No One Told the Cripple the Story Was Fake

Five years after the Falcones took me back into the bloodline they'd cast off, the woman they called their heiress, Vittoria Falcone, ran me down in the courtyard of the estate and shattered my leg beneath her tires.

My father and mother, and the man I'd loved since childhood, Lorenzo Bianchi, rushed me to the Family physician in a panic. When Dr. Russo bowed his head and declared, in that grave, careful voice of his, that I might never walk again, Lorenzo dropped to one knee without hesitation and swore before them all to keep me safe for the rest of my life.

My parents told me they had cut Vittoria loose, that they'd taken the evidence into their own hands, that the vendetta would be answered and justice done. With that, they said, I could rest. I could give myself to healing.

Later they told me Vittoria had drowned, gone to the mattresses in her guilt and never come back. And I believed them.

It wasn't until the fifth year of my blood-union that I saw her again. The woman who was supposed to be dead.

She had a little boy cradled in her arms, and her voice was soft, brimming over with feeling as she spoke to Lorenzo.

"These past years, I've been so grateful to you, and to Mamma and Papà. Without you, I'd have ended up laundered under some false name in a run-down front overseas, cast aside like Adriana."

"That cripple never would have imagined, even in death, that you and I have a son. That Mamma and Papà were in on it all along, wiping away the evidence, switching out her medicine for worthless nothing."

"Don't say that," he murmured. He smoothed one flat palm down the front of his jacket, top to bottom, as if brushing off something he could feel clinging to him. "The blood-union was the only way I could keep issuing those Family pardons. The only way to keep the vendetta off you. The only way to keep you safe."

"As long as you and our son are happy, none of it matters."

So that was the truth.

The marriage I had clung to like salvation had been nothing but a cruel illusion. My own blood had betrayed me and thrown me away, all to bury a lie.

Fine.

If I was nothing to them, then I would walk away.

……

I sat in silence in the wide marble foyer of the clinic, watching Vittoria hold her son. Lorenzo stood beside her, and around them the Family beamed, radiant with a joy that had never once been meant for me.

It felt as if someone had hollowed out my chest and left nothing behind but a raw, gaping wound. The pain was suffocating. I could barely breathe.

The husband who had vowed before witnesses to stand at my side, to cherish me, had loved the very woman who had nearly ended my life.

And my parents, after erasing the evidence, still refused to believe me. They had bound Lorenzo to me in blood-union, not out of love, but to keep his hand free to sign those pardons, to keep Vittoria clear of every debt she owed under the vendetta.

My phone rang.

It was my mother.

"Adriana, why didn't you wait so we could go together? We're on our way. Where are you?"

Hearing the urgency in her voice, fury surged through me and burned away the last of my restraint.

I curled my fingers into fists, nails digging deep into my palms. My thumb found the inside of my wrist, the old spot where the line had once fed into me, and I pressed until it hurt.

"Oh, I just thought I shouldn't be a burden to you for the rest of my life," I said, my voice light, almost mocking. "So this time, I decided to come for the treatments alone."

"We're famiglia! How could you ever be a burden to us? Have you reached the clinic yet? We're close. We'll be there right away."

Famiglia.

Before, every time I came for the treatments, my parents had always been at my side.

I had once mistaken it for love. For care. Now the truth lay bare in front of me, plain as a body in the road.

"Mm. I just arrived. I'm about to go into the lobby."

I turned my chair around the corner and stopped there, deliberately, letting the silence stretch.

As I knew they would, their voices went sharp with panic down the line. Don't go inside, they said. It's too crowded, too unsafe. Wait. We're close, we'll come to you, wait for us.

A cold smile pulled at my lips.

I answered them with nothing at all and ended the call.

Just then I saw Lorenzo lift his own phone to his ear. His face tightened in an instant. He leaned in and murmured something to Vittoria, handed the boy into her arms, and slipped out through the back the way a made man leaves a room he doesn't want to be seen leaving.

Vittoria melted into the crowd after him.

Understanding struck like a blade between my ribs.

The call had come from my parents.

They hadn't stopped me out of concern for my safety.

They were afraid I'd see Lorenzo and Vittoria standing together.

A wave of shock and sorrow crashed over me and threatened to drag me under. My whole life, every word, every soft gesture, had been nothing but a carefully arranged lie.

And all of it was for Vittoria.

The one who had done this to me. The one who had taken everything.

I curled my fingers, nails biting deep into my palm. Then, slowly, the pressure at my wrist eased. My hand went flat and calm against the armrest.

Since they had gone to such lengths to deceive me, I would return the favor in full.

I drew out my phone, pressed record, and guided my chair toward the entrance just as my parents came hurrying in.