Lorenzo let out a breath that was meant to sound easy. "Ah, forgive me. I forgot you don't follow the old tongue. Dario and I, we slip into Sicilian out of habit. Means nothing."
I didn't break my gaze, keeping my eyes locked on him. Whatever he read in my face was enough to make him reach up and rub the back of his neck, the way a man does when he's carrying something too heavy for his hands. He mumbled some excuse and slipped out of the room.
Two years ago, I wouldn't have understood a single word that passed between them. But I had taught myself Sicilian in secret, the private tongue of the inner circle, desperate to understand Dario. Desperate to belong to him.
And yet, the first words I ever truly heard in that language went through me like a knife between the ribs.
...
"Adriana, look at this. I made it for you. Eat something."
Dario set a bowl of broth in front of me as though he were laying tribute at the feet of a saint. His eyes were wide, full of warmth and patience, as if I were meant to be grateful for the gift.
How long had he been wearing this face? Did the lie never tire him?
"That's kind of you. But I've no appetite," I said, pushing his hand away and turning onto my side, closing my eyes.
I caught the flicker of disappointment before he buried it. He pressed two fingers against the inside of his left wrist for the briefest moment, then set the bowl down without another word and left.
It wasn't until later, when I saw the way he leaned close to Noemi Valente in that room down the hall, the easy intimacy of two people who had never once lied to each other, that I understood something about myself.
My heart wasn't aching anymore.
It had gone numb.
I turned to go, and as I did, my eyes met Noemi's.
She smiled. The smile held a beat too long, and behind it her eyes were flat and counting, already tallying what she'd won.
Was she laughing at how every man I had ever given my loyalty to had walked away from me?
Or was she savoring it, the knowledge that I had wagered everything, my faith, my body, my unborn line, believing in something gentle, only to watch it collapse into a lie built brick by patient brick?
I lowered my head. I couldn't find the strength to face her. I turned back toward my room, hollowed out.
And in that moment I understood I was simply, terribly tired.
...
I sat on the edge of the bed for what felt like hours, going nowhere inside my own head. After a long while I took up my phone and called Don Costa, the old Don of the northern stronghold.
"Don Costa. I want a place on the expedition into the forbidden ground."
A silence stretched on the other end. When he spoke, his voice carried a careful edge, the voice of a man turning his glass a slow quarter-turn before he commits to anything. "Adriana. Are you certain? That incursion is sworn under oath, and the country up there does not forgive mistakes. You've only just healed. I don't know that your body is ready for it."
I looked down at the signet ring on my finger. My mother's ring. I twisted it once, slow, around the knuckle. "I can do it."
"Then it's done," he said, and I heard him stop turning whatever he held. "I'll send word of the schedule and what precautions the Family requires. Adriana... you have your mother's spine. Isabella's spine. After what they did to you three years ago, I never expected you to want to set foot in that frozen border country again."
I had thought the same once. I had sworn I would never go back.
But now I was ready.
Three years ago, our party rode deep into the snow-capped border mountains under Dario's command, an incursion into hostile country where a man's life is only as safe as the hand beside him.
Out of nowhere, Noemi screamed. A piercing, blood-curdling sound that cut through the silence like a knife.
Before any of us could move, the ground shook beneath our boots. A roar filled the air as the whole mountainside came down, a white avalanche swallowing everything in its path.
And in that single instant, I saw all of it laid bare.
Aldo, the man bound to me by the alliance, let go of my hand without a second thought.
No hesitation.
No panic.
Only a cold decision.
He turned and ran straight for Noemi, his face carved with fear, all of it spent on her.
And me? I was already forgotten.
The snow struck with a force that took my legs out from under me and threw me like a discarded thing toward the lip of a cliff.
The wind howled in my ears, the snow tearing at my face, and I reached out, clawing for something, anything, to hold. My fingers closed on cold, empty air.
I was falling into the dark when a hand caught me.
Dario...
He threw himself in front of me and pulled me hard into his arms, and we went down together, tumbling.
When we finally stopped, we lay inches from the edge.
His face was bloodless, his lips streaked red from the impact, but the first thing he asked was this.
"Are you all right?"
Since my mother died, it was the first time anyone had shown me anything that looked like concern.
Or so I thought.
He played his part too well.
