"Those twins are Vince's own blood. His and that homewrecker's," someone muttered.
"You think there's any question? Why else would he push Adriana to sign every asset over to them?" another answered under his breath.
"Poor woman. Played from the start."
The whispers moved through the banquet hall like smoke through a locked room, thick with judgment, thick with disbelief. What had begun as a grand Family sit-down, a celebration in the old Salvatore style, had turned into a public reckoning. And I stood at the center of it, the way a body lies at the center of a crime scene.
My mother clutched my arm, her tear-streaked face trembling. "Adriana, this is exactly what we warned you about," she cried. "We told you he was calculated. He was always after the Family's money. That man never loved you. And those children, you don't even know whose blood runs in them. But you wouldn't listen."
My father had stormed out earlier, livid past speech. Now he returned, his face like a gathering storm, his voice shaking with fury.
"How could I have raised such a foolish daughter? Why in God's name would you give up everything for a man? You gave up your standing, your body, even your birthright. Adriana, you're a disgrace to the Salvatore name."
Surrounded by murmurs and the weight of every judgmental stare in the room, I looked down at the renunciation papers in my hands. No one noticed the faint, almost amused curve of my lips. My thumb found my grandmother's ruby ring and turned it once, slow, around my finger.
"Adriana," Vince said, in that counterfeit-gentle tone I had come to despise, "you can't blame me. I'm only a man. You had the surgery. You can't give me children anymore. What choice did I have?"
I let out a dry laugh, cold and without warmth. "You're the one who asked me to do it. So we could live a life without children, together. You told me we'd never regret it. You swore that if I gave up my ability to bear a child, you'd stay with me forever."
Vince shrugged, careless, and adjusted the heavy watch on his wrist, glancing at its face as if to be sure his hours were still his own. "That was then. Things change. I want a family now. I want children. And since you can't give them to me, I'll find someone who can."
"Exactly." Gina stepped forward like she'd been rehearsing the entrance for years, her smile arriving a half-second late, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "What's the use of keeping a woman who can't give a man his heirs? And what good is a fortune this size if there's no blood to pass it to?"
Around the room, heads began to nod in quiet agreement. The whispers rose again, this time in support of her heartless words.
Unable to stomach another moment, my mother stepped forward, her eyes blazing, her finger trembling as she leveled it at Vince. "You," she spat. "Have you forgotten where you crawled up from?"
"You came out of some dead-end town with nothing in your pockets but dust. Couldn't afford anything. Holed up in a rented room, living off canned soup and stale bread."
"If Adriana's father hadn't stepped in and covered your mother's hospital bills, she wouldn't have lasted the month. We asked for nothing when you married into this Family. Instead we gave you a house, a car, a name to stand behind."
"When she learned you favored slow-cooked ribs, she didn't just send for them. She brought in a man who knew the recipe, then spent weeks learning to make them with her own hands. Only to see you smile."
"And when your brother lost his living and his wife walked out? Adriana went to her father on his behalf. The old man set your brother up, good position, full protection, more money than he'd ever seen. We took you in like our own blood. And this. This is how you settle the debt?"
The room went silent.
Vince gave a laugh with nothing behind it. "Why drag up the past? It has nothing to do with any of this." Then he turned to me. "Well, Adriana? Are you going to stand there staring at the pact all night?"
He smirked. "It changes nothing whether you sign or not. The estate's already gone to the children. There's barely a few hundred left in the joint account."
"Tell you what," he added, his voice slick with mockery, "keep it. Call it thanks for all you gave up for me and the kids. Should see you through your quiet years."
Gasps and low murmurs rippled through the crowd.
"If not for Adriana," someone muttered, "his mother would be in the ground. He'd still be a nobody, not a rising boss in this city."
"The Salvatores pulled him out of the gutter and he cleaned them out. Played every card right. Poor old Don."
"And now he's grinning like a man who came up on the numbers."
Vince's smug smile stretched so wide it looked like it might split his face down the middle.
Then, the crack of it.
"You bastard." The sound of the slap rang through the banquet hall like a gunshot in a marble corridor. My father had crossed the floor in three strides, his hand raised, and struck Vince hard enough to snap his head sideways. He was thinking of all I had given up to stand beside this piece of filth, and how the man had made fools of us before the whole Family.
My father's voice tore loose. "She gave up her body for you. Gave you standing, gave you a life you could never have built on your own. And this is how you repay her?"
Vince's face went red, more from the shame of it than the sting. He flung out his arm and shouted, "Enough. Get this old man out of my sight."
Like dogs trained to a single whistle, a knot of the Family's soldiers surged forward, closing around my father with hard eyes and fists already curling.
