Once, I had told Lorenzo not to push himself so hard to learn sign language. It was late, past the hour when even the soldiers at the gate had gone quiet, and the warm glow of the lamp cast soft shadows across his face as he practiced, his brows furrowed in concentration.
"You don't need to do this," I had said, placing a hand over his. "I can adjust. I'm used to it."
But he only smiled, a gentle curve of his lips that softened the hard lines a Don was supposed to carry. "All these years, you couldn't hear. You suffered so much pain and exclusion, yet you endured it all alone with no one to confide in. I don't want you to live like that. It hurts me. I want to be the first person who can truly communicate with you."
Those words had struck something deep within me, breaking the dam of emotions I had held back for years. Tears had streamed down my face as I realized he was the first person willing to make such an effort for me. Even Gabriele, whose life I had saved by taking a bullet meant for him, had never bothered to learn a single sign. My parents, for whom I was only ever a shadow standing behind Serafina, hadn't even considered it.
But now, as I watched Lorenzo's hands move through the signs with practiced ease, I felt no warmth. Only a deep, stinging irony. His hands, which once brought me comfort, now mocked me with their fluid, graceful movements. He used the gentlest gestures to show his care for me, yet took advantage of my deafness to bare his heart to another woman, right in front of me, certain I couldn't hear a thing.
He signed again, his face calm and attentive. "Cara, Serafina's feast is about to begin. We should head out now. If the Don of an allied house arrives before us, people will start talking."
His eyes sparkled, not with love for me, but with anticipation, as if the thought of seeing Serafina put fresh blood in his veins.
A dull ache spread through my chest, tightening with every second. I forced a small smile and pulled my hand back. "Then wait for me a moment. I'll go change," I said, keeping my voice steady, though my throat burned with suppressed tears.
I turned and went upstairs, each step heavier than the last. The moment I shut the bedroom door behind me, the composure I had clung to crumbled. My shoulders shook as tears spilled over, silent yet overwhelming.
When I finally managed to calm myself, I changed into a gown that was modest but elegant and smoothed my hair. I didn't want to give Serafina, or my mother, or any guest at that feast another reason to look down on me. On my way back down, something caught my attention. A faint crack of light spilling from Lorenzo's study.
The door stood slightly ajar, just enough to tempt me. In five years of our arranged union, I had never once entered his study. Lorenzo had made it clear he wanted a space of his own, and I had respected that boundary, believing it was only where a Don kept the business of the Family separate from his home.
But today, something compelled me to push the door open.
The moment I stepped inside, my heart plummeted.
The walls were nearly covered in photographs of Serafina, an entire timeline of her life arranged with the precision of a man cataloguing something sacred. From her girlhood to the polished woman she had become, her every expression, smiling, crying, laughing, was captured and framed. The cold sterility of the room was not a study at all. It was a shrine.
Not a single photo of me was there.
I stumbled forward, my legs shaky as I approached the desk. On its surface lay a neatly arranged stack of letters. My hands trembled as I picked up the topmost one. To Serafina, my 99th letter.
Every word on the page dripped with devotion, declarations of a love so deep it left no room for anyone else. Beside the letters lay a document. A succession pact, the kind signed in blood and binding, handing over the Falcone rackets and every laundered front the Family owned.
The Falcone holdings were the crown jewel of the territory, a legacy Lorenzo had spilled blood to protect, an empire other Dons had died trying to take. Yet here he was, ready to sign it all into another woman's hands, casting aside generations of his blood for her sake.
It struck me then that all those nights Lorenzo spent behind this door, it was never the business of the Family that kept him. It was her. The realization left me hollow, as though my very being had been erased, my existence reduced to a pawn moved across a board for another woman's safety.
By the time our car passed through the gates of the Bellandi compound, I felt like a shadow of myself. The estate glowed under the golden light of the chandeliers, the air thick with soft music and the careful, polite laughter of people who all knew exactly where they stood in the room.
The girl the feast was held for, Serafina, stood at the center of every gaze, radiant in a gown cut just for her. The shimmering fabric followed her figure, and her face had been painted to draw the eye of every made man in the hall. She looked like something untouchable, every inch the cherished lost daughter of the Bellandi Family, returned and beloved.
My parents hovered near her, their faces lit with pride and affection. Their hands brushed against hers often, as though they still feared losing her to the dark again. They had once touched me that way, lavished me with that same love.
That was before. Before Serafina came back.
Ten years ago, when she was found after so long taken, I thought we could finally rebuild what the traffickers had broken. But her first words to me shattered that hope.
"Sis, what did I do wrong? Why did you let them take me?"
