My mother was dying, and I went down on my knees to my betrothed of the Gallo line, begging him to honor the tribute early so she could have her surgery.
Instead, he turned around and pledged himself to Bianca Russo.
At my lowest point, my childhood friend Lorenzo Moretti dropped to one knee in that hospital corridor and asked for my hand, pressing a fortune in laundered cash into my arms as betrothal tribute.
I said yes on the spot and rushed to arrange my mother's surgery.
But in the end, she never came off the operating table.
I was drowning in grief, and Lorenzo saw to all of her final arrangements himself, the way a Don buries his own.
The marriage pact went forward as planned.
Yet five years later, I happened to overhear a conversation between him and the Family physician.
"Lorenzo, when you ordered Adriana Falcone's mother's life taken to keep Carmela Russo breathing, and never told her, did you ever stop to think what you'd do if she found out? You'd throw your whole standing in the Family away for Bianca?"
"So I throw it away. For her, I'd do anything. It's only one life. I've already given the rest of mine to make it up to Adriana. That should be enough."
The tears spilled before I could stop them.
Only then did I understand that the marriage I had poured my heart into building had been a lie from start to finish.
The one he truly loved had always been Bianca, and no one else.
If that was the case, then I would simply step aside for them.
——
Just on the other side of that door, inside the study, Lorenzo's voice carried out, full of lament, every word laced with regret.
"Since I couldn't make her choose me, then bringing Carmela back for her, so she'd have nothing left to fear, was the only thing I could do. As for Adriana… I've already spent my whole life making it up to her. That should be enough."
Across from him, Salvatore Greco, the blood-brother he'd had since the old neighborhood, looked pained at the words. He drew off his glasses and began to clean them, slow, deliberate, the way he always did when a man's sins sat too heavy in his hands.
"It's a shame. Bianca still has no idea, even now, what you sacrificed for her. That was a human life, Lorenzo. If word of it ever reaches the wrong ears, you'll spend the rest of your years in the Joint. For a woman who doesn't love you, is it worth it?"
"Whether it's worth it, my heart gets to decide. As long as she's happy, I'm willing to do anything. Forget Adriana's mother. If it were my own life on that table, I wouldn't even blink."
"Don't bring any of this up again. It's all in the past. As long as she's living well now, that's enough."
"And Adriana? It really seems like she's fallen for you. What if one day she learns it was you who had her mother killed? The two of you—"
Inside, there was a moment of silence. A lighter clicked. Lorenzo lit himself a cigarette.
Through the curling smoke, he spoke with a bitter mockery turned inward on himself.
"Then I'll pay for it with my life. The cash I've built up over these years is enough to keep her a lifetime."
"Dio… I really don't understand you. Why put yourself through it? Adriana's a good girl, and you insist on holding on to that other one… Never mind. I'll say no more. As long as you think it's worth it, then keep going."
Footsteps drew closer to the door, and I fled back to my own room in a sorry state.
The hot tea in my hand sloshed onto my wrist, but the cold had already seeped all the way through me.
So it turned out my mother hadn't died on that operating table meant to save her.
She had died inside the scheme he carried out for Bianca.
Back then, after Marco Gallo broke faith and abandoned me, I'd become a laughingstock to every family that mattered.
His proposal had never been about giving me happiness. It had been the final knife between my ribs.
All these years of marriage had only ever been a debt he paid me out of guilt.
And to think I'd taken his pitiful charity and gone around boasting about how happy I was.
How absurd.
A door closed somewhere down the hall. Salvatore had gone.
Lorenzo stumbled into the room, cupped my face in both hands, and pressed a kiss to my forehead.
His eyes, clouded with drink, were full of tenderness and ache.
"Why are you standing by the door?"
"It's nothing. I spilled my tea. I was just about to clean it up." I smoothed the wet fabric of my sleeve flat against my wrist, once, slowly, forcing the trembling hand beneath it to lie still.
"Leave that to the help, tesoro. You're not well. When there's nothing for you to do, you rest. It hurts me to see you wear yourself out."
With that, he kissed my lips again.
The gesture was as gentle and adoring as it had always been.
