2: 2
The line had barely gone dead when Adriana sent Salvatore another message.
【Salvatore, we agreed on this from the start. Once my sister carries the heir for us, you sever the union with her. So when?】
【Isabella's still nursing. Let's at least wait until the girl is two.】
【Then swear it to me. She's given us the child now, so from here on you don't touch her.】
【I know, my jealous little thing.】
My hands and feet went cold as I read them pass the words back and forth like tribute across a table.
So all his begging for me to bind myself to him again in blood was because Adriana wanted an heir.
But she was afraid of the pain, and afraid of losing her figure.
So he devised the arrangement of letting me carry it instead.
【Francesca is one of us, we can trust her. Once the heir is born, I'll sever the oath and take the child.】
I laughed out loud, all at once.
And as I laughed, my throat began to tighten.
For three years, everyone in every friendly Family had sworn Salvatore loved me more than his own life.
He'd driven four hours through the dark, past the checkpoints his own men kept, to bring back the fruit pastries I suddenly craved.
When the fever took me, he'd run the Family's business and watch over me at the same time, three days and three nights without closing his eyes, and once my fever broke he was the one who collapsed.
When my legs cramped during the pregnancy, he'd knead my calves every night before bed, and only after I fell asleep would he slip out to ice his own aching, sore knuckles.
So all that tenderness was the wages he paid me, his little tool.
The joke of it was that I'd pitied him, running the Syndicate and caring for me and the child both, so I'd handed over the last of my own work, planning to stay behind these walls and raise our daughter.
Lost in it, I heard the tone sound again.
【I saw you gave her a necklace in the bedroom a couple of days ago. Didn't you say you bought it for me?】
【If you want it, I'll just buy you another one.】
She was getting worked up now.
【That's not the point! You promised that to me. Why would you give it to her?】
【And last time, you said you'd take me out, and then because she got a clogged duct you drove halfway across the territory hunting down a specialist for her, and I waited the whole night and you never showed.】
【Aren't you being too good to her?】
This time he was quiet for much longer before he answered.
【Adriana, whatever else she is, she's still your sister, not your enemy. In the end we're the ones who wronged her. I'm only making up for it.】
Reading his words, I felt nothing but the irony of it.
Adriana was supposed to be the closest person I had.
Our parents died too young, cut down before I was grown, and I'd taken on the burden of raising her when I was very small, which was how I hardened into someone steady, someone who could sit at a table full of dangerous men and never flinch.
Back then Salvatore had said he loved how quiet and reserved I was, then after he met Adriana he changed his tune and said a woman ought to be lively and bright.
It wasn't that I hadn't noticed the special way he treated her.
But when I told him to keep his distance from my sister, he only smiled and ruffled my hair.
Told me not to be petty, that she was going to be his little sister-in-law, family under the same roof.
What came afterward was so dark that I hadn't let myself think about it for a long time.
They grew closer and closer, close enough to share a single glass.
The first time we bound ourselves in the union, even for the rings, he insisted on the style she liked.
On our first anniversary, I walked in on the two of them tangled together, and Adriana didn't tell him to stop. She just fixed her eyes on me and held them there, her hand drifting to the bracelet at her wrist as if it could vouch for her right to be there.
When I demanded, half out of my mind, to know why, her voice was very soft. She said, "An older sister is like a mother. You should share everything with me. All of it."
And he, he kept Adriana tucked behind him and said nothing, offering no defense. A man who could silence a room with a look, and he had nothing to say.
I couldn't bear that the two most important people in my life had betrayed me.
I severed the oath and blocked both their numbers.
I thought our paths would never cross again as long as we both lived.
But he threw himself into pulling me back so completely that I softened again.
Thinking of all this, I laughed like a fool, and the tears kept falling.
I really was stupid. Stupid enough to believe he'd changed, stupid enough to want a heart that was true.
But peel back the disguise, and it had rotted through long ago.
Thank God there was still time.
