The Ring Came Off Before He Knew About the Baby

On the day the family doctor confirmed there was finally a child growing inside me, Gia posted a photograph of her own swollen belly for the whole of the Falcone world to admire.

As long as you're loved, you can still be a beautiful girl even when you're carrying!

In the picture she wore nothing but lace, the pale kind that costs more than a soldier earns in a month, leaning back into a man's chest while she angled the phone to catch the curve of her stomach. The man's hand rested there, spread wide over that smooth skin, and I knew that hand. I had felt it at my throat and at my waist and, once, five years ago, closed gently around mine as a priest bound us in a marriage no one in the Family was ever meant to know about. On his ring finger sat a signet identical to the one that had lived on my hand since that night.

I typed one word beneath it. Congratulations.

The reply came not in text but in a phone call, Gia's voice climbing over itself in a rush of apology. She had only posted it to bait Marco, she swore, some quarrel with that lover of hers from the Serafini territory, nothing more, she would never, how could I think it, she adored me like a sister.

Lorenzo took the phone from my hand before I could answer her. He did not raise his voice. Men like him never had to. The cold came off him the way it comes off marble in an empty church.

"You can't give me a child yourself, and now you fall apart because another woman can," he said, each word set down like a coin on a table he owned. "Jealousy that black. No wonder your body won't hold anything."

Five minutes later, Gia's status changed again.

From now on I'll have two strong men to protect me. One big and one small.

Lorenzo's thumb moved across the screen. He liked the post. I watched him do it, watched the little mark of his approval bloom under her lie, and something inside me that had been holding on for five years simply let go of the rope.

I slid the wedding ring off my finger. On the walk back toward the estate I threw it into the roadside hedges without slowing my step, and I turned the bare finger with my thumb once, feeling the ghost of the weight that was no longer there. Then I went to the clinic our people used, the discreet one behind the pharmacy front, and I made the arrangement to end it.

——

Lorenzo came home before nine, which was strange. He kept the hours of a man who owned the night.

He noticed the box in the trash before he noticed me, the sealed course of fertility medicine the doctor had pressed on me months ago, untouched, tossed. His brow drew down a fraction, the only weather that ever crossed that face.

"Nothing better to occupy you?" he said. "Sulking over something this small."

"I'm not angry," I answered. My voice came out level, and the levelness surprised even me.

He gave a low sound of contempt, rolling the heavy signet slowly around his finger the way he did when he believed he held every card at the table. "You throw away the medicine and call that calm? Do as you please. You're the one desperate to breed. Not me."

I had my hand at my pocket, the folded report already warm from my grip, ready to lay it down in front of him and watch that composure finally crack. But he moved first. He held out a dark shoebox, the lid still on, offering it the way a Don offers a favor he expects to be thanked for.

"Gia sent this for you. The girl's had a soft life, she's never learned to weather anything. When she heard how upset you were she got so frightened she started saying foolish things, talking about getting rid of the child herself. She insisted on sending you something. To make peace."

He lifted the lid. Inside sat a pair of YSL heels. They had been worn, and worn hard. The soles were scuffed grey, the lacquer chipped along the outer edge of one heel where it had scraped against something.

"Take them. Shoes like this don't come cheap. She barely wore them. She's only just started earning her keep in the Family, she can't afford much yet. Handing these over is a real sacrifice for her."

I laughed. I couldn't stop it from coming.

Because half an hour before Lorenzo walked through that door, Gia had posted again, holding a box of new Chanel slippers up to the light.

The best brother in the whole world! Thank you for showing your favoritism so openly. It gives a girl the confidence to flaunt it.

When I did not reach for the shoes, the patience drained out of him.

"Adriana. What is it with you now?" His hand went still on the ring, and any man in this Family would have known the danger had passed the point of words. "You're nearly thirty. Is it truly necessary to make life hard for one young, innocent girl?"

He threw the box.

It struck me square across the forehead. I heard the dull thud of it against my own skull before I felt the sting bloom bright and hot, and a muffled sound escaped me. My hand flew up to press against the ache, and the tears gathered at the corners of my eyes without my permission, hanging there, refusing to fall in front of him.