“Lorenzo, I think I might have twisted my ankle just now. It hurts so much,” Carmela said, all pouty.
Lorenzo didn’t say a word. He simply swept Carmela up into a princess carry and headed straight for the upstairs bedroom, not even sparing me a glance.
Across the long table, beneath the oil portraits of dead Falcone men, Donna shot me a pointed look. Her fingers found the heavy gold crucifix at her throat.
“Not only can you not give the blood an heir, but you can’t even keep a man. If Matteo hadn’t married Carmela first, do you really think my son would’ve ever looked at you? How dare you sit at my table? Get upstairs. You ruin my appetite just by breathing the same air.” Her voice dripped with cold contempt, and the crucifix gleamed between her fingers as if it absolved her of every word.
I had always known Donna didn’t like me.
She saw me as the woman Matteo had passed over, the one who had latched onto her son and made a fool of the Falcone name. And after all the children I’d lost, her disdain for me only deepened.
Since she was Lorenzo’s mother, I tried to tell myself it was my fault for failing to carry a child into this family. I felt guilty, especially in the days when Lorenzo would step in and stand between her words and me.
I endured it all.
Right now, though, Lorenzo was so absorbed in Carmela that he didn’t even seem to remember I existed.
For a brief moment, I considered speaking the truth aloud in that room of men who lived and died by silence. But omertà ran in my blood now too, and I quickly pushed the thought aside.
I had already made up my mind to leave. So what was the point in saying anything at all?
I silently made my way up the wide staircase and noticed that Carmela’s bedroom door was slightly ajar.
Something compelled me to move closer.
What I saw made my heart freeze. Carmela, her clothes askew, lying on the bed with Lorenzo over her.
“Lorenzo, you’re still the one who cares for me the most. Matteo can’t give the Don a son, and if you let Adriana carry your child to term, he won’t take the seat. If that happens… I don’t know how much suffering I’ll face.”
Lorenzo gasped between his movements, his eyes darkened with desire. “Is Matteo treating you well? Has he laid a hand on you?”
“Ever since the baby, he treats me like the wife of a Don already. He’s terrified I’ll tire myself. He washes my feet with his own hands. He’s been gentler with me in bed.”
Lorenzo’s expression turned slightly bitter. “As long as he treats you well… as long as you’re happy… I have no regrets.”
“Matteo’s done so much for me. I can’t wear his ring and mean it, but I can give myself to you. Tonight, I belong to you.”
Lorenzo could no longer hold himself back, and their bodies moved harder against one another.
I never knew that the cold, controlled man the whole Family feared could lose himself like this.
Tears fell as I stumbled back to my bedroom.
Lorenzo didn’t come back the entire night.
The next morning, Lorenzo stared at me with deep guilt. The back of his hand passed once over the lapel of his jacket, smoothing it flat.
“Adriana, I meant to come back to you last night. But Mother kept me until dawn, talking. I just… couldn’t get away.”
I didn’t call out his lie. I simply turned toward the door to wait for him.
A bucket of cold kitchen scraps came down over me without warning, and Carmela appeared, holding the slop pail, a mocking smile on her lips.
“Adriana, did you enjoy watching Lorenzo lose his mind over me?” she taunted.
So she had left the door open on purpose.
“Losing a child doesn’t feel so good, does it? But you won’t have to worry about that anymore. After all, you’ll never carry one again.”
“If you still had the nerve to get pregnant, I’d make you feel the price of it. You will never take my place as the woman who sits beside the seat of the Falcone Family.”
“For me, Lorenzo didn’t just hand over his claim to the Don’s chair. He helped put this child in me. And those babies you lost? They’ve become my… supplements.”
My head snapped up, my voice shaking. “What did you just say?”
Carmela chuckled. For half a second her lip went perfectly still, the performance slipping its mask, before she remembered to soften it again. “What? Did you never wonder why, every time you miscarried, Lorenzo told you the child was already buried, that you couldn’t see it? It’s because I told him to keep it from you. Consuming them… it’s good for my health.”
Despair, rage, and disbelief all hit me at once.
So that was the reason Lorenzo never let me see the children.
How could he?
Everything that happened… all of it was for Carmela?
