The door of the hospital room had barely sealed shut when my phone buzzed with a message from Lorenzo.
It was a video. He was naked, tangled up with a woman whose face I couldn't make out, and the sounds spilling out of the speaker turned my stomach.
I was shaking, my thumb already moving to kill the screen, when his call came through.
His voice came lazy and contemptuous down the line.
"Watched it? If the room number isn't on my phone by eight, more videos like that one go straight to yours. Consider it a lesson. You can see how other women take care of the man who carries your name."
"Lorenzo. I'll go."
When he heard me give in, he let out a satisfied little sigh.
"Adriana, get this through your head. You brought this on yourself. Eight years ago you took advantage of the Moretti ruin, you tore Bianca and me apart, and the day you were bound into this bloodline, you should have known. Not in this lifetime will you ever get even a scrap of real love from me."
Then he hung up, fast, the way he always did.
Two bitter lines of tears slid from the corners of my eyes.
Lorenzo was right.
This was a sin of my own making.
Eight years ago I'd believed that if I were only given enough time, I could thaw his heart.
It took me until today to understand how naive that girl had been.
In eight years, the women in his bed had numbered in the hundreds, if not the thousands.
Once, at least, he'd had the decency to keep it from me, to hide it behind closed doors and the quiet code every man in this life lived by.
Now he wanted me to book the room myself.
And I knew if I didn't go, that video might not stop at my phone. By tomorrow it could land in the hands of every gossip and informer in the territory, every man who traded in the ruin of old blood.
The Falcone name carried a century of respect behind it, the oldest bloodline anyone in these streets would name.
I wouldn't have my father dragged into the storm again over my own private wreckage.
It had been like this for years now.
To make my life miserable, to make me suffer, Lorenzo seemed willing to burn everything down with it.
Somewhere along the way, love down to the bone had curdled into a hatred that ate him alive.
Even thinking about it left me hollow.
A thick smear of crimson welled up below, and I braced myself against the wall and stumbled off to clean myself up.
Then, swallowing the pain that knifed through me, I left the room.
Ten minutes later I sent Lorenzo the room number.
I scrolled idly back up through the messages. A thousand of them sent to him, and all I'd ever gotten back was the odd word, here and there.
I gave a tired, crooked smile at the rearview mirror and tossed the phone onto the seat. My fingers found the thin gold band on my hand and closed around it without my deciding to.
Half an hour later I stood outside his hotel suite with the lingerie he'd bought. The hotel was one of the Family's legitimate fronts, marble and hushed money, bodyguards posted at the far end of the corridor who looked through me as if I were furniture.
The first time he'd brought a piece like this home, I'd been nervous and shy, but I hadn't refused him.
That night, after I put it on, Lorenzo lost himself in me and cried out Bianca's name, over and over.
Afterward I lay staring at the line of his back and cried until morning.
From that day on, I never wore anything like it again.
He had too many ways to torment me. If I wouldn't wear it, he made other women wear it. And every day, as regular as a good-morning and good-night, he sent me the photos.
"Well, look who's here. A minute late. I'll forgive you today. Don't be late next time."
He opened the door from inside, loosely belted into a robe, the heavy signet ring turning in slow half-circles on his finger as he watched me with mockery all over his face.
Maybe she'd heard my voice. Bianca stepped up behind him and slid her arms around his waist, pulling the door wider so she could look at me. She laughed, a beat too quick, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her voice sweet and cloying.
"Aren't you thoughtful, big sister. Delivering it yourself?"
