For all three of those days, I didn't see Marco.
My feeds kept pushing me another one of Gianna's little broadcasts, the kind that circulated through every social club in the territory.
In it, she was blackout drunk, her makeup smeared across her face, rubbing off onto her clothes and the white pillow.
The shot cut, and a large hand with sharply defined knuckles was carefully wiping her makeup away.
It was Marco's hand. There was an indulgent, doting smile on his face.
Marco was a germophobe.
Once, I'd overslept and rushed out the door, bringing breakfast to eat in the back of his car, and all it earned me was a tongue-lashing the whole drive.
If I had any makeup on at all, I wasn't allowed to lean my face against him.
Yet in that broadcast, he could wipe Gianna's makeup off without the slightest hesitation, her lipstick and eyeshadow smudged across his white dress shirt.
Can loving someone really be faked?
The clip wasn't even over when I added Gianna's account to my blocked list.
What I didn't expect was that the scene of the three of us in the office that day had somehow been filmed and put out where everyone could see it.
The talk spread fast, every whispered table in every club passing it along.
What surprised me was that almost all of it was tearing into Gianna, calling her a homewrecker, and the tribute flowing into Marco's crew had dried up hard, his standing collapsing by the hour.
But I didn't really care. I was withdrawing anyway, so none of it had anything to do with me.
I was hauling my suitcase toward the door when—
Marco came storming back, Gianna trailing behind him. The door hit the wall and stayed open, the hallway silent behind them.
"Adriana, did you put that word out?"
He flung his phone at me.
On the screen was a post from an anonymous burner account, and right there in plain sight it named Gianna the homewrecker, with a sealed document attached, the kind that ruins a name in this world.
I couldn't help rolling my eyes. "I have no interest in doing something like that."
"You think I'd believe that?" His voice was frighteningly cold.
"Gianna already apologized to you. What more do you want? Now her name's being dragged through every club, her standing—the crew's standing has dropped, and you have to drag it this far?"
He cracked the knuckles of one hand, then the other, the sound too loud in the quiet room.
Gianna cried, "Adriana, what will it take for you to forgive me… do you want me to get down on my knees and beg you?"
As she spoke, she grabbed hold of me, making a show of dropping to her knees to plead. Two fingers pressed to the hollow of her throat, as though something inside her had been wounded.
Marco clenched his fist,
grabbed my arm,
then shoved me away hard and pulled Gianna into his arms.
I lost my footing, my lower back slamming into the corner of the low cabinet, and a sharp pain shot through me all at once. My face went bloodless in an instant, my body going weak, unable to stand.
In a daze, I saw Marco reach a hand out toward me.
The next second, he pulled it back.
"Marco, I think I twisted my ankle, it hurts so much…" Gianna said, trembling.
"Gianna, are you okay? I'll take you to a doctor."
Every word dripped with tenderness and concern.
He scooped Gianna up in his arms, and when he looked back at me, his face was nothing but plain, glaring disgust.
I tugged at the corner of my mouth.
It could finally all be over.
Marco rushed Gianna off to the doctor,
while I forced my body upright, reached up, and removed a single earring, setting it down on the cabinet with great care. Then I hailed a cab to the airport, and left the territory.
