Reclaiming the Harbor, Rewriting My Fate

When my asthma seized my lungs, Lorenzo Marchetti was in the center of the banquet floor, dancing cheek to cheek with his courier.

Even as I foamed at the mouth and slid into unconsciousness, he kept his arms around her, the two of them murmuring and laughing close enough to share breath.

On the drive back to the estate, I found a diamond ring in the glove compartment.

Before I could say a word, Lorenzo frowned, snatched it back, and said coldly,

"It's not for you."

I nodded, pointed at the bridal house up ahead at the intersection, and said evenly,

"Pull over for a second, please."

The custom gown we'd ordered for the blood-bound union. Thinking about it now, it was time to cancel it.

...

The moment I stepped inside the shop, Lorenzo got out of the car and came after me.

He threw a woman's coat in my face.

"Adriana Volpe, fix that filthy habit of yours, dropping things everywhere."

Lorenzo could not abide disorder. He never permitted a single thing of mine to be left behind in his car.

I glanced at the coat on the floor and said flatly,

"It's not mine."

At that, his face eased. He picked the coat up without the slightest disgust and folded it neatly.

I knew whose it was. Gianna Ricci's.

Every time Gianna left something behind on purpose, it set off a screaming fight between Lorenzo and me.

This time, I didn't say one word of complaint.

I just turned and gave the clerk my phone number.

The clerk smiled brightly.

"Perfect timing, you two. Your custom gown and suit are both finished. You can try them on."

Before I could refuse, the man who'd just taken his temper out on me had already walked into the fitting room, stone-faced.

Ten minutes later.

I stood in front of Lorenzo in the wedding dress.

He gave me a thin twist of his lips.

"Tacky beyond words."

I didn't argue. I just asked the clerk to take a photo of me.

Lorenzo's expression went impatient, and he moved to pull me in for a picture together.

That was when his phone rang.

Gianna's special ringtone.

The girl sobbed to him that her favorite coat had gone missing. If some kind soul found it and brought it back right away, she'd give herself to him, body and soul, for the rest of her life.

He hung up, didn't even change out of the suit, and walked out in long, hurried strides, his soldier falling into step behind him at the door.

Listening to the car fade into the distance, I picked up a pair of scissors and, without a moment's hesitation, cut the wedding dress to pieces. I set the scissors down on the counter when I was done, slow and certain, and let my fingers leave them.

One thirty in the morning.

I was packing up my personal things when a message came through.

It was from Lorenzo.

Out drinking.

Eight years bound to him by the arrangement, and the man rarely volunteered where he was.

I glanced at the cleaning gloves on my hands and didn't reply.

Once I'd finished bagging the trash, I took a hot shower, dropped into bed, and slept.

When Lorenzo came home the next day, I happened to be heading out with the garbage.

He looked at me strangely.

"Is your phone broken?"

I shook my head, and his brow knit on instinct.

I knew why he was asking.

Whenever he stayed out late, I used to message him over and over, call him without end.

But last night, his phone had stayed terrifyingly quiet.

Just as I reached the door, Lorenzo asked again.

"Adriana, where did the photo on the wall go?"

I looked down at the garbage bag, about to tell him the truth, when his phone buzzed.

He shouldered past me, thumbed the voice-message button, and walked inside as he talked.

"Don't worry, kiddo. The second it's ready I'll bring it over."

Hearing the shower start up, I went on downstairs to throw out the trash.

On the way back up, my blood sugar dropped.

I made it home in a cold sweat, picked up the eggs on toast from the table, and had barely taken a bite

when Lorenzo's voice came, thick with resentment.

"Adriana, were you starved to death in a past life?"

I watched him dump the toast I'd bitten into, plate and all, into the trash.

I stared at him, dazed.

"I cooked for you for eight years. My blood sugar crashes, and I'm not even worth one bite of the breakfast you made?"

His eyes were cold and hard.

"Ill-bred. Taking what isn't yours without asking is stealing."

He pulled on his suit jacket and slammed the door behind him.

Faced with this fresh round of his silent cruelty,

I picked up my phone without thinking and opened his chat.

He'd changed his wallpaper.

A photo of Gianna in cat ears, pulling a cute face.

I tapped a like, and while I was at it, I unpinned him from the top of my chats.

By midday, I had an appointment to view a safe house with a broker who asked no questions.

I'd just stepped into the private elevator of the social club when I ran into Lorenzo and Gianna.

Gianna's hair was loose around her shoulders, and Lorenzo was tying it back into a ponytail for her with the patience of a man who answered to no one.

The second she saw me, Gianna planted her hands on her hips, pouted, and started complaining to me:

"Adriana, you're just in time. Look at Lorenzo, would you.

He pulls my hair all day long, like some little boy who never grew up. He's so annoying."

Before I could answer, Lorenzo pinched the tip of Gianna's nose and teased back,

"Little one, your nose grows when you tell lies."

Once he'd made Gianna blush, the Don finally graced me with a glance. "Adriana, it's not often we run into each other. Come eat with us."

Same building, separate operations, for five years.

In all that time, Lorenzo had never once asked me to break bread with him.

And every single day, Gianna sent word to the ranks about every meal Lorenzo took with her.

The memory made me smile a little. "You two go ahead. I've got something to do."

He hadn't expected me to refuse. His face had just darkened when the elevator gave a hard jolt and dropped into darkness.

I switched on my phone light and saw Lorenzo with his arm around Gianna, soothing her in a low voice.

Soon enough the elevator started moving again.

When we reached the ground floor, Lorenzo offered to have his man drive me.

Before I could say anything, Gianna suddenly fainted.

At that, the Don shoved past me without a second thought, hauled Gianna onto his back, and rushed off to find a doctor.

I quietly picked up my phone with its shattered screen, signaled a cab off the street, and went to look at the safe house.

That evening, Lorenzo personally delivered a box of dessert to my desk.

Half an hour earlier, I'd seen Gianna's new post:

Loving someone is like raising flowers. Baby can't finish it all, just can't finish it

The photo was a whole table of French pastries.

I thanked him and didn't open the box.

A flicker of confusion crossed Lorenzo's face. "Adriana, why are you being so formal with me?"

I didn't answer him directly. I only said, "If there's nothing else, I need to go run some papers."

By the time I came back from drafting my letter stepping back from Family obligation, Lorenzo was already gone.

He'd left a note.

It told me to come up and find him once I'd finished.

I peeled off the note and threw it out along with the dessert.

Then I walked into the underboss's quarters and stepped back from my obligations to the Family.

He tried for a long time to talk me out of it, the way men in this life do when they sense the ground shifting beneath them. But when he saw my mind was made up, he finally accepted the letter.

By the code, I could leave once I'd worked out the rest of the week.

At ten that night, Lorenzo called while I was out at a dinner with the others from the club.

A male associate picked up the phone by mistake.

When it was passed to me, Lorenzo's voice was frighteningly cold. "Adriana, where are you, this late at night?"

"Out," I told him.

"Send me your location. I'm coming to get you."

And with that, the Don hung up.

I sent the location and stayed until the place closed.

Lorenzo never came.

I opened Gianna's feed and, sure enough, saw the post about her being sick and on an IV drip.

I took a cab home alone, washed up, and went to bed.

Sometime after three in the morning, a travel-worn Lorenzo shook me awake, hard.

He said to me coldly, "Adriana, I'm hungry. Make me a bowl of soup dumplings."

He didn't like shepherd's purse, and he liked soup dumplings even less.

I knew. The one who wanted them was Gianna.

I started to pull his hand off my arm, but my fingers brushed the scar on the back of his hand.

Years ago, when the old hall went up in flames at a sit-down gone wrong, I'd probably be a corpse now if it hadn't been for Lorenzo.

A bowl of soup dumplings in exchange for saving my life. If anything, I was the one coming out ahead.

When he saw me change my clothes without a word and get ready to go out, Lorenzo caught my arm.

There was an unusual unease in his voice. "Actually, maybe just do it after sunrise. It's not like"

I cut him off and asked quietly, "Besides the dumplings, is there anything else she wants to eat?"

He was silent for a moment, then let go of my arm.

He said, "No."

At first light, the man stood in the doorway with a thermos of food in his hand.

"Adriana, I have to leave the country next week.

"I'll clear some time this Saturday. We'll sit down with your family, talk about the union"

I cut him off before he could finish.

"No need."

Lorenzo went still. "What's that supposed to mean?"

I smiled and lied. "They've gone to handle business in another territory. Not back yet."

He kept his eyes fixed on me, like he had more to say. Lucky for both of us, his phone rang. Some matter from the social club, no doubt, one of those calls that always mattered more than I did.

He shut the door without a second's hesitation.

Friday. My last day attending to the Family's front operations.

I'd barely stepped out of the building when Lorenzo hauled me into the car, no arguments allowed. His soldier held the door, eyes lowered, and the locks clicked shut around me like a verdict.

In a restaurant the Marchettis owned through three shell names, he cut my steak for me and asked, "Which wine do you want?"

I scrolled through my phone, bored, and said offhandedly, "Whatever you pick."

My distraction darkened his handsome face. "Who are you talking to?"

"No one."

He took my phone anyway. In this world a man took what he wanted and called it concern.

He flipped through it for a while, his expression unreadable, then asked, "When did you change your lock screen?"

For all our years bound together, my lock screen had always been a photo of the two of us.

Now it was a picture of my family's little dog.

I didn't feel like answering, so I just got up and went to the restroom.

When I came back, Lorenzo was gone.

All at once the lights cut out.

A server wheeled out flowers and a cake, moving slowly toward me.

The cart stopped at the table beside mine, and a moment later my phone lit up.

A birthday message from the phone company.

Walking out of the restaurant, I heard a familiar, syrupy voice.

"Ahh~ Lorenzo, you're so strong, push me higher"

It was Gianna on the swing outside, shrieking with delight, begging Lorenzo to push her higher and higher.

She got greedy, and two pushes later she tumbled straight into his arms.

They looked at each other and laughed, clinging together, neither one willing to let go, and only then did they notice I was there.

Lorenzo's face flickered with plain annoyance at the interruption. He looked at me without expression.

"Adriana, this swing is so much fun, come ride with us"

Halfway through, Gianna's face flushed bright red. Shy, she let the hand draped over Lorenzo's shoulder slide down, like she wasn't quite ready to. She pressed her other palm flat against her chest, as if the fright still pained her heart, the gesture coming a half-second too smoothly.

"Adriana, please don't get the wrong idea, Lorenzo only held me to save me"

Lorenzo ruffled her dark hair fondly and gazed at her with feeling. "Silly girl, what's there to explain? As long as you're not hurt."

Once he'd finished soothing her, all the tenderness drained out of him. He looked at me coldly. "Done eating already?"

I didn't bother answering. I walked toward the Ferris wheel not far off.

They say if you make a wish on a Ferris wheel on your birthday, it's bound to come true.

Watching my back, Gianna's eyes flashed with a sneer, and she quickly tugged Lorenzo along after me. "Wow, a Ferris wheel, Lorenzo, I want to ride this too"

When the attendant said there were only two seats left,

Lorenzo didn't so much as glance at me. He took Gianna's hand and grabbed the seats first.

Twenty minutes later.

Back on the ground, the man searched the entire grounds and never saw me again.

Eight o'clock that night.

I walked out of the bedroom with my suitcase.

I tucked the note that said it's overunder the keys, set them down with slow, deliberate care, and let my fingers leave them completely.

And I left without looking back.

Eleven at night, my phone rang.

It was Lorenzo.

I was in the front room talking with my father and mother and didn't see it.

An hour later, he called again.

I darkened the screen, turned the phone off, and went to sleep.

I slept until noon the next day. When I powered the phone back on, I was startled to find more than a dozen missed calls.

On a hunch, I opened my messages.

And there it was. Lorenzo, always so cold, the Don whose silence men feared more than his temper, had for once sent one message after another.

What's with the keys and the note?

So I forgot your birthday. That's all. Ignoring my calls, not answering my texts, is playing hard to get fun for you?

Adriana, you have one hour to get back here, or don't ever come back.

The last message had been sent three hours ago.

I let out a breath from somewhere deep, moved my finger, and deleted Lorenzo outright.

A knock at my door.

When I said come in, my mother carried in a glass of milk.

"Adriana, your stomach's bad. Drink it while it's warm."

I'd come home with my suitcase out of nowhere last night, into a house that had kept its honor by keeping its quiet, and my mother and father hadn't asked a thing. They just looked after me the way they always had.

I held on to my mother's arm, sniffed against the sting in my nose, and said, "Mamma, I found a place I like. It's small, outside Marchetti ground, but it's enough to be a place of my own."

My mother smiled. "Then buy it. How much do you still need? We'll cover the rest."

Even though I shook my head, smiling, and said the money was enough,

my mother sent two hundred thousand in untraced cash anyway.

A daughter with her own roof and her own means, she said, is the only kind who really stands on solid ground.

So I called the seller right away and set the signing for Monday.

That evening, my father not only cooked a whole table of good food, he bought a cream cake and threw me a makeup birthday for the one before. Before he said a word that mattered, he slid a glass of aged grappa across the table to me, and the gesture said the family stood behind me long before his voice did.

In front of the lit candles,

I pressed my palms together and made a wish with all my heart.

That my father and mother stay healthy. That everything turn out for the better.

But not long after I blew out the candles, I got a message I never saw coming.