

Did I deserve to be handed over in her place? Was I just supposed to accept it?

"Donna," Lorenzo said softly, "it's been five years already. Vittoria was only twenty back then. She might have acted impulsively and made a mistake." His palm moved once down the front of his jacket, smoothing the fabric flat.

"I grew up alongside her. Her nature was a little extreme. She thought you were trying to take everything from her, the whole territory, the whole name."

"Five days from now is her death anniversary. I know you don't want to go, so I'll go with your mother and father to visit her grave, all right?"

Lorenzo's gaze wavered, as if afraid I would suddenly lose my temper at the head of the Don's own table.

"Hmm. You should go. After all, she lived in this house longer than I have. It's only natural that you still have feelings for her."

Lorenzo let out a quiet breath of relief, his voice turning even gentler.

"I knew you were kind-hearted. You've never been the type to hold a grudge against your late sister."

My mother dabbed at her eyes, sniffling softly. Her fingers rose to the crucifix at her throat and pressed there, quick and light.

"My dear daughter, a child of our own blood will always be the most understanding…"

I lowered my head, my tears slipping silently into my bowl.

So. They did know I was their real daughter, the true blood of the Falcone line.

A sharp pain twisted in my stomach. The moment I felt it tighten, I pressed my thumb hard against the inside of my wrist, into the old spot where the IV line used to sit, then pushed back my chair, murmured that I wasn't feeling well, and retreated to my room.

A while later, Lorenzo came in, carrying my stomach medicine. His eyes were full of concern, his voice unbearably soft.

Seeing that I had no intention of speaking, he said nothing. Instead he silently fetched warm water and, with practiced care, wiped my face himself.

For ten years after I was brought into the Family, I was the only one he seemed to see.

Even when Vittoria confessed her feelings for him, she had been met with nothing but his cold rejection.

Now, I finally understood.

He never loved me. He only wanted the title that came with me, made successor to the Falcone rackets and territory.

His love and his blood-union had always been two separate things.

Late at night, after Lorenzo drifted into sleep, I reached for the phone on his bedside table.

The password was my birthday.

His pinned contact was me, followed by my parents.

I scrolled through his messages. There was nothing unusual, until I switched accounts.

That was when I found the second one.

Only one name appeared in its chat list. Vittoria.

[Lorenzo, it's been five years. How much longer do I have to keep hiding?]

[She has no proof I hit her, and she's a cripple now. She's no threat at all.]

[Our son keeps crying for his daddy. Can you really bear this?]

Lorenzo's replies were full of reassurance.

[Your parents and I are already discussing a plan. Just be patient.]

So. They had already brought Vittoria back. Buried her under a false name. Built her an entire life.

Only a few days ago.

They had even set her up with a front real-estate racket, registered clean under that fabricated name, 'Celeste Marino.'

In five days, the grand opening would take place.

My hands trembled as I opened Lorenzo's social feed.

I scrolled. My heart turned ice-cold.

For five years, Vittoria had been living in luxury overseas, bankrolled by my family, laundered abroad where no vendetta could reach her.

She dressed in designer labels funded through the Family's laundered money. The villa she lived in? One of the Syndicate's overseas properties.

And Lorenzo? He had been at her side the whole time, using "business trips" as his cover to fly out to her.

Even my own parents stood in the photographs, smiling as if they belonged there.

In that moment, I understood.

They were the real family.

Swallowing back the stinging tears, I took screenshots of every piece of it, then switched back to his main account.

I finally noticed Lorenzo had changed the words beneath his name.

For years it had been the same, a single word. [Wait.]

When I once asked him what it meant, he smiled and said he was waiting for my legs to heal.

But now, it had changed. [Home.]

And at last, I understood.

Wait had never been for me. He had been waiting for Vittoria. Home meant she was finally back inside Family walls.

I placed his phone back on the nightstand and stepped onto the balcony, my fingers tightening around my own.

"Yes, I'd like to arrange passage overseas. Departure in five days."

Five days. Just enough to bury five years of lies.

That night, I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep.

The next day, at the long table where the Family took its midday meal, my phone lit up.

Lorenzo's gaze flicked to it from the corner of his eye. His expression darkened.

"Wife, why are you moving to close your accounts?"

I shut off the screen, my voice calm. "The account was flagged for renewal. I scheduled it."

He looked like he wanted to press further, but then his phone rang. He smoothed the front of his jacket with one flat palm, top to bottom, before he answered.

"Something's come up with Family business, tesoro. I have to handle it. I won't be able to sit with you."

I nodded, watching as the Don and Donna rose and followed him out.

And just like that, I was left alone in this house, with only the soldiers at the doors for company.

Just as I was about to leave, a message came through.

[Adriana, you heard everything at the physician's yesterday, didn't you?]

It was Vittoria.

[Your husband and I have a son.]

[Even your own blood, the moment Dr. Russo told them your injuries had left you barren, chose me instead. They told Lorenzo to be with me. To give the Family an heir with me.]

[We're the real couple. You? You're nothing but a joke.]

[They even set me up with a front of my own. The opening is in five days. I suppose no one bothered to tell you that either, did they?]

[I regret not running you down sooner. Then all of this would've been mine from the start.]

…

Each word sliced through me like a blade, cutting deep, leaving nothing but raw, open wounds.

So this was why my own blood had cast me aside.

This was why Lorenzo had stayed at her side so willingly.

Fingers trembling, I took screenshots of every message and turned to the nightstand, retrieving the papers of my blood-union.

Buried inside, I found something else: his formal pardon, the document that was meant to clear the debt owed for crippling me.

Clutching both, I pressed my thumb hard against the inside of my wrist, the old spot where the line once sat, and went straight to my Consigliere.

But after reading through them, Salvatore Conti frowned.

He explained that messages like these couldn't stand as solid proof, and that a pardon signed by blood carried weight before the Commission.

When I asked him to draw up the terms to sever the union, his frown deepened. The union, he told me, had never been sanctified. It was void. A forgery that had never been Family law at all.

It felt like a bolt of lightning had struck me, leaving my heart plummeting into a bottomless abyss.

So Vittoria hadn't lied. I truly had been nothing but a fool, a puppet in their cruel game.

But just as despair threatened to consume me, something new flickered in Salvatore's eyes.

He squared the edges of the papers into a clean stack, then set them down and said that, under these circumstances, Lorenzo's pardon held no weight either. It was fraud. Concealment. A lie dressed as mercy.

A surge of hope rushed through me, breaking past the suffocating grief. Clutching onto that sliver of light, I begged him to bring it before the Commission.

Leaving his office, I found a car and made my way to a physician outside Family reach, my fingers clenched tightly around the fabric of my dress.

This time, I needed the truth.

When he told me there was still hope for my leg, I broke down in tears of joy.

A sob tore from my throat as my vision blurred with tears.

He explained that the crash had left me unable to conceive, but that surgery could restore what had been taken. As for my leg, the fracture hadn't worsened in five years. With surgery, I would walk again soon.

I choked on my breath, struggling to process his words.

He smiled to reassure me. "Someone has clearly been seeing to your care. If these legs had truly been left to rot for five years, there would have been no hope of recovery."

A bitter chill seeped into my bones, spreading through my heart like ice.

He didn't know.

He had no idea that the very people he spoke of, my so-called blood, were the ones who never wanted me to stand again.

No.

They were no longer my Family.

As I stepped out, my phone vibrated in my hand. Another message from Vittoria.

It was a photo.

In it, she held her son in Lorenzo's arms, their faces glowing with contentment. The Don and Donna sat beside them, mirroring the same joy.

The five of them smiled as if they had always belonged together.

Behind them, on the pale wall of the grand estate, in the Don's own hand, the words read:

[A united famiglia wants for nothing.]

The cruel irony twisted deep inside me, cutting sharper than any blade.

The five letters burned into my vision, searing through my eyes and making them sting. Falcone. Their famiglia, because it had never been mine, had never carried my blood in the way that mattered.

I drifted back to the estate in a daze, collapsing onto the bed and staring blankly at the ceiling. Time lost meaning, slipping away unnoticed until a familiar voice past the door, low and easy the way a made man's voice is always easy, jolted me back.

They had returned.

The bedroom door creaked open and Lorenzo stepped inside. Without hesitation he crossed to my bedside and bent down, wrapping his arms around me.

"Wife, I'm sorry. Family business has kept me busy these past few days. I haven't had time to be here with you."

"The day after tomorrow is your birthday," he continued. "I spoke with your father and mother. We've decided to throw you a grand celebration."

Silence.

I didn't respond. Didn't even look at him.

He pressed a lingering kiss to my forehead, tucked the blanket around me like I was something fragile, then smoothed the front of his jacket flat with one palm and turned and left.

And then, like a wave crashing through my mind, I remembered.

Five years ago. My birthday.

That was the day my parents had announced my alliance to Lorenzo before the whole Family. The day Vittoria had lost control, blinded by rage, and run me down in the drive, crippling me.

And in the five years since I had been brought back under this roof, I had remained an outsider. No matter how much I tried, I could never behave the way Vittoria did in front of my parents, petted, indulged, sure of her place.

At my own birthday banquet I had always been a shadow, forgotten in the background, while Vittoria stood at the center, surrounded by capos and their wives I didn't even know.

She had once sneered, "Only I deserve this banquet. You, a foundling out of some shelter, deserve nothing."

She had always basked in the thrill of stealing my spotlight. Tonight would be no different, would it?

I knew her too well.

So when she appeared at my birthday banquet, draped in a server's uniform with a mask obscuring her face, I felt nothing. Not a flicker of surprise. Not even a ripple of emotion.

And yet, the moment my family recognized her, their reactions were anything but calm.

"What are you doing here? Are you out of your mind?" My father's voice went sharp with panic, low enough not to carry past our circle. "If she finds out, everything we've buried these years comes back up."

But my mother, ever the doting protector, rushed to defend her.

"She hasn't been home in so many years. She just misses her family," she pleaded softly, her fingers brushing the crucifix at her throat. "Why must you be so harsh?"

"She's dressed like this anyway. Adriana won't recognize her."

Lorenzo, of course, was moved by her act, as he always had been.

And then, in that familiar, saccharine tone, Vittoria murmured, "Honey, today is my birthday too. I want to cut the cake later."

Lorenzo barely hesitated. "Alright," he said smoothly. "Since Adriana's in the chair and it's difficult for her, you can do it."

And just like that, right before my eyes, Vittoria stole what was meant to be mine.

She stepped forward, lifted the knife and cut into my banquet cake, a towering thing over a meter tall.

She took it a step further, her malice on full display as she sliced the chocolate figure of me clean in half.

Then, without warning, a loud bang.

She shoved the cake stand toward me with force. Gasps rippled through the hall and every pair of eyes snapped in our direction. Near the walls, two of the Family's soldiers shifted their weight, hands drifting under their jackets before they read the room and went still.

The metal support inside the stand nearly struck my face.

Lorenzo rushed over, his expression tight with concern. "Wife, are you okay?"

Then, with perfect timing, he turned and snapped at Vittoria.

"Clumsy. You can't even cut a cake properly. Get out of here."

I lowered my gaze, masking the sarcasm flickering in my eyes.

How laughable.

He had seen it. He had watched her do it on purpose, yet his reaction was flawlessly staged. He smoothed his jacket down once more, brushing off something only he could feel.

The ideal son-in-law my parents had chosen was clever, calculating and always knew what to say.

At his outburst my parents exhaled in relief, waving an associate over to clear the mess.

The grand hall buzzed with life once more and Lorenzo slipped back into his role as the perfect host, moving among the guests, refilling glasses, laughing at the right moments.

The air felt suffocating.

I needed to leave.

Just as I moved to wheel myself away, a pair of hands suddenly gripped the handles of my wheelchair.

Vittoria pushed me toward the garden, her grip firm on the handles.

"Sister, long time no see," she purred, smugness lacing every syllable.

"Did you notice? When they sang the birthday song earlier, every single pair of eyes was on me."

"So many years have passed, and still they love me more than you."

"You should've stayed a foundling," she sneered. "Why did you come back, trying to compete with me? Look at you now. Crippled, stuck with a husband who was never yours to begin with. If I were you, I wouldn't have the dignity to live another day."

I pressed my thumb hard against the inside of my wrist, the old spot where the IV line once sat, and tilted my head up. My gaze was steady as I met hers.

"The only one who should be ashamed is you." My voice was calm, but every word hit like a blade.

"The man you wanted was set to be bound to me under the Family's law, so you resorted to the lowest tactics to steal him, and nearly ended up buried in the ground for it. And now?" I let my lips curl into a faint smile. "You're nothing but a ghost. Forced to live in hiding, change your name, never dare to show your real face. Even now, just to stand in front of me, you have to disguise yourself like this."

"Tell me, Vittoria. Who's really the pathetic one here?"