The veins stood out along Lorenzo's neck, his chest heaving with ragged breaths. The banquet hall had gone silent around us, the way a room goes silent when a made man loses his temper and no one is fool enough to breathe.
Beside him, Bianca pressed a hand to her forehead, tears welling in her eyes.
Lorenzo turned his head and caught the sight. When he looked back at me, his voice came out cold. "Adriana, can't you understand a word I say?"
My gaze went colder and colder. I let the blood slide down my face however it wanted.
Only when he sensed something was off did a flicker of panic cross his eyes, though he still knit his brows and narrowed them, studying me.
Bianca spoke up weakly, trying to smooth things over. "Don't fight because of me. I'm really fine." Her fingers drifted to the pendant at her throat, checking it was still there. "I'm so sorry, Adriana. If I'd known, I never would've come back with Mr. Falcone. I just thought it would be better if I explained in person…"
When she finished, she actually stepped slowly toward me, her heels soundless on the marble.
She bent down and reached out to help me up, and the moment her hand touched my arm, I flung it away hard.
The force sent her hand slamming into the leg of the cabinet behind her, and she let out a muffled cry of pain.
Lorenzo took her hand with aching tenderness, examining the spot where it had struck and turned red, and only after confirming it was nothing serious did he whip around to glare at me.
"Adriana, don't you dare throw my goodwill back in my face!"
"Do you have any idea what Bianca gave up for that union of yours? Keep making a scene, and I'll expose your lies at your makeup ceremony, right in front of your mother!"
My makeup ceremony?
I couldn't help the laugh that broke out of me.
"And what exactly did she give up? Wanting to show up in my place, to stand beside you at the altar the Family chose for me? How very noble of her."
I lifted my hands to applaud Bianca, the blood at the corner of my mouth running down the mocking curve of my lips.
"Lorenzo, a makeup ceremony for me. Don't you find that ridiculous? There's no need. There won't ever be any need!"
My voice was colder than it had ever been. In the quiet, the only other sound was the soldier by the doors shifting his weight, careful not to look at any of us.
His eyes fixed on my face, as if he wanted to glare a hole right through it.
He thought I was the same as before, putting on an act because I was jealous.
A pity that everything now was more real than the gold buried in his mother's vaults.
He cracked the knuckles of one hand, slow, deliberate, then ground out the words one by one through his teeth.
"Adriana, my patience with you is very limited. Think it through before you talk to me."
"Don't forget you begged for this on your knees! Miss this chance and there won't be another!"
"Watching you marry into this Family was your mother's dying wish. And now it isn't? Can you face her like this?"
I lifted my eyes, mockery in them. "Since when has your patience for me been limitless? I've thought it through, and I really do thank you for your kindness. Neither my mother nor I are worthy of it, so save the union for someone who needs it."
When I finished, I looked at Bianca with a cold smile.
Hearing the sneer in my tone, Lorenzo narrowed his eyes and probed.
"Not worthy of it? Or are you afraid of being exposed on the spot, that your mother's terminal illness is a lie?"
"I know it was wrong of me to miss the union I promised you, so I've already arranged a specialist consultation at our hospital for your mother. Why don't you need the ceremony now? What terminal illness is so afraid of the light?"
In an instant the blood in my whole body froze. I clenched my fists with all my strength, my knuckles trembling, my thumb pressing hard against the bare base of my ring finger where no ring had ever been placed.
"Lorenzo, shut your mouth! What right do you have to bring up my mother's dying wish?"
"My mother's dying wish was to see me happy, not to make me marry into your blood!"
"Who do you think you are? Do you even deserve to have my mother put on an act with her life? That damn consultation, I don't need it, and neither does my mother! Spare me your fake kindness!"
"From today on, we have nothing to do with each other! Not a thing! We never have to see each other again!"
With every word I spoke, Lorenzo's face darkened another shade.
By the end it was black as the bottom of a pot.
He cracked the knuckles of his other hand, louder this time, and forced the words out through clenched teeth.
"Adriana, I'm warning you, think every single word through in that dog brain of yours before you say it! Your mother has a terminal illness? What, did you inherit dementia? Or did your brain pack up and leave home?"
I watched his lips open and close, and the love that had once filled me turned in that moment into endless hatred.
Lorenzo picked up his phone and called the men who ran the banquet hall.
"The hall I rebooked yesterday, cancel it. From now on, no woman named Adriana is allowed to hold any event in that room! No matter whose union it is, you don't take it!
Otherwise you can shut your doors, every last one of you, and crawl back to whatever gutter you came from!"
The moment he finished he hung up, then dialed a different number, the doctor the Family kept on its leash.
"The specialist consultation I arranged last night for Donna Costa, cancel it right now."
The other end went still for a beat before answering him.
"I'm very sorry. Donna Costa's consultation was canceled yesterday. The patient has already passed away."
