I sat there on the floor of the silent estate, overwhelmed, my sobs echoing off the marble and the dead air of a house built to keep secrets in. The weight of everything was crushing me.
By the time Lorenzo finally returned, I was standing in front of the mirror, staring at the scars from the debt I'd paid in flesh. Its reflection was all I could see. The deep reminders of the sacrifices I made for him.
Lorenzo approached me, his steps hesitant, like a man unsure whether the room he'd entered was still safe.
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. I caught the small motion at the edge of my sight, his thumb turning the wedding ring once around his finger. 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.
Lorenzo panicked, rushing to grab my wrists, trying to hold me still. "They're not disgusting! If you don't like them, I'll bring in the best surgeon the Family can buy 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 got the night the ambush came down and he pulled me out of the wreckage.
"Some scars can never be erased," I said softly, my voice barely a whisper.
Lorenzo didn't say anything. He just sat there, staying close to me for the next week as if waiting for me to break. The men outside the door kept their distance. Even they seemed to know the temperature in that house had changed.
One evening, as I stared out the window at the dark line of the grounds where his soldiers walked their rounds, 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 grabbed his car keys and was gone.
I used to love how he'd never say no to any request I made. But now, I knew the truth. It wasn't love. It was guilt.
As soon as Lorenzo left, I had a cab take me straight to the back room the house doctor kept for the Family's quiet patients.
Bianca was there, sipping soup, 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 smirk.
"I know what you're thinking," she said. "Lorenzo and I grew up in the same houses. He was sworn to me before any of this. I was the one who told him to go after 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 sick, were you?"
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, then grinned. "Nope. Thanks for the liver, though." Her laugh came a half-second too fast. "I never used it. Threw it to a stray dog. Hilarious, right?" The sound stopped short, but the smile stayed fixed where it was, long after it should have.
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.
"Lorenzo never loved you," Bianca said, as she stood up and sauntered over to me. She casually tapped my abdomen with her 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!"
Lorenzo rushed in, grabbing my wrist and throwing me to the ground. Without a second thought, he picked up Bianca and cradled her in his arms.
His eyes, cold and piercing, looked down at me. "Adriana, Bianca is sick. You shouldn't have laid a hand on her!"
Sick? He didn't seem to care that I was just as much a patient as she pretended to be.
But he ignored that. He was too busy paying attention to Bianca, making sure she was okay.
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 estate, I laid everything out on the table in the front room, everything that had been a lie. The blood-bound union sworn before the Family, the records of the buried child, the recording of Bianca's confession that broke every law of silence they lived by.
I put a note beside them, written in the old Sicilian dialect the trusted men used between themselves:
[We're even. From now on, we are strangers in life and death.]
I pressed the pad of my thumb hard against the inside of my wrist, where my mother once taught me to find a pulse, and held it there until I was certain I would not fall apart. Then, without another word, I walked out the door and headed straight for the airport.
