Bride of the Syndicate:When Love Died and I Left Him Forever

I was a girl from the undertaker's district, hauling the unclaimed dead for coin, and for pulling the Don of the Falcone Family out of an ambush that should have killed him, he made me his bound wife in a procession of black cars that ran a mile down the avenue.

But in ten years under that blood pact, Lorenzo Falcone filled his estate with mistresses past counting.

This month he meant to install another: the most sought-after hostess of the Family's high-end club.

Heavy with child, I saw to every arrangement all the same, calm as ever.

Yet when I went out to the markets in the district, that hostess came tearing through the crowded street and ran me down in her car.

My leg bone shattered, and the blood began to pour from between my thighs and would not stop.

Lorenzo didn't spare me so much as a glance.

"Who told you to go wandering out into the street? You just wanted to flaunt it, didn't you, that you were pregnant, that you'd finally locked down your place as the Don's wife?"

"Let me make this plain. From the day you drove Isabella Vitale out of this Family, you've been a dead woman in my eyes."

"Now that you're actually dying, all the better."

He swept the hostess into his arms and walked off laughing, and the people on that street feared the Falcone name too much to dare lift a hand.

By the time my household servant found me, I lay in a river of my own blood, and the child was already dead in my womb.

When I woke again, I had them carry me to the family estate, and I knelt prostrate before Donna Abate.

"I beg you, Donna, release me from the pact. The ten years are up. It's time for me to go."

The matriarch sighed. "I had thought that once you were carrying his child, Lorenzo might have a change of heart."

"I never imagined he'd hold the matter of Isabella against you so bitterly."

"Carmela Greco, do you resent me? It was Isabella who gave her heart to another man and ran off with him, and yet you were the one made to carry the blame for it."

Numbly, I bowed my head to the floor again. "I ask only that you show mercy and let me go."

As I moved, fresh streams of warmth surged out from between my legs, soaking red the litter they'd carried me in on.

The Donna started in alarm and sent for the Family's doctor.

Seeing the wretched state of me, she sent a man to summon Lorenzo as well.

The man returned quickly. "Donna, the Don is at the club's private garden, amusing himself with Gianna."

"He also bid me bring this to his wife."

I raised my eyes to look. It was a length of crimson silk, a woman's slip, embroidered with a pair of mandarin ducks.

By then the doctor had finished his examination.

"Donna, the signora is gravely injured. I fear she will never be able to conceive again in this life."

"Had she been seen to in time that day, it would never have come to this, and the child might even have..."

I pressed a hand to my hollow, emptied belly and turned to the Donna with a bitter smile.

"I beg you, grant my wish."

Perhaps the sight of me was too pitiful, for even the Donna, who never let her judgments waver, let a flicker of pity cross her face.

"Your injuries are too severe. Stay at the estate seven days to recover before we speak of this again."

"I thank you for your kindness, Donna, but I still have the Don's wedding to oversee. I won't burden the household by staying."

Lorenzo's consigliere walked in, not a trace of deference about him.

He gave the Donna only the barest nod before going on:

"The Don says Gianna is the woman he holds dear, and there must be no slight to her in the smallest thing."

"His wife's health can be tended to later. It must not delay the rites between Gianna and the Don."

The Donna was aghast. "Has he lost his mind? Full rites, the seal of a true Family wife, for a mistress?"

The consigliere nodded without hesitation.

"Naturally. I'd ask the signora to return to the estate soon and make it ready. Seven days from now is the chosen hour."

With that, he turned and left.

Just like his master, he didn't give me a single glance.

The Donna was so furious she swept a set of vases to the floor, and it was a long while before she calmed enough to look at me.

"I had thought Lorenzo would let go of Isabella sooner or later. I never dreamed it would only mean ten years of ruin for you. It's time you were free."

"Seven days from now, the release from the pact will be sent to the estate. You need only leave with an easy heart."

"Only... after all you've done, after going this far, the matter of Isabella..."

I nodded quickly, doing as she wished. "That Isabella turned her back on the Don and ran off with another man I'll carry that secret to my grave."

Only then did Donna Abate let out a breath. She sent one of her men to fetch a thin gold chain and pressed it into my hands.

"The day you leave, your mother will be waiting for you past the edge of our territory."

Stroking the keepsake my mother had once worn against her skin, I burst into tears.

Mother, we're finally free.

Ten years ago, Donna Abate put the rightful heir in the seat of the Don after the old boss was buried.

When the rival outfit moved to take everything, it was Lorenzo Falcone, not yet sworn in himself, who led the soldiers and broke the ambush that should have ended the Family only to catch the bullets meant for the heir and fall into a coma no one thought he'd wake from.

Yet his childhood love, Isabella, chose that very moment to run off with another man.

The Donna feared that Lorenzo, when he came to, would be so crushed by the blow he'd never come back to himself. So she found someone to play a part.

And I, out scraping for the money to buy my mother's medicine, happened to step right into the path of her car.

A dose of medicine worth three days' wages bought ten years of my life.

When Lorenzo woke and learned I meant to trade saving his life for the place of his bound wife, he showed no anger.

Nor did he look down on me for being a morgue girl who carried the dead.

Instead, he spoke to me with gentle words and treated me with respect.

He even pitied me for having no name worth speaking, and saw to the arrangements himself, the way the Family looked after its own.

Guilt gnawed at me. Day and night I studied the manners, the codes, the silences a made wife was supposed to keep, not wanting to shame him in front of the table.

Newly stitched back together from wounds that should have killed him, he needed his dressings changed and his ruined muscle worked every day, so every morning I rose before light and kept watch over the stove, just so the medicine would be the perfect warmth when he woke.

Back then Lorenzo would take my hand and smile so tenderly. "Thank God I have you."

In that moment, I believed I had found a good man.

But at the Christmas sit-down, in front of the whole Family, he ordered the made wife's ring stripped from my hand.

And had it pressed onto the finger of a club hostess he'd carelessly pulled into his lap.

Disgraced and breaking, I begged him to release me from the pact.

Lorenzo only watched me with cold eyes. "Release you? When you forced Isabella to run, did you ever once think of releasing me?"

What came crashing down alongside the endless humiliation was a letter from Isabella.

Every word of it bled with grief, all of it telling how I'd used his debt to me as a weapon to drive her out.

From that day on, Lorenzo never set foot in my part of the estate again.

Every other week, women who carried some trace of Isabella in their faces were brought through the gates.

Lorenzo made me arrange their welcomes, made me pour the wine they raised to him in respect.

He even made me stand outside their doors and listen to what happened behind them.

Ten years. My heart, shot through with wounds, had long since gone numb.

I thought I had only to outlast the last of my days under the pact, and it would be over.

But I never expected Lorenzo to be slipped something while he was away handling business,

and that the two of us would make a child together.

Lorenzo didn't force me to be rid of it. He even had medicine sent to me to keep the pregnancy safe.

"The child is innocent."

Nor did he bring any more mistresses onto the estate after that.

Now and then he would even come to see me.

I thought that after ten years of waiting, hope had finally come.

And then Isabella sent another letter.

Isabella claimed I'd sent someone to parade my pregnancy in front of her, when she had only just lost a child of her own.

It was the first time I'd ever seen Lorenzo fly into such a rage.

He very nearly forced the poison to my lips himself.

It was something he'd had a man go out and obtain on purpose the kind they used on animals to clear a womb.

One swallow of it, and not only would the child be gone, I would bleed out and die on the floor.

In that moment of despair, the child in my belly stirred.

Lorenzo froze for a moment, then smashed the bowl against the marble and walked out, leaving me there.

I wept, my hand resting over my belly.

My child was a good child, one who would protect his mother.

He deserved to come and see this world.

But for all my struggling, in the end I still couldn't keep him safe.

Perhaps it was for the best. At least he wouldn't be born into a house with a father who didn't love him.

Lost in a thousand thoughts, I had already come back to the Falcone estate.

But the man at the gate wouldn't let me through.

"The Don says this is your punishment for going to the Donna to complain."

Even the cot had been carried out. All that was left waiting for me was a single length of wooden rod.

I bit down on the pain and dragged my broken leg back across the compound to the main house, one step at a time, stopping often. It took the better part of an hour.

Lorenzo was already there, Gianna tucked against him. "She actually had the nerve to go running to the Donna. She nearly frightened Gianna to tears."

"What are you standing there for? Apologize to Gianna. Now."

The pain swam black across my vision, but I gritted my teeth and bent my body low.

"I'm sorry, Gianna."

Lorenzo looked faintly surprised. In all these years under the pact, it was the first time I had ever backed down.

Even when he'd had me thrown into a cellar full of vipers, I had never bowed my head.

I'd always clung stubbornly to the same thought: why confess to something I never did?

But in Lorenzo's eyes, my standing before him, pleading through tears, was worth nothing.

Far less believable than the thin sheets of poisoned letter paper Isabella had been feeding him for years.

He was certain I was a woman who lied as easily as she breathed, who sowed discord through the whole famiglia wherever she went.

So fine. I wouldn't argue anymore.

Once I'd spoken, I turned to leave.

Lorenzo called after me. "Wait. Why is there blood on you? I thought it was only your leg."

A flick of his eyes, and the household servant beside him came to strip the heavy cloak from my shoulders.

My flat stomach lay exposed.

Lorenzo's pupils contracted. He rose and crossed the room to me. "Where is the child?!"

I lifted my head, numb. "Left behind. With the Donna."

The matriarch had said the child carried Falcone blood too, that he should stay under her roof, that someone would see to the rite and lay him properly to rest.

I hadn't even been granted the right to take him with me.

But Lorenzo misread it.

"I told you it was pointless to go crying to her. So why go to her at all?"

"So it turned out you went there to give birth."

"Truly laughable. Do you think anyone else is as vicious as you, that anyone could raise a hand against a newborn?"

That had been an informant Isabella planted inside the household.

She'd gotten pregnant by some secret lover, drowned the baby once it was born, and pushed the whole thing onto me.

Lorenzo had had me driven out deep into the wild hills, into forests crawling with beasts, the way the Family disposed of those it branded.

By the time the Donna sent men to bring me out, I was wounded everywhere, barely breathing.

Back then I had still wept and tried to explain.

But now, I wouldn't.

I stood like a walking corpse, giving nothing back.

Lorenzo sensed something was off and shot me a frowning glance. His thumb moved to the heavy signet ring on his right hand, turning it once, slowly.

In the end he settled on the idea that I was working some new trick. "Spare me the routines you've picked up."

"This dead-hearted act, who is it for? Get out, before you foul Gianna's eyes."

When I got back to my own courtyard, I found all my belongings flung out across the cold stone.

"The Don says Gianna has taken a liking to these rooms. You're to move out."

But Lorenzo had assigned me no new place to stay.

The steward watched me with a vicious grin. "Then the bound wife can make do in the woodshed for the night."

"The Don says you used to sleep among corpses down in the morgue district. You can surely sleep anywhere."

Every servant in the house was enjoying the spectacle of me.

But inside, nothing stirred anymore.

How can someone whose heart is already dead still have anything left to care about?

The woodshed leaked drafts from every side, and by the middle of the night I had burned into a fever.

Drifting in and out, I felt Lorenzo storm in again, seething, and throw me to the ground.

"You actually dared to put a curse on Gianna!"

A doll stuck full of silver needles rolled out across the dirt in front of me.

I couldn't even be bothered to lift my eyelids.

The ink scrawled on it wasn't dry yet, but I hadn't set foot in this courtyard since being summoned to the Donna the day before. How could it possibly be me?

It was clumsy work. Yet Lorenzo hadn't spared it so much as a careful look before coming to lay the charge on me.

Once he'd vented, he left with Gianna.

I dragged myself back into the woodshed, curled up, and tried to make myself a little less wretched.

But outside the woodshed the noise never stopped, the household servants' deliberate exclamations carrying right to my ears.

Lorenzo had taken Gianna out to buy the things for their joining.

Every single item was finer, more lavish than what he had once bought for me.

And not just that. He had gone to the Matriarch and petitioned for a true wife's ring, the seal of a real Family bride.

The one he had given me back then was nothing more than a band he'd had some jeweler cut on order.

At the time, I had thought it was because my standing was low, because I was not the woman Lorenzo loved.

That was why I hadn't deserved a ring blessed by Donna Abate's own hand.

But it turned out that wasn't the reason at all.

When I thought back on it, I had been so laughable.

I had taken Lorenzo's courtesy for a genuine heart.

And I had blamed everything that came after on Isabella's meddling.

In the end, it had all been my own foolish delusion.

When Lorenzo returned, perhaps in better spirits, he had me moved into the side chamber off the main house.

He even tossed me a roll of bills and told me to buy whatever needed buying.

The fever had me dazed and muddled, but then Donna Abate sent a man summoning me to the estate.

Only then did I remember that today was the rite for the child.

I forced myself to stand through the long hours of it, and once I left the estate, I remembered again the money tucked against me.

I remembered Lorenzo's order, that I see to the arrangements with my own hands.

Gritting my teeth, I went into the city and bought jewelry and fine cloth, and only then returned to the compound.

Only to find Lorenzo keeping Gianna company while she helped a bitch whelp a litter in the courtyard.

Gianna said, her voice heavy with meaning, "I wonder who's coming back into the world today."

"What a blessing, to be reborn as my dog."

The flames of fury caught all at once and lit me up.

Roaring, I lunged at her and slapped Gianna across the face.

Lorenzo drove his foot into me and sent me flying into the chests behind me.

The silks and satins spilled out, the stark red of them spread garishly across the floor. For a moment no servant moved. Even the dog had gone quiet.

His face was thunderous. "What are you throwing a fit about now?"

"And what's all this? What's the meaning of it?"

"I told you to buy things the child would need, for when we bring him back from the estate, and you go and spend it on clothes and jewelry for yourself?"

"Carmela Greco, you are so shallow and vain it's sickening."

"Someone like you, how could you possibly be fit to raise a child? I'm warning you. If you don't rein yourself in, when the child comes back, don't even dream of raising him."

The child, the child...

My child was already gone.

A wretched laugh broke out of me. I snatched up the gold pin beside me and drove it toward my heart.

When I woke again, I was lying in bed.

Rosa, my own servant, had cried her eyes red and swollen, the hem of her apron twisted to ruin between her fingers. "My lady, you're finally awake."

"Thank God the Don reacted in time, or that pin would have taken your life."

The smell of medicine hung thick in the room. Dazed, I stared at my bandaged chest.

Even my leg had been freshly dressed.

In a haze, I saw Lorenzo walk in. The room seemed to still around him the way a club does when the boss crosses the floor.

"How could you fly off the handle like that? Would it have killed you to explain one more word?"

"If the delivery man hadn't chased me down with the goods, I wouldn't even have known those were what you'd bought for Gianna."

"Burning with fever and still forcing yourself out the door. You could have just sent word. A day or two wouldn't have made any difference."

Faced with this rare yielding from Lorenzo, I said nothing. My thumb found the old scar on my leg and pressed there, quiet.

A faint guilt rose in his eyes. "There's a Family sit-down tomorrow. Come with me."

My voice came out hoarse. "There's no need."

"Don't worry. I'll have the dress altered. No one will be able to tell you're hurt."

Lorenzo laid out his arrangements one by one, each word measured, leaving no room.

"When the child leaves the estate, it's better if we go to bring him back together."

I was too tired, too weary to bother explaining, so I softly answered yes.

By tomorrow, Donna Abate would tell him the child was gone after all.

What I never expected was that the next day, Gianna would be there at his side too.

Lorenzo Falcone looked faintly sheepish. "You needn't worry. Gianna only came to the estate today to see an old acquaintance."

I didn't press the matter. Halfway through the sit-down, weary of the endless toasts and the low murmur of made men trading favors over wine, I had Rosa help me out to the garden behind the compound.

Past the still water of the fountain, I saw Gianna kneeling deferentially before Isabella.

So she was one of Isabella's people too.

When she saw me coming, Isabella neither flinched nor turned away, only watched me with open amusement.

"Well? Losing a child doesn't sit easy, does it?"

"Carmela Greco, all these years I went to such lengths to make my dear cousin Lorenzo despise you. And still you clung on, refused to leave. Truly shameless."

"Did you think a child would carry you straight to the top? Let me tell you, you can forget it."

"Even if I don't want my cousin Lorenzo, there will only ever be one woman in his heart. Me."

I had no patience for any of it. "Whatever makes you happy."

The retort caught Isabella off guard. She laughed, a half-beat too quickly, her chin lifting as the color rose hot in her face.

"You really are a shameless mongrel!"

"Let me tell you something. Your child could have lived."

"But I was afraid you still hadn't given up. So the servant I planted in the house smothered your child to death."

I stared at Isabella, unable to believe it. "You, you..."

Isabella stepped closer over the manicured stone, gloating as she spoke. The garden had gone very quiet, the kind of quiet the Family keeps over its worst work.

"Oh, and one more thing. The moment your child was being smothered, Lorenzo was right next door, tangled up with Gianna."

"Though the name on his lips that night was mine."

"Stop it!" I lost all control and seized Isabella by the throat.

A great force flung me into the fountain.

Lorenzo had his arm around Isabella, his gaze frigid as he looked at me. The signet ring on his right hand caught the light, unmoving. "You really never learn."

I clawed desperately at the wet stone along the edge and screamed up at him.

"The child, it was the child..."

Before I could finish, Lorenzo kicked me back down again.

"Still trying to milk pity out of that child!"

"Carmela Greco, you stay in that water and reflect on yourself. The moment you admit your fault is the moment I let you out."

With that he swept off, shielding Isabella as he went, and the soldiers near the doors lowered their eyes and let him pass.

It wasn't until deep in the night that Donna Abate had me fished out, my whole body bruised blue with cold.

The Family's doctor said the chill had sunk into my bones; my leg would leave me crippled for life.

Donna Abate sighed and pressed a thick fold of cash into my hand besides.

When I was carried into the car and saw my mother, parted from me for ten long years.

I could no longer hold back the tears, and I threw myself into her arms and wept.

...

After three days and three nights of revelry with Isabella across the City, Lorenzo finally remembered me.

He made up some excuse to return to the estate, only to be told that I had never come back.

His mind heavy with unease, Lorenzo went to the compound and crossed the courtyard to the doors of Donna Abate's wing.

He was about to have one of the men announce him when Isabella's familiar voice drifted out from within.

"Auntie, just let me come back to the City. That business of running off with a man and abandoning my cousin Lorenzo was ten years ago. No one will ever know now."

"As for Carmela Greco, the child she doted on so carefully is dead. She's certainly never coming back."