The praises rolled through the private dining room, associate after associate lifting their glasses to Salvatore and Vittoria, the golden pair, the Boss and the woman at his side. Every syllable landed clean in my ears. Salvatore's gaze swept past me without a flicker of recognition. I might have been some nameless face pulled in off the street.
Staring at the man I had spent five years building into a Boss, I finally understood why my father always said my judgment was lacking. Turns out, they were right. I had been utterly blind.
I never once suspected that Vittoria, Salvatore's ever-loyal courier, the girl who carried his messages and kept his ledgers, had been sharing his bed the whole time.
But being the daughter of Don Valente, my blindness didn't prove I couldn't move among the families. Whatever else was true, I had lifted this man to the edge of recognition by the Commission, and I could just as easily let him fall from that height.
Clutching the folded oath of silence Enzo had shoved at me, I turned to leave that suffocating room.
I had barely taken a step when Enzo Marchetti, the crew's bookkeeper, planted himself in front of me, a false smile stretched across his face.
"Adriana, no need to run off so fast."
He licked his lips, cleared his throat, and adjusted the set of his collar, his voice reaching for a firmness it didn't own. "The Family has its rules. Before you walk, you sign the oath. Everything you touched while you were with us, none of it connects back to us. And you swear the vow. No sitting down with any other family, no whispering our clients into someone else's ear once you're gone."
Not long ago, every man in this crew knew me as Salvatore's intended, the woman whose name opened doors to silent partners and associate Dons. They treated me like glass they were afraid to crack.
Enzo most of all. He used to duck his head and call me Signora Brancato, sweet as spilled honey. That was before. Now he looked down at me with a satisfied little smirk, as if belittling me might buy back some scrap of his own standing.
I took in the whole pathetic performance and answered him cold. "An oath? A vow? What in God's name makes you think I'd ever put my name to either?"
Enzo's smile died at once, his voice sharpening. "Why? Because of your dirty little arrangements. The Family's already shown you mercy, letting you walk instead of settling it the old way. Don't mistake mercy for weakness."
I let out a mocking laugh. "Dirty arrangements? You have proof? Or do you just mean a few photographs stripped of their context?"
"Proof?" Vittoria came sauntering over on her heels, one manicured finger stabbing toward my phone. "Isn't the proof sitting right there in your hand? God knows how many of our contacts you've hoarded. The second you step outside, you'll start working them one by one, buying yourself a place with some other crew."
The words were barely out of her mouth before Enzo lunged for my phone. I was caught flat-footed. Before I could pull back, it was gone from my fingers.
"Give it back."
Vittoria plucked it out of Enzo's hand and skipped back a step, that smug curl still on her lips. "Look how nervous you are now. Must be plenty in here you don't want anyone laying eyes on."
She turned to Salvatore for my passcode. She tried his birthday, then mine, then the anniversary they'd all toasted so warmly, and still the screen held shut. Losing patience, Salvatore snatched the phone from her grip and barked at the two soldiers by the door to hold me still.
He held it up to his face. After the screen refused him again and again, it fell back to the keypad.
"What's the password?"
Since the day we became each other's, my passcode had never once changed. It was the date he first told me he wanted me. How fitting that he'd forgotten. And yet I wasn't surprised at all.
Failing to open my phone in front of his own men only deepened the humiliation. His face darkened, thunder gathering in it, his pride crumbling by the second. He straightened his tie, smoothed his lapel, buying himself a moment.
"Adriana, you keep swearing those photos are some misunderstanding. Then why did you go and change your password behind my back?" The accusation had grown tiresome past bearing.
"It's the date you first told me you wanted me," I said.
Salvatore went still, his expression shifting as he clawed at the memory of that day.
However hard he reached for it, it wasn't there. His face twisted, a chaos of feeling running through it, like a painting someone had ruined mid-stroke.
I wrenched free of the soldiers' hands and took my phone back from his. Salvatore watched in silence as I unlocked it without effort. His lips parted, as if there were something he meant to say. No words came.
