After I was given in alliance to the Morettis, one of the oldest families in La Cosa Nostra, as the second wife, I was Vitale's bound wife in name only. Everyone in the famiglia knew the real love of his life was his widowed sister-in-law, Serafina, the woman his dead brother had left behind.
He called me the perfect consort, a graceful hostess who could stand at his side at any sit-down. At his gatherings, I would take shot after shot of grappa to shield him from any insult passed across the table. Yet when Serafina so much as sipped a glass of fruit wine another man had offered her, Vitale had the man's hand taken off at the wrist, and never blinked.
He hung my photographs through the estate, saying he wanted every family from here to the coast to know how beautiful his wife was. But her? He kept her hidden like a secret worth killing for, locked away where no rival could ever lay eyes on her.
Then one of my photographs slipped out. His enemies saw it, and I was taken. I called him from the dark, begging him to send men for me.
He said, "Lori... Serafina is carrying my child now. It's the only heir I can give my late brother. I have to stay beside her and keep her safe."
"You'll just have to hold on a few days. Once the sickness eases, I'll come for you."
He never came.
For a full year, I was tortured. Violated more than a thousand times, my leg broken, my soul shattered.
Still, he never showed.
When I finally escaped, barely alive, covered in blood and filth, I crawled back to the Moretti Estate. Only to find my daughter locked in a dog cage, emaciated and filthy, eating scraps off the ground.
She was clutching a framed photograph of me. My memorial card. They had buried me without a body and declared me dead.
Meanwhile, my husband was throwing a lavish celebration for the one-month birthday of the son he'd made with her, proudly announcing to the whole famiglia that a blood-bound union was coming.
I held my daughter close, her tiny frame trembling against me. Through tears, I whispered to her, "Sweetheart, you don't need that kind of father. Not anymore."
……
When I walked into the inner courtyard of the Moretti compound, Vitale was gently sliding a vintage gold ring onto Serafina's finger. The same ring that had passed down through generations of the family, the mark of the Moretti Lady of the House.
At that moment, Vitale announced the union would be sealed in three days.
Serafina held a newborn boy, barely a month old, cradled against her. She leaned into Vitale's chest with a bashful smile, playing the glowing mother of the heir, perfectly in love. The picture of a made man's domestic peace.
Vitale turned to smile at the gathered soldiers and capos raising their glasses. That was when he saw me.
Even with my face caked in blood, barely recognizable, he knew it was me. After all these years, after everything, he still knew.
Shock flickered across his face, then something I hadn't seen in so long. Joy. Real, raw joy. He looked like he was about to cross the courtyard to me.
"Lor—"
But Serafina caught his sleeve, her voice soft and full of quiet desperation.
"Vito..." Something in that tone made him stop cold. Like she was reminding him of something. Something bigger than me.
He froze. Whatever name had surged to his lips, whatever memory had risen, he swallowed it.
Just like that, the look in his eyes shifted. From elation, to guilt. Then confusion. Then fear.
Around us, the guests who had been toasting and murmuring their respects went quiet and turned to stare. Their smiles died when they saw me. Drenched in blood, barefoot, broken.
Someone muttered, loud enough to carry, "Who let a filthy, crazy woman past the gate? This is a celebration. What a damn omen on a day like this."
Another whispered, louder, "Wait... isn't that Adriana? The Falcone woman Vito said died a year ago?"
"Didn't he say his enemies snatched her? That he grieved for months? Grazie a Dio Serafina was here to hold him together. She got him through it, they fell in love, had the boy... and now they're finally happy again."
I almost laughed. Dead wife? Strange. I hadn't realized I'd died.
The murmurs swelled now, rippling through the stunned crowd, ice settling in more than one glass.
"Wait... that's really Adriana? She's not dead?"
"Then doesn't that make Serafina the other woman? She got into bed with her husband's brother while the man's wife was still breathing?"
"Adriana's standing right there, alive, and Serafina still slid into his sheets the moment she had the opening..."
The words struck Serafina like a slap. Her face went pale, her eyes flicking to me with a resentment she couldn't quite bury. She had recognized me too.
Tears welled in her eyes, and she reached up with trembling fingers, pretending to slip the ring off. The corner of her mouth tightened a half-second before the first tear fell. Her voice cracked with practiced heartbreak.
"If that's what everyone believes... Vito, I don't want the ring. Call off the union. I'm only a widow. I can't carry that kind of shame. I never wanted to ruin anything. I only wanted to be at your side. You and the baby... that's all I ever needed."
Vitale's heart broke right on cue. He seized her hand and pushed the ring back onto her finger, his voice low and thick with a tenderness he'd never once spent on me.
"Lisa, don't say that. Don't even think it. You gave the Moretti family a son. An heir. You've done more for this famiglia than anyone alive. That ring, that title... they belong to you."
I stood there, stunned. Wide-eyed.
I couldn't believe it. Vitale, you once swore to me our daughter was the only rightful heir to the Moretti name.
But now, you were doing this?
