After ten years of loving him, the man I had waited for finally came home.
Luca DeLuca had returned from service. Not military service the way civilians understood it. He had done violent, quiet work for the Family overseas, the kind no one discussed at Sunday dinner, and now he was back with honors, debts settled, his name spoken with respect in rooms I would never be allowed to enter.
Everyone said he had come back to marry me.
I believed it too.
I believed that after ten years of separation, longing, and waiting, I had finally reached the ending I had dreamed of.
Until I opened his old phone.
Inside, I found 512 gigabytes of messages. Every single one was for another woman. Even though she had blocked him long ago, even though every message he sent was marked with a cold red exclamation point, he still kept sending them.
Long letters.
Voice messages.
Videos of him confessing his love.
Words of longing so deep they almost sounded desperate.
He had poured into her all the tenderness I had waited ten years to receive.
With a heart heavy enough to sink, I went to the clinic to collect my premarital checkup report. The Bellandi family used a private Catholic hospital on the Upper East Side, discreet physicians who knew how to keep their mouths shut and their records clean. The kind of place where Family business stayed Family business.
But the moment I stepped into the lobby, I saw him.
Luca, the man who had always hated being watched, was kneeling on one knee in the middle of the bustling hospital hall. He held a ring in his hand. His back was straight, his expression solemn, his entire body radiating a determination I had once thought would be reserved for me.
And in front of him stood Serafina Gallo.
The woman he had never been able to forget.
The woman who had once nearly destroyed me.
His voice trembled as he looked up at her.
"Serafina, I gave up my dreams for you. I only ask one thing. Keep the child."
His eyes were red, filled with affection so deep it almost hurt to look at.
"If you agree, we can go before the priest right now."
For a moment, I could not breathe.
That ring in his hand was exactly the one I had imagined countless times in my dreams. I had once pictured him kneeling before me with it. I had imagined the surprise, the tears, the applause, the moment he would finally say he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me.
But now, that ring was not meant for me.
"Serafina," he begged, his voice almost breaking, "please keep the child and marry me. Will you?"
Serafina lowered her eyes, gently touching her stomach with one hand. Her fingers smoothed the front seam of her dress three quick times, precise and practiced, before she slowly extended her other hand toward him.
Luca slid the ring onto her finger.
The ring I had dreamed of for years now gleamed on another woman's hand.
The crowd erupted into cheers. Whistles echoed through the lobby. They embraced and kissed passionately beneath everyone's gaze, while every sound around me sliced into my heart like a blade.
I looked down at the checkup report in my hand. Beside it was my pregnancy test report.
Then, without hesitation, I tore them both to pieces.
Three years ago, I had also been carrying an heir.
Back then, Luca told me that having a child outside the alliance would complicate his standing. The timing was wrong. His position within the DeLuca Family was still rising, and an unplanned birth before the formal ceremony would give the Capos something to whisper about. So he abandoned our first child.
He returned to his work for the Family as if nothing had happened.
I went through the surgery alone. I stayed in the hospital alone. I endured the pain alone. I mourned that child alone.
That child had died three years ago.
And perhaps, my love for Luca had died with it.
