"I heard the two of them go back to the old neighborhood, childhood sweethearts, and the Don's wife was even his first love. He built the whole Family up from nothing with his bare hands, and there's still only ever been one woman in his life. If that isn't something out of an old story, I don't know what is."
At the top floor of the Moretti building, I stood in the doorway, and a familiar voice carried out from inside the office.
"He's treating you well, isn't he?"
"Mm, really well. Just a couple of days ago he bought me a little island, said he wanted to make up for the honeymoon we never had. Honestly, five years married and he still acts like a kid…"
Lorenzo's voice was thick with something bittersweet, low and pressed down, the kind of tone a made man only used when he forgot anyone might be listening.
"Good. That puts my mind at ease."
"You too. Why did you go and buy something so expensive again? If Adriana finds out, she won't be happy."
It had always been like this with Bianca. She took every advantage for herself.
And then she'd turn around and mock me with that sly, two-faced tone.
Years ago, when Marco called off our betrothal, it was Bianca who rushed to the hospital and announced the news right at my mother's bedside.
That was what made my mother collapse on the spot, rushed into surgery in the dead of night.
She and I went at each other, neither backing down.
Marco and Lorenzo hurried in, but both of them took her side, blaming me for being childish.
That was the day I broke completely with Marco and Bianca.
And Lorenzo became the one and only salvation in my life.
But now, he was also the one who'd pushed me into the abyss.
A soldier of the house, anxious to deliver a sealed envelope, rushed past me and pushed the door open. The conversation inside died the way conversations always died when a door opened on the wrong moment.
Surprise flickered through Lorenzo's eyes. His two fingers drifted to the wedding band he never removed.
"Adriana? What are you doing here? Don't read too much into it. Bianca just came by to talk, and to go over the arrangement between the families while she was at it. She handles the Gallo line's interests…"
"Adriana, it's been a long time."
Bianca rose to her feet, draped in the newest piece couture money could buy.
It made me look like some country housewife.
I nodded with a smile, swallowing the hurt as I spoke.
"It's fine. I was out and just stopped by to see you. Since you're busy, I'll head back now."
Lorenzo thought I was angry. He came after me and spent a long while explaining himself.
Watching him fret over me, I suddenly felt the urge to laugh.
To work his way close to Bianca, he'd quietly bled his own rackets dry funneling tribute to the Gallo Family.
Now that Bianca had come to see him just as he wanted, who exactly was the act for?
"Don't worry. I'm not so unreasonable. You focus on your business. I'll be a good girl and wait for you at home."
The relief on his face was plain to see. He had one of his men personally walk me down to the street.
The moment I stepped out of the elevator, the men who answered to the Family looked at me with open scorn.
They tipped their heads together and murmured, loud enough for me to catch every word.
I paid them no mind and walked straight out of the building.
After we married, he was the one who said he didn't want me wearing myself thin with work of my own, said he only wanted me free of worries.
I believed him, and from then on I became the wife tied to his house.
While Bianca, who'd once shared my schoolroom, rose to run the Gallo line's affairs and sit at the table where the men decided things.
By now the distance between us was sky and mud, in standing and in cunning alike.
I could never measure up to her again.
Lorenzo, this is the result you wanted, isn't it.
I'm no longer any threat to the woman you love.
Back home, I gathered everything he'd given me over those five years into a box.
I carried it down to the courtyard and burned it all to ash.
The moment the flames caught, Bianca appeared in front of me.
She kicked the box over.
The photographs scattered onto her in a spray of sparks, and yet she lifted her face into a smile.
"Adriana, after all these years, you're still just as useless."
She pressed her fingertips to her collarbone, a beat too quick to be real. "Back then you couldn't protect your own mother, and now you can't protect yourself. You're a joke."
So she'd known about what happened that year all along?
Fury flared in my chest, and I couldn't hold back any longer. I struck her across the face.
I'd barely put any force into it, yet she toppled straight toward the fire.
