I sat there on the floor of the safe house, the silence pressing down on me, my sobs the only sound in those high, empty rooms. The weight of everything was crushing me.
By the time Dario finally returned, I was standing before the long mirror in the matriarch's old quarters, staring at the scars where they had opened me, taken what was inside, and sewn me shut again. Its reflection was all I could see. The deep reminders of the blood debt I had paid for him.
Dario approached me, his steps hesitant, like a man crossing neutral ground unsure whether he'd be shot.
He rested his head on my shoulder, his voice thick with emotion as he said, "Adriana, thank you. I promise I'll make it up to you. I'll treat you twice as well from now on."
I didn't even look at him. My eyes remained fixed on the scars on my body.
And under my breath, I muttered, "Disgusting!"
Then, before I even realized it, I started rubbing at the scars, over and over, desperately trying to scrub them away. But the pain, it didn't even register. I couldn't stop myself.
Dario panicked, his hand going for an instant to the inside of his left wrist before he caught it and seized mine instead, trying to hold me still. "They're not disgusting! If you don't like them, I'll bring the Family's own doctor to take them off. Just please, stop!"
He pulled me into his arms, lifting me back onto the bed. But I barely felt it.
It wasn't until I looked into his eyes that I realized something was different. I reached out without thinking, touching the scar between his brows, the one he took when he pulled me out of the ambush in that frozen border country, when the guns came and the snow ran red.
"Some scars can never be erased," I said softly, my voice barely a whisper.
Dario didn't say anything. He just sat there, staying close to me for the next week as if waiting for me to break. Outside the door, his men kept their posts and pretended not to hear.
One evening, as I stared out the window at the dark grounds, my thoughts heavy, I turned to him and said, "I want the roasted chestnuts from the old vendor on Night Garden Street."
Without a second thought, he took his keys and went out the door.
I used to love how he'd never refuse anything I asked. But now, I knew the truth. It wasn't love. It was guilt.
As soon as Dario left, I had a car take me straight to the Family doctor's keep, to the private rooms where men recovered from things that never reached the Feds.
Noemi was there, sipping broth, looking completely unfazed. She didn't even flinch when I walked in. It was like she was expecting me.
She casually took another sip, her eyes meeting mine with that same smile that held a beat too long.
"I know what you're thinking," she said. "Dario and I came up together. He's my childhood sweetheart. I was the one who told him to court you."
I didn't say anything. I just stared at her, my anger bubbling up.
She seemed to enjoy my silence, watching me like I was some kind of show.
Finally, I broke the silence, my voice barely above a whisper. "You were never dying, were you?"
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, then grinned, and for half a breath her eyes went flat and cold beneath it. "Nope. Thanks for the blood, though. I never used what they cut out of you. Threw it to a stray dog. Hilarious, right?"
The words hit me like a punch to the gut. A hot rage spread through me, my hands shaking with fury. I wanted to lash out, to rip her apart.
But it wasn't just about her. It was about him.
"Dario never loved you," Noemi said, as she stood up and sauntered over to me. She casually tapped my abdomen with one finger, that cruel smile still on her lips. "By the way. How does it feel to kill your own child?"
"Shut up!" I screamed, the rage exploding.
I shoved her with everything I had, sending her stumbling backward. But at that exact moment, the door burst open.
"Stop!"
Dario rushed in, grabbing my wrist and throwing me to the ground. Without a second thought, he picked up Noemi and cradled her in his arms.
His eyes, cold and piercing, looked down at me. "Adriana, Noemi is sick. You shouldn't have laid a hand on her!"
Sick? He didn't seem to care that they had carved a debt out of me only weeks ago.
But he ignored that. He was too busy fussing over Noemi, making sure she was all right.
I just stared at his back, my body trembling, my heart numb. There was no point anymore. I picked myself up and walked out without a word.
...
Back at the safe house, I laid everything out on the table, every piece of the lie. The forged alliance pact sworn under the Family's witness, the records of the child they took from me, the recording of Noemi's own voice confessing it all.
I twisted my mother's old signet ring once around my finger, the way she used to before a verdict, and set a note down beside the proof, written in Sicilian, the private tongue I had learned in secret and never let them know I understood:
[We're even. From now on, we are strangers in life and death.]
Then, without another word, I walked out the door and went straight for the airport.
