At the same time, I saw the tribute my husband had wired me at midnight, five hundred and twenty thousand routed clean through three of the Valente fronts, and it swept the gloom out of my chest.
After a quick shower, thinking it would wash off the bad luck of the day, I flopped onto the bed and scrolled through my phone.
But I'd forgotten to block Gia.
She'd posted a photo on her feed, a hazy shot of her and Enzo from behind, with the caption:
【Spending the night with the one you love is the greatest happiness. And a woman who can't learn to be gracious will never make a good wife to any man worth his respect.】
I liked her post right away, and she immediately messaged me:
【Adriana, you lose, you pay up. Can't you even cover two thousand for the room? Didn't you say you got married? Go ask your husband for it! Maybe I could even beg Enzo to bring you along to the Boss's grand sit-down the day after tomorrow.】
I never imagined Enzo could get his hands on a seat at a banquet my own husband was hosting.
I thought it over for a moment, then decided to send her two thousand so she'd never have a reason to come after me again.
【Consider these two thousand a wedding gift for you and Enzo. From here on, our roads run far apart. Let's stay out of each other's lives.】
After sending it, I collapsed into bed and pulled the covers over my head, but sleep wouldn't come.
Seven years of holding on. It would be a lie to say none of it hurt.
In my dreams, I dreamed of my past with Enzo.
It was the height of summer, seven years ago, and eighteen-year-old Enzo was nothing like the arrogant man he'd become.
I was nineteen then, taking shelter from the rain under the eaves of the old parish hall, when he'd held up an umbrella, cheeks flushed, and asked if we were headed the same way.
Back then he was just a gutter-born boy with nothing to his name, worlds apart from a Mancini, even a Mancini whose house was already beginning to crack.
He only worked up the nerve to say that one thing that day, and after that he quietly left me gifts and had breakfast waiting for me.
But he never once said a word about wanting to be my sworn suitor.
I watched him hold that umbrella over me in the pouring rain, willing to be soaked to the skin as long as he kept the papers in my arms dry.
I watched him take the money he'd scraped together running errands for two weeks and turn it into a cheap silver necklace.
And I watched him take on more than a dozen of another crew's men alone because someone had put hands on me, breaking a few ribs without making a sound.
I once thought that was love in its purest form, and I was willing to weather every hardship with him.
I never knew that in three years abroad, moving through that world of easy money and borrowed respect, he'd already ground his sincerity down into a chip to be weighed for profit and loss.
Morning sunlight cut through the curtains, and the buzz of my phone dragged me back to reality.
I saw it was an unknown number and answered without thinking. It was Enzo again.
"Adriana, can you drop this habit of blocking me every time you get upset? You're home, right? I'm coming over."
"Enzo, are you ever going to stop? I already told you we're over. I've already……"
Before I could finish, he cut me off.
"If you really didn't care, why did you send Gia two thousand last night? Isn't that just you trying to make me jealous on purpose? Quit playing around. I actually have something important to talk to you about."
With that, he hung up.
I couldn't help but hold my head, sitting hunched and speechless on the bed, staring at the little plush toy tucked in the corner by my pillow.
It was ugly, but it was the first gift twenty-year-old Enzo had ever given me.
He'd sewn it himself, stitch by stitch, pricking all ten of his fingers in the process.
All because I'd pointed at a plush toy the heroine received in some drama and said, how cute.
Yet through all three of those years abroad, my messages slowly sank like stones. He either didn't read them or didn't reply.
When he left, he'd sworn to me, so certain of himself.
"Adriana, no matter how far apart we are, my body and my heart belong to you and you alone."
But when they forced me into that marriage pact, of the ninety-nine calls I made to him in desperation, not one was ever answered.
