4: 4
"Just because I brought the wrong cake?"
I couldn't be bothered to invent a reason. I rose from my chair. "It can be."
"If we sever the union, where do you think you'll go?" Seeing me turn toward the bedroom, he panicked, the words spilling out before he could stop them. "Who wants a cast-off woman with a child, in a world like ours?"
My steps halted.
The air went quiet. Even the low tick of the mantel clock seemed to hold its breath.
"That's not what I meant..." His voice was frantic. "I just can't accept you wanting out."
His eyes flicked to the fruit knife on the table. He snatched it up and pressed the flat of the blade to his wrist.
"You know what it cost me to get you back into this blood union. You can't go back on your word."
I looked into his bloodshot eyes and wanted to tell him that I wasn't the one who had dishonored a vow.
Then I decided there was no point.
In the silence, the blade parted his skin, and dark red blood welled up over the old scar he always kept ready to show me.
The same old trick. Once, it might have softened me all over again.
Now all I felt was numb.
Since a clean severance wouldn't come, that left only the slow way, the one the Family's consigliere would have to argue through.
I drew a deep breath and pulled an easy smile onto my face.
"I was joking. It's only that seeing you with another woman at the clinic today left me a little uneasy."
"I told you, she's a client." He exhaled and set the knife down. "What's gotten into you lately, always thinking the worst?"
"Maybe it's the moods that come after a birth," I said, my voice low, and turned into the guest room.
"Isabella and I will sleep in here a while. I want to clear my head."
I didn't press him, and he said nothing more.
Over the next few days, we avoided the subject by unspoken agreement, each moving through the estate on our own errands.
He was busy preparing for his trip. I was busy preparing to disappear.
Before he left, he slid a bracelet onto my wrist.
"Wait for me to come back. There's something I want to tell you."
It was the Marchetti heirloom, the one I'd seen catalogued in that leather-bound ledger in his study, among the pieces the Family had gathered over generations of tribute and blood.
I'd never once seen him take it from its case, and I had no idea why he was suddenly pressing it on me now.
But I didn't care anymore.
Adriana's posts kept lighting up my phone.
The newest was a sunset burning down over some foreign river.
In a corner of the frame sat a half-finished coffee, and along the rim you could make out the blur of a cuff.
Those agate cufflinks were the birthday gift I'd given Salvatore last year.
Her caption read:
【The dusk here lasts a long time, long enough for two people to walk slowly. I never want this trip with you to end.】
Scroll back and it was just as lively.
One day, a selfie with pastries in front of a grand old palace. The next, a peace sign beneath a lit tower at night.
Scattered through the grid were shots of him kneeling to tie her shoe, holding an umbrella over her.
I saved every screenshot, one by one.
Adriana was living happily now, in her own way.
No one looking at her would ever guess she'd once been a foundling left at the foot of a bridge.
My parents had taken her in out of guilt, and right up until the day they died, they never spoke of it in front of her.
I wondered what she'd do the day she learned where she truly came from.
The day I left for Miami, for the sealed sanctuary an allied Family had promised, untraceable to anyone here.
I set a thick folder on the low table, and beside it the signed severance of the blood oath.
The bracelet and my wedding band sat on top of them.
The note read:
【My assignment will last at least three years. Look over the agreement. If you accept it, sign and send it to the Family's consigliere. If you refuse, then we wait out two years apart and let the courts and the honor of both houses decide.】
...
I'd only just reached the airport when I saw Salvatore and Adriana coming out from inside, still some distance off.
Adriana rose onto her toes and held her phone up in front of his face.
He laughed and slid an arm around her waist, then bent to press a kiss to her forehead.
The two of them brushed right past me.
I didn't make a sound. I kept walking.
Past the security line, Isabella suddenly began to cry in my arms, one small hand winding into a lock of my hair as she pressed closer.
I rocked her, patting her gently, still moving forward, and didn't see Salvatore stop short in the distance.
His dazed gaze searched the crowd.
At the checkpoint, my phone buzzed. A message from him.
【I think I just saw you at the airport?】
I didn't answer. I turned toward the gate.
Beneath my glove, I twisted the plain band on my finger once, slowly, feeling its weight before I let it go.
The plane lifted off.
The night beyond the window glittered here and there, like some grand fireworks display that had never once belonged to me.
I gave a small wave, and all my years tangled up with Salvatore were left behind.
