"Adriana! Are you okay?"
A man's voice cut through the chaos, urgent and breathless.
I turned my head slightly, wincing, and saw Luca Valente running toward me. Dante's closest friend. A consigliere-grade attorney from the allied Valente outfit, the one man in Dante's orbit who still treated me like a person rather than a position.
So this time, Dante hadn't even sent one of his own soldiers.
He'd sent Luca.
"I'm stuck," I said weakly. "I can't get out."
Luca's expression tightened immediately. He scanned the scene quickly, his eyes moving the way a man trained in crisis moved, cataloging damage, measuring risk, checking for the gasoline pooling under the wreck. Then he rushed back to his car without another word. Within a minute, he returned with tools, working efficiently and carefully to pry the damaged door open.
Metal groaned under the pressure.
Piece by piece, he created enough space to pull me free.
When I was finally out, my legs nearly gave way beneath me. Luca caught me instinctively, steadying me with one arm as he looked me over, his brows drawn tight with worry.
"Can you walk?" he asked. "I'll take you to the hospital."
He looked more panicked than I felt.
I didn't answer right away. Instead, I leaned slightly against him, using his arm for support, grounding myself. Rain ran down both of us. Somewhere behind the wreck, a siren started up. Luca's jacket smelled like clean wool and nothing else, no gunpowder, no cologne chosen to intimidate.
"Luca," I said quietly after a moment, my voice hoarse, "you're a top lawyer, right?"
He met my gaze, clearly confused by the question, but nodded anyway.
I managed a faint, fragile smile. "Then… could I trouble you to draw up a dissolution agreement for me?"
At the hospital, the one on Mulberry Street that operated under Falcone influence, where the nurses knew not to ask questions and the intake forms never told the full truth, the diagnosis came quickly.
A fractured shoulder, crushed from the impact.
Multiple other injuries. Bruises, cuts, internal strain. They kept me under observation in case of a concussion, monitoring me through the night.
Two days passed.
Dante didn't call once.
Not a message. Not a question. Nothing.
In the end, I signed my own discharge papers, the pen steady in my hand despite everything. No one came to pick me up.
No one needed to.
When I stepped back into the house, the guarded estate that had never once felt like mine, the silence felt heavier than before, pressing in from all sides. The soldier at the gate had nodded when I walked through. He was the only person in the Falcone compound who had acknowledged my return.
It wasn't until I had just set my things down that my phone rang.
Dante.
For a second, I simply stared at the screen.
Then I answered.
"Adriana, come pick me up."
No greeting. No explanation.
Just an order.
And before I could respond, the line went dead.
To everyone else, I was Adriana Falcone, the blood-bound bride of the heir, the woman who sat at the right hand of power and smiled when the Family required it. In reality, I felt more like his on-call, unpaid maid, someone he summoned when it was convenient and dismissed just as easily when it wasn't.
A moment later, my phone buzzed in my hand, the sharp vibration cutting through the silence. I glanced down and saw a location pin. No explanation, no message, just a demand disguised as convenience. I let out a quiet sigh, already knowing what it meant. Grabbing my keys, I pushed myself up despite the dull, persistent pain in my shoulder, forcing my body to cooperate as I headed out the door and into the night.
The drive felt longer than usual. Every turn of the wheel sent a faint jolt of pain through me, but I ignored it, focusing instead on the empty stretch of road ahead. By the time I arrived at the private club, exhaustion had settled deep into my bones.
Inside, the air was thick with alcohol and laughter. Two soldiers stood near the entrance with their jackets unbuttoned, off-duty in posture if not in fact. I found Dante slumped on the leather couch in the back room, his usual sharp presence dulled into something almost unrecognizable. He looked utterly defeated, shoulders heavy, gaze unfocused. For a man as ambitious and composed as he was, it was a rare and unsettling sight.
One of his associates leaned in, handing him another drink with a careless grin. "Come on, Dante. She's just a courier. If you want a woman, it's not that hard."
"Liliana turned you down?" another chimed in, scoffing. "Big deal. There are a dozen women dying to throw themselves at you."
Someone in the corner snickered, their voice low but clear enough to carry. "Like Adriana."
Laughter erupted, loud and unrestrained, filling the room.
So this was it. This was why he was here, drowning himself in alcohol. Not because of anything that had to do with me, not because of the life we shared, but because Liliana had turned him down.
