On their third wedding anniversary, the gift Adriana Falcone received was a recording of her husband and his courier going at it in the back of a car, running number one across every channel the Family could not silence in time.
Every guest in that banquet hall had their eyes locked on her, waiting for the notoriously fierce wife of the Moretti heir to shatter, to scream, to make a scene worthy of the gossip that traveled between families.
Instead, she calmly arranged for the guests to leave. Then she drove straight to the Moretti estate and said the words she'd been holding inside.
"I want to sever the bond with Lorenzo. I'm pregnant, and I need you to keep it from him."
Carmela Moretti was struck by equal measures of heartbreak and shock. The woman who had loved her son so fiercely was now carrying his child, asking to break the union, and refusing to let him know.
Adriana let out a bitter laugh. She had loved Lorenzo. When the old hit left him broken, when the doctors said he might never be whole again, she'd abandoned her own future and her craft to walk that long road beside him.
But after the wedding, Lorenzo's "memory spells" became routine. He'd forget her, forget the alliance that bound their bloodlines, and lose himself in one woman after another.
She'd thrown away her dignity and her pride. She'd fought, she'd wept, she'd threatened. He'd come back to his senses and apologize, and the very next day he'd be kissing someone else on the open street where any rival's man could see.
She kept telling herself he was sick, that the bullet had taken something from him. Then, the day before, she'd heard the truth.
The voice on the other end of the phone had been teasing, amused. "You really found yourself a brilliant excuse. But seriously, you don't love her anymore?"
Lorenzo had scoffed.
"I used to. But I got bored. She's not young anymore, and she's suspicious of every little thing. Besides, what man can love just one woman his whole life?"
In that single moment, her mind went blank, and something inside her died.
Fine, then. She would leave. And she would take the child growing inside her with her.
But after the bond was severed, when Lorenzo learned the truth, he would lose his mind and drop to his knees, begging for her forgiveness.
——
Their third wedding anniversary. Adriana Falcone received a very special gift.
A recording of Lorenzo Moretti and his courier tangled together in the back of his car, rocketing to the top of every channel the Family's people could not pull down fast enough.
Half an hour earlier, he had been holding her hand as they cut the anniversary cake before the gathered captains and their wives. His voice had been tender. "Every year from now on," he'd murmured. "Just like this."
Now every pair of eyes in the banquet hall was fixed on Adriana. Curiosity, mockery, pity, all braided together. They were waiting for the famously fierce wife of the Moretti heir to crack, to crumble, to give them a show worth carrying back to every other table in the city.
"Ma'am, should I find out where he is?"
Carlo's expression was strained, his voice dropping lower with every word. "I'm sure it's just Mr. Moretti's spells flaring up again."
Old Carmela Moretti had given strict orders: nothing was to upset the young madam on a feast day, not in front of the whole Family. All Carlo could do was invoke Lorenzo's condition and hope she'd stay calm.
Adriana's face showed nothing at all. Beneath the table, her thumb moved once around the slim band on her finger, the one she had cut and set with her own hands. A slow quarter-turn, and still.
"Don't bother. The footage is grainy. Just get it taken down."
Carlo stood frozen, unable to believe what he'd heard.
The murmurs among the guests erupted like a kicked hornet's nest, voices low under the music the way men learn to speak when nothing is ever truly private.
"She's not going after him? Did I hear that right?"
"Last time Lorenzo was spotted with some chorus girl on his arm, she'd just come out of surgery. She literally dragged herself out of bed and swore she'd open her own veins if he didn't come home."
"And on her feast day, when he brought that little starlet? She had the girl shut out of every door in this town and the wedding portraits playing on a loop at the door to mark her territory."
"But it's just the wound in his head acting up. He forgets the alliance, forgets her. And every woman he chases looks at least seventy percent like Adriana."
"Exactly. That proves she's the one he really loves. But does she care? No. She makes a vendetta out of every little slip. Zero compassion for what the man carries."
Every cruel word, every mocking laugh, landed in Adriana's ears without missing a syllable.
They all assumed the same thing: she'd finally learned that scenes risked her place as a Moretti wife, so she was swallowing her pride at last.
Adriana didn't argue. Her gaze had drifted to the wedding portrait hanging nearby, and for a moment, she lost herself in it.
Back then, his eyes had been full of love. But now she finally understood that love and vows were the most fragile things in the world. The most easily broken. More easily, even, than the oaths men swore over blood and rings.
One day ago, she had overheard Lorenzo on the phone with his closest friend.
There was no intermittent memory loss. There never had been. He was simply tired of loving one woman. He wanted novelty, excitement. He remembered everything.
He remembered they'd grown up between the same two families. He remembered she was his wife.
He remembered her hysteria, her red-rimmed eyes, her begging him to come home. He'd watched her forgive him like a fool, over and over again.
Countless nights she had cried herself into exhaustion, unable to sleep.
Now she was done crying. And she was finally ready to let go.
When the dinner ended, Adriana drove straight to the Moretti estate.
Carmela had already seen the recording making its rounds. She looked at Adriana with aching eyes, her hands trembling with fury.
She'd sent men to bring Lorenzo home.
Within minutes, the phone rang. The household soldier's voice came through shaking.
"Ma'am, the young master's spell has passed, but he says he's occupied. He put our men out on the street. He asked us to pass along a word to the young madam. He says he feels terrible that his spell put the girl in front of everyone's eyes, and he needs to stay and make it right with her."
"He also said the young madam handled it well, very sensible, getting the recording pulled so the girl wouldn't be shamed. He said she's finally starting to show some—"
Carmela hurled the phone to the floor. Her hands wouldn't stop shaking.
"That ungrateful boy! When is this so-called sickness of his ever going to end? What you've endured, Adriana, it's beyond what anyone should bear."
Adriana stepped forward and steadied Carmela by the arm. When she spoke, her voice was calm, but threaded through with a bone-deep weariness.
"Mamma, I came tonight because I need you to agree to something. I want to sever the bond with Lorenzo."
"Five years ago, the Falcone name was bled dry. My father was at death's door. The Morettis stepped in and saved us. Your Family will always be our benefactors."
"Then Lorenzo took that bullet, and he changed completely. He was reckless, self-destructive, impossible to control. You asked me to stay, to be at his side, to pull him out of that pit and help him settle."
"I agreed. I turned away from a name I could have earned anywhere in the world for my craft. I gave up the work, the future that was mine alone. I gave him everything I had. And just when I thought things were getting better, the spells started. He kept forgetting me."
"I fought. I screamed. I tore myself apart trying to hold on. But I can't keep him anymore, and I'll never make him remember me for good."
Carmela's eyes went red. She pulled Adriana into a tight embrace, her voice breaking.
"Our Family has wronged you. When your mother and father placed your hand in ours, I gave them my word I'd keep you happy for the rest of your life. I never imagined..."
"After the bullet, he didn't recognize a soul in this world except you. He searched for you like a man possessed. He refused to take any other bride. And now this thing in his head flares up and the only person he forgets is you."
Adriana opened her mouth. He never lost his memory. The words rose to the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed them back down.
She just smiled, a small, self-mocking curve of her lips.
"Mamma, I'm just... so tired."
Carmela let out a long, heavy sigh. She drew the rosary from her purse, and her fingers found the beads, working them through one by one.
"All right. I respect your decision."
Adriana lifted her hand and rested it against her lower belly.
"There's one more thing. Please help me keep this from him. I'm pregnant."
Carmela froze. Her eyes went wide, dropping to Adriana's stomach, and then the tears came in a flood, though her fingers never stopped moving over the beads.
"You foolish girl. You're carrying his blood, and you still have the heart to talk about severing the bond?"
A mist rose in Adriana's eyes, but she held the tears back by sheer force of will.
"Mamma, this baby isn't a chip to bargain with. I don't want my child born into a Family with no love in it. I don't want him growing up looking at his father and learning to regret. I can protect him. I can give him a future. Don't tell Lorenzo about the baby. After all, he can't even remember me."
Carmela looked at the resolve carved into every line of Adriana's face. Her tears fell harder. The beads passed through her fingers one final time, and she closed her hand around them. She nodded, firmly.
"I'll handle the severing. Don't worry. I will keep the child hidden. This is what our Family owes you. What Lorenzo owes you."
Adriana dipped her head in a small nod and turned to leave.
Behind her, she heard Carmela's choked sigh drift through the long hallway:
"How did everything go so wrong..."
Adriana's steps faltered for just a fraction of a second.
How did it go so wrong?
She would never forget the Lorenzo from before that night, the night the gun changed everything. Eyes full of nothing but her, treating her like she was the center of his world.
After the shooting, he'd become someone twisted. Cold and obsessive. During his spells, he would hurt her. When he came back to himself, he'd strike his own face over and over, drop to his knees, beg her to forgive him, swear on the Family's name he hadn't meant it.
She had never blamed him. She had loved him with unwavering certainty.
Now she knew the truth. And her heart would never beat for him again.
She had barely made it down the front steps of the estate when her phone lit up with a massive transfer of laundered cash from Lorenzo and a string of voice messages.
In the background, she could hear faint, breathless panting.
"Babe, you actually didn't make a scene tonight. Good girl. Keep that up."
"My head hit me again just now, and I mistook the girl for you."
"Send over that 'Only You' set, will you? The girl says I was too rough, and nothing I do is calming her down. She's obsessed with that collection you crafted."
