I spoke up again. "I'm really not joking. I'm getting engaged next month."
Luca froze. He said he'd assumed I was just making excuses.
My brother chimed in with a grin.
"None of you knew? My little sister moves fast. And with a face like hers, what man wouldn't be wrapped around her finger?"
Luca stood there, stunned, draining one glass after another. The social club's back room was warm with cigar haze and the low murmur of men who understood that what was said at this table stayed at this table. But Luca wasn't hearing any of it. His silver lighter appeared in his hand, clicking open, clicking shut, the rhythm too fast.
He cut in abruptly.
"Stop making things up. Your sister's still single. Saying stuff like that will only hurt her reputation."
Then he dragged Matteo back to keep drinking.
I sat in the corner, bored, flipping through songs on my phone. The bass from the main floor pulsed faintly through the walls, and one of Matteo's soldiers stood near the door with his arms folded, eyes on nothing, seeing everything.
A while later, Luca suddenly left for the restroom. My phone buzzed. A text from him.
"Come out for a second."
I hesitated, then went.
The moment I reached the hallway outside the restroom, someone grabbed my arm hard and pulled me into a corner. The corridor was narrow, poorly lit, lined with framed photographs of men whose names you didn't say aloud.
Luca's eyes were rimmed red, fixed on me.
"Engaged? You really know how to get under my skin."
"This is just because I didn't kiss you earlier, isn't it? You don't have to be this jealous."
He reached up and gently smoothed my hair, the corner of his mouth lifting as he leaned in to kiss me. The lighter had vanished back into his pocket. His hand was steady now, certain, as though pulling me close in a dim hallway settled everything that the evening had broken.
Looking at the face I'd loved for eight years, all I could see was the image of him kissing Adriana, replaying over and over behind my eyes.
My stomach turned violently.
I stiffened and turned my head away.
"I'm not. I don't have the right to be jealous."
Eight years underground. That was what we'd been.
Nobody besides the two of us knew we were together. Not even Matteo, his blood-sworn ally, my own brother. Luca had never once told him. In a world where being named under a man's protection meant everything, I had no name at all. Every time we met felt like an affair. Secret phones, rented rooms far from Family territory, excuses layered over excuses until the truth was buried so deep neither of us could find it without digging.
I was sick of it. I'd tried again and again to go public. What girl doesn't want her boyfriend to claim her in front of the whole world? To be seated beside him at the table, acknowledged before the captains, spoken for?
But every hope fell through, and all that accumulated was disappointment.
"Bianca!"
The smile drained from Luca's face. "Are you avoiding me?"
"You've had too much to drink."
Just then, Adriana's voice carried over from nearby.
"Where's Luca? I just saw him right here."
The instant he heard her voice, Luca let go of my hand.
"Go back inside first."
Adriana had drunk too much. She was outside retching, crying out Luca's name between heaves. The sound carried through the corridor, raw and ugly, and a busboy near the service entrance looked away fast, knowing better than to witness a Bellini princess in that state.
He glanced over, expression flat, and turned to walk away.
"Luca, please don't leave me..."
Her sobbing voice stopped him in his tracks.
He exhaled softly. In the end, he caved. He stayed by her side, patting her back now and then.
"Let it out."
"You'll feel better once it's all up."
Then something seemed to occur to him. He scooped Adriana up and set her down on a nearby seat. "Wait here for me."
He jogged off and came back with a bottle in his hand.
"Here. Your favorite. Strawberry."
Adriana blinked, then broke into a teary smile.
"Eight years, and you still remember that I love strawberry."
So the one who loved strawberry had always been Adriana.
That was why he always bought strawberry cake. Even the scented sachets tucked inside his closet were strawberry.
My eyes burned. My fingers went to the hollow at my throat and pressed there, hard, as though I could hold the hurt inside my chest by force. I tore my gaze away and walked fast back toward the private room.
The party dragged on until one in the morning.
Adriana was slumped across the table, drunk, her fingers still clutching the hem of Luca's jacket. He didn't shake her off. Instead, he slipped his coat from his shoulders and draped it over hers.
And I, his actual girlfriend, sat in the corner watching him take care of another woman.
