When they saw me, they looked dumbfounded. A flicker of surprise crossed Dario's face as he asked, puzzled, "Are you sick? Why are you at the clinic alone?"
Before I could answer, Lucia stepped in. "Caterina, don't take your health lightly just because you're still young. No matter how much the Family keeps you running, you have to take care of yourself. Don't make Dario worry about you."
Her tone carried the warmth of concern, but beneath it sat a subtle distance I couldn't ignore. This was the doctor the Falcones trusted, the one who never wrote anything down and never spoke a word outside these walls. Of course she would bring Lucia here.
I pressed my lips together and answered with a hum. "I've already had my check-up. I just need my medication, then I can go. You two should go ahead with the prenatal exam."
Dario's eyes filled with concern as he started toward me, but Lucia tugged him back by the sleeve.
"Dario, it's almost our turn. Let's go in," she said, rubbing her belly with a wince. "I don't know if it's because I've been overthinking lately, but my stomach hasn't felt right. I'm worried it might affect the baby." Her hand pressed to her belly a moment too quickly.
She leaned on the word baby, and the worry in his eyes dissolved at once. Guilt took its place. "Caterina, you should head home first. I'll come find you after I finish the check-up with Lucia."
I remembered when his brother was still alive, how Dario always called her sister-in-law, the title spoken with the respect a man owed his blood. Now her name came off his tongue with the ease of something already his.
As I looked at the three of them standing together, I couldn't help but realize how much of an outsider I had become. The man who once swore his life on loving me no longer held me in his heart.
I recalled the times he had put me first, no matter what the Family demanded of him. A wave of bitterness welled up in my chest as I choked out, "Alright. You two go ahead."
On the drive home, I stared out the window at the familiar streets flashing past, the same blocks where everyone knew which doors belonged to which name. My mind replayed scenes from a time when we were never apart.
I had known Dario since we were young. Back then he sat beside me, a quiet, studious boy with his nose always in a book, while I was the loud, reckless one. Both of us were children of the life, though neither of us understood yet what that would cost.
My father was always away on the Family's business, and my mother feared I couldn't look after myself, so they kept me close to the school grounds, away from home.
I hated the food they served us, so I always badgered Dario to smuggle me something better from outside. He'd sigh as if I were the great trial of his existence, then always give in. It went on for three years.
After that, we naturally ended up at the same university.
Having known him so long, I couldn't help but lean on him in that unfamiliar place, drawing comfort and steadiness from him. I relied on him for everything, and he never seemed to tire of it.
My mother used to scold me. She said it wasn't right to lean on someone so heavily. I shrugged her words off and repeated them to Dario, half laughing.
He set down his pen and said, easy as anything, "Do you really think I'm some kind of pushover? Caterina, if I didn't want you, I wouldn't bother with you at all."
His feelings for me were never hidden. I had known from the very start. So I shamelessly basked in everything he gave.
When we finally became each other's, his devotion only grew bolder. With him beside me, I felt untouchable, as if nothing in this world, not even the men who came and went from my father's table, could ever reach me.
Knowing all he had done for me, my mother used to joke that the hardest thing I would ever face in life was a day's work.
But now I knew she was wrong. The hardest thing I would ever face wasn't work. It was that the man I loved had sealed his union with another woman before the Family, and I was the last one to know.
Tears blurred my vision as the memories ran on, and by the time I noticed, my face was already soaked.
The driver glanced at me in the mirror and passed back a tissue. "There's no hurdle you can't get over, signorina. Keep moving forward. Good fortune's waiting just up the road."
I took the tissue and thanked him through my sobbing.
After I paid the fare, I was about to call someone to unload all of it when I absently opened my phone. That was when I saw Lucia's latest post, put up just five minutes ago.
