She looped her arm through mine with practiced familiarity, gasping in delight. "Adriana! It really is you! I almost didn't recognize you!"
Her smile was radiant, the kind polished for the assembled Families at a charity gala.
But her eyes were burning with jealousy.
"I don't mean anything by it. I just never expected to run into you in a place like this." Her gaze swept the showroom, the lacquered instruments arranged like tribute under low light.
"Oh, and my husband is the sentimental type. If you're ever in trouble, just reach out to him. He'd definitely help."
She drew out that last word, letting it hang in the air like smoke.
Salvatore's gaze turned cold. "We just happened to run into each other. Drop it."
But Bianca stamped her foot, pouting in mock indignation. "Honey! How can you say that?"
"Adriana was practically my mentor back in the day. If she's struggling now, what's wrong with lending a hand?" Her fingers found the seam of her sleeve and picked at it, the smile holding a beat too long.
She leaned in and pressed a kiss to Salvatore's cheek. "Didn't you say you'd stand behind me, no matter what the cost?"
I understood perfectly. This little performance was staged for my benefit, every gesture rehearsed.
I calmly slipped off Salvatore's jacket and handed it back to her. "You've got the wrong idea. I'm doing just fine."
Her gaze, just like Salvatore's, drifted to my clothes.
I understood immediately. "This coat was a birthday gift from my mother. I just can't bring myself to throw it away."
At that, Salvatore's brow darkened.
It seemed he still remembered.
The day I fell from the balcony. That was my birthday.
That day, he'd left me at home alone, unsteady in my own mind, so he could stand beside Bianca at a taping for the prestige circuit. He'd even taken every last one of the household staff with him, because Bianca's blood sugar ran low and she wanted them positioned on standby, ready to attend to her the moment she lifted a finger.
It was my mother who'd been worried enough to come check on me. She was the one who found me after the fall.
All I remembered was her wrapping me in this coat through the haze of fading consciousness. "My sweet girl! How could you do something so foolish!"
"Open your eyes! Look at what Mama bought you for your birthday!"
"You still have your mother!"
"Silly girl, I told you so many times not to bind your blood to Salvatore Marchetti..."
"Wake up, baby. You're all Mama has left..."
Later, after the union was severed, my mother was so furious she went to confront him and demand answers.
She stepped out onto the street and was hit by a car. She never came back.
Salvatore seemed to surface from wherever the memory had taken him. He exhaled slowly, his thumb turning the wedding band on his finger, around and around.
He looked almost guilty as he changed the subject. "Adriana, Bianca meant well."
"So. Where are you working now?"
"If you don't mind, the Family could arrange something for you..."
"I teach." I lifted my chin and cut him off. "A student of mine at Harmony Academy took first place in the youth division of the prestige circuit this year. I trained her."
My hands could never grace a concert stage again. But I could still teach.
What they didn't know was that I'd become one of the most sought-after instructors in the whole circuit. Men and women with names that carried weight across territories lined up at my door, and most of them still couldn't secure a single hour of my time.
And my daughter was my finest student.
That piano I'd been studying was simply for her to use during private sessions at the academy.
When I said this, Salvatore visibly relaxed, as though he finally understood why the slip of paper had carried Harmony Academy's address.
But Bianca's smile froze, just for an instant. Her fingers went to her sleeve again. "Well. Congratulations, Adriana."
"Though... the youth circuit. The prestige isn't quite the same, is it?"
"Not like the reckonings before all the Families, back in the day..."
She didn't finish.
Because I smiled. Beneath the counter, I felt my scarred right hand curl slowly, then press flat against my thigh. "Oh, you're right. Those reckonings before the Families. You must remember them vividly."
"After all, you won yours playing another woman's work as your own."
Bianca went rigid. She turned to Salvatore, her eyes brimming with wounded innocence. "Honey, after all these years, Adriana still thinks I stole her—"
