The Ninety-Ninth Time He Broke My Heart

My husband, heir to the Falcone bloodline, had carried a bad stomach the way other men carry old bullet wounds for years, quietly, until it dropped him. This time it landed him in the private wing for the ninety-ninth time, all because he'd eaten off some back-alley cart with his little errand-girl.

This time, I didn't do what I always did. I didn't rise before dawn and carry in the healing broth I'd simmered five hours over the stove, the way a soldier's wife carries in what keeps a man breathing.

Instead, I just called for takeout.

Lorenzo Falcone finished the nourishing soup I'd had sent up, wiped his mouth, and gave a helpless little smile.

"The girl wanted to try the extra-spicy this time. Neither of us expected it to hit her so hard after."

"Adriana Valente, thank God I have you. A woman who knows the body better than any doctor we keep on the payroll. Sorry to put you through all this trouble again."

I said nothing. I only smiled and shook my head.

It used to be a lot of trouble.

To keep Lorenzo's stomach in balance to keep the one weakness that could get a made man killed from ever surfacing I'd stood at the stove twelve hours a day, cooking healing broths for all three meals.

And whenever it flared because he'd gone chasing street food with Gemma Riccardi, I'd get up in the dead middle of the night and simmer his medicine until the sky went gray.

I'd lived like that for five years.

But it would never be any trouble again.

After all, this was the last time.

Lorenzo didn't know that, in order to marry him, his mother and I had once struck a pact. La Signora does not arrange a union without terms, and these were hers: while the marriage held, if his condition relapsed more than ninety-nine times, the alliance would be dissolved.

Today happened to be the ninety-ninth.

My flight out was tomorrow.

Lorenzo reached over and rubbed my head, the way a man pats a loyal dog he means to reward.

Just woken, he still looked groggy, the pallor of last night's agony clinging to his face.

Then something seemed to occur to him.

He hurriedly stretched out the hand still tethered to the IV line and reached for the phone by the bed.

He tapped straight into the one chat pinned to the top of his messages.

That familiar pink cartoon avatar.

I saw it all the time, whenever I bent down to serve him his food or bring him something in the small hours.

His personal courier. Gemma.

There was still half a line of unfinished text sitting there, left before he'd passed out the night before.

Lorenzo finished it in a rush and sent it.

He thought for a moment, then thoughtfully added a line of explanation.

Sorry, I accidentally fell asleep last night and didn't see your messages.

I curled the corner of my mouth in a bitter little smile.

I remembered the last message of mine he'd bothered to answer. That was a week ago.

I'd sent it Monday morning; he'd managed a "Got it" by Friday, with no explanation at all.

So it turned out he could answer someone's messages that eagerly, after all.

Lorenzo scrolled up again, carefully going over every single thing Gemma had sent.

No matter how long ago a message had come, if he hadn't answered it, he quoted each one back, one by one.

He thought hard, typing out line after line.

Soon the whole screen was full of the green bubbles of his replies.

The chat between Lorenzo and me had always been full of green too.

Except it was all messages I'd sent to him.

From the small everyday things to the daily reminders about what he couldn't afford to eat, I always had more to say to him than I could ever finish.

But he only ever answered me with a few words. Mm. Sure. Got it.

Whenever I let the smallest displeasure show, Lorenzo would just put on that weary expression.

"Adriana, I'm really busy. The Family doesn't run itself."

"We're not children anymore. Stop bringing me every little trivial thing, all right?"

Trivial?

I didn't know. When my cramps left me doubled over and unable to straighten up, all I'd wanted was for Lorenzo to bring home a box of ibuprofen on his way through the door.

I really didn't know whether that counted as some trivial little thing.

But when Gemma offhandedly complained that the food was too spicy, Lorenzo could type back a hundred words and have something sent to her door on the spot.

And the ache in my chest spread, wave after wave.

I looked away and silently gathered up the food containers.

The only sound left in the room was Lorenzo typing.

When the first light of morning came through the window and fell across my face, I felt strangely far away.

This was the clearest morning I'd had since Gemma slid her way into Lorenzo's life.

Lorenzo doubling over with stomach cramps in the dead of night had become routine, all because he insisted on tasting every greasy scrap of street food there was, side by side with that bright-eyed, guileless little courier of his.

And jolting awake from a dead sleep, simmering healing broths for four or five hours over a low flame, then carrying them across the city to whatever private room the Family kept him inthat had become my routine too.

By this hour, on any other day, the dull ache of a sleepless night would already be rising behind my eyes.

So it turned out that, once I stopped orbiting Lorenzo, even the air tasted clean.

I set the food container down on the sideboard, looked at Lorenzo lying pale against the pillows, and opened my mouth, then closed it, then opened it again.

"Lorenzo, let's"

Let's dissolve the alliance.

That was what I wanted to say.

Lorenzo lifted his head, saw the sky outside the window already going pale at the edges, and turned to look at me.

"Sweetheart, hurry home and get some rest."

His voice was full of concern.

"Go back and sleep it off. Making you stay up all night stewing those meals every single dayit's really been hard on you."

Looking into his caring eyes, something in me wavered.

The words already at the tip of my tongue hesitated for half a beat.

Then came a soft knock at the door.

Don Bruno stood in the doorway with a stack of files in his arms, the old consigliere's shoulders bent under decades of the Falcone bloodline's business.

"Signor Falcone, I've already pushed back today's sit-downs for you. These are the papers you asked for."

He flipped through his worn memo pad, laying out in neat order all the Family matters that had gone untended because of Lorenzo's relapse.

When he'd finished running through everything, he hesitated, then spoke, choosing his words the way a man does when the answer might cost him.

"Should I send word to Gemma?"

Gemma was Lorenzo's personal courier, the girl trusted with every small detail of his day-to-day life.

By rights, she was the one who should have been here, keeping watch.

But Lorenzo's brow furrowed, and he refused without a moment's pause.

"No need. She was up all night with her games. She'll be sleeping it off this morning for sure."

He paused, then added one more instruction, his hand drifting to press flat against his stomach.

"And don't tell her I'm laid up. No point making her feel guilty."

Don Bruno looked uncertain.

"But I still need to run these papers over to Signor Wiley this morning, and then there'd be no one here at your side. That might be a problem."

Lorenzo was silent for a moment, then let his gaze settle on me.

"Adriana."

"Push through it a little longer, cover the watch for me, and head home at noon."

Something inside me shattered completely.

I blinked, forced the tears back with every ounce of strength I had, and answered brightly.

"Sure, no problem."

My phone buzzed. A message from Serafina Falcone, the Family's matriarch, who'd been pressing me since last night straight through to morning.

According to the terms we agreed to before, it's time the two of you dissolved the alliance.

For the tribute, I'll give you a million as arranged. Don't expect anything more.

By tomorrow at the latest, you're to be out of the house.

With trembling hands, I pressed down hard on the keys.

Fine.

Don Bruno came to relieve me right after the midday meal.

I dragged my heavy feet back to the estate and began, piece by piece, to pack my things.

It wasn't until the moment of leaving that I noticed it.

Five years bound in this marriage, and the things a couple finds hardest to part with when they breakall those matching, made-for-two things.

In the home Lorenzo and I had shared, there wasn't a single one to be found.

Every time I bought something like that, Lorenzo would frown and lecture me.

"Anything that leans on the 'couple's' gimmick is never worth the money."

"I have my own things I always use, Adriana. Don't waste tribute on this next time."

I nodded and stuffed the matching sleepwear I'd bought into the very back of the closet.

Yet when Gemma came bouncing over and set a buy-one-get-one-free couple's lighter in front of Lorenzo,

he swapped out his own expensive, everyday one without a second's hesitation.

Calling it, of all things, not wanting anything to go to waste.

When the packing was done, my things didn't even fill a single suitcase.

A few pieces of clothing, a couple of pairs of shoes, and some daily necessities. They sat in the suitcase, pitifully sparse.

It struck me then that it hadn't always been this way.

Back in the old days, before the famiglia swallowed my life whole, I was the one who cared most about looking good. I had so many clothes my rooms couldn't hold them all.

When I moved into Lorenzo's estate after we came together, I had so much luggage he'd sent two of his soldiers with a van to haul it all across the territory.

Later, I opened my own place, a discreet clinic that treated made men and their families off the books, and its name grew bigger and bigger, whispered with respect in the right rooms.

All those old clothes, the ones that no longer fit my new standing, I had to grit my teeth and give away.

Lorenzo watched me cling to them, reluctant to let go, and comforted me gently.

"Don't be sad, tesoro."

"Here's what we'll do. For every old one you let go, I'll buy you a new one. I promise you'll get back everything you lost. How about it?"

Back then, I hugged him tight, moved, and kissed him hard.

But before the first new outfit ever arrived at the gates, Lorenzo's mother came to our door.

That was when I learned the Falcone name sat among the oldest and most feared bloodlines in the whole territory.

Serafina Falcone, naturally, had no use for an ordinary girl who'd clawed her way out of a nothing little town to build something of her own.

Under her interference, we broke apart and came back together, again and again.

In the end, Lorenzo shut himself away and refused food for a week, until he collapsed and had to be rushed to the clinic. Only then did she relent.

When I saw Lorenzo, his tall frame had wasted down to skin and bone.

The doctor's expression was grave.

"The patient has carried a severe stomach condition since childhood, and after starving himself this long, his stomach is extremely fragile right now."

"From now on he must be very careful with his diet, and do everything possible to keep the condition from flaring up again, or it could very likely turn to cancer."

In a world where a man's weakness is the blade his enemies sharpen, a sickness like that was a thing to be guarded like a state secret. Serafina understood that better than anyone.

She came to me herself.

The iron matriarch who ruled the Family from behind her son was out of options when it came to his stubbornness.

Her brow was heavy with worry, but her eyes, when they turned to me, were as cold as ever.

"I'll agree to let the two of you be together, but you accept one condition of mine."

Hope had barely risen in my chest when, the next second, her words left me frozen where I stood.

"I want you to give up your clinic and stay home. Full-time. To watch over what Lorenzo eats."

At the time, my clinic was already known in the right circles. I'd tended to men whose names were never spoken aloud, and their wives, and their children.

A small-town girl with no name behind her, I'd made it step by step to where I was, and luck, it has to be said, had played a large part in it.

Even if I got to do it all over again, I couldn't guarantee I'd ever reach the same place.

Giving up my clinic meant giving up everything I had, tying my whole life to Lorenzo alone.

Yet the next second, I agreed without a moment's hesitation.

I believed in Lorenzo's love, believed it would never change, not through shifting stars, not till the seas ran dry and the rocks crumbled.

We settled the alliance soon after and held the wedding, both bloodlines watching from either side of the aisle.

After the wedding I stayed inside those walls, spending my days figuring out how to nurse Lorenzo's stomach back to health.

Lorenzo took his place as heir to the Family, run off his feet with the empire every single day.

I don't know when the thing between us started to change.

Maybe it was when I saw an outfit I liked and asked Lorenzo to help me choose, and he pushed me away, impatient, one flat palm pressed to his stomach the way it always went when something in him refused to sit right.

"You stay behind these gates all day and never go anywhere. What do you need that many clothes for?"

He'd forgotten his promise.

After that, the clothes I gave away kept piling up, and my half of the closet grew emptier and emptier.

The few new pieces I managed to coax out of him now and then couldn't fill the gaps.

Just like whatever was left between Lorenzo and me.

I'd made my bet and lost. Lost it completely.

My phone chimed with its special tone. A message from Lorenzo.

"The girl's coming to the house for dinner tonight. Get things ready."

A whole flood of instructions filled the message box, every last one of them Gemma's likes and dislikes.

It was the longest text Lorenzo had sent me in years.

My eyes lingered a long time on one line: "Gemma loves spicy food. Every dish has to have chili in it."

Then, word by word, I typed my reply.

"Lorenzo, I'm allergic to chili."

I've never been able to eat spicy food. One touch of chili and my skin breaks out red.

If I swallow any by mistake, my throat can even swell shut and I can't breathe.

It was the very first thing Lorenzo memorized back when he was courting me, back when a Falcone heir still sent his soldiers across three territories to find the doctor who'd keep me safe.

Now he'd forgotten it completely.

The other end went quiet for a moment, then the message tone chimed twice.

"Adriana, don't throw a little tantrum."

"She's our guest. You just adjust and deal with it."

I gave a bitter little laugh, and the hand holding the phone dropped, limp.

Lorenzo had it all figured out. He knew I'd swallow anything for him.

Because I'd paid such a heavy price just to be with him. I'd closed the clinic that treated half the made men in the city, handed my name to the Falcone famiglia, and become the woman who counted his pills at 3 a.m. so the sickness eating him alive couldn't finish the job.

A price so heavy that Lorenzo believed I'd bend on everything for his sake.

So heavy that Lorenzo thought I could never leave him.

When Gemma came in behind Lorenzo, her eyes were still red.

She was muttering something scolding under her breath.

"How could you not tell me your blood sugar dropped? Don't you dare do that again!"

Lorenzo didn't mind at all. He only gazed at her tenderly, a doting look in his eyes I hadn't seen in ages.

Spotting me, Gemma abruptly cut off what she was saying and offered a small greeting.

"Ma'am."

Lorenzo, too, like a man pulled out of a lovely dream, instantly reined in his expression.

At the table, Gemma chattered on about everything happening in her life.

From how the kitten at home was shedding again to the weeds by the roadside coming into bloom.

Lorenzo, who had always insisted on "no talking during meals," answered her earnestly, now and then setting food into her bowl.

"Try this. Your favorite, spicy poached fish."

Gemma picked up a piece and put it in her mouth. The next second, she spat it right back out.

"What is this? This poached fish isn't authentic at all, and that chili chicken is nothing special either!"

"Lorenzo, is this what you're stuck eating every day? Your housekeeper can't cook!"

My fingertips pinching the chopsticks began to turn white.

I was about to speak when Lorenzo shot me a warning glance. The kind a made man gives across a sit-down when the wrong word from you gets someone hurt.

Gemma's eyes rolled, and she leaned in close to Lorenzo, jiggling his arm. Around her wrist the little bracelet he'd given her caught the light, and her fingers spun it slow against her skin.

"Lorenzo, why don't we go out to eat instead? I know a place with amazing poached fish."

Lorenzo nodded with a smile and rose without a moment's hesitation.

Shoulder to shoulder, the two of them left, laughing and teasing.

From start to finish, Lorenzo never once looked back at me.

With the soft click of the door closing, the room sank into a dead silence. Somewhere in the walls a clock ticked, and it was the loudest thing left in the house.

I sat at the edge of the table, picked up the one dish I could eat, the plain stir-fried greens, and forced it into my mouth, bite by bite.

The rice was salty, lodged in my throat, refusing to go down no matter what.

The phone rang.

I choked it all down and hit answer.

My mother's plain, anxious voice came through.

"Adriana, sweetheart, the farm goods I sent, is Lorenzo getting used to them all right?"

The farm-fresh goods from our home country are famous all over the Marchetti name still means something honest in the old world, well past the reach of any Family's shadow.

Ever since she learned Lorenzo's stomach was bad, my mother picked out the freshest goods every year and sent them so I could work them into his meals.

Floating in the spicy broth of the poached fish. Tucked into the sides of the chili chicken.

Looking at the tableful of her castoff love, I swallowed the ache in my throat and fought to steady my voice.

"He loves them. With these goods, his stomach hardly hurts anymore!"

My mother's voice shifted, bright with joy.

"That's good, that's good."

"This year's best batch of goods, I haven't touched a bit of it. I've saved it all for you two. I'll send it over in a couple of days."

Mamma fussed over me a little longer, the same gentle reminders she'd been giving me since I was a girl in the old country kitchen.

Then I hung up.

The tears I'd been holding back broke loose, falling one drop at a time onto the tabletop.

For as long as I could remember, Mamma had been the person I admired most.

She'd never had much schooling. The Marchettis were honest people, the kind who kept to the clean edge of the old world, but her thinking was far ahead of her time. She never bought into that old idea of the sons eating first and the mother taking what was left in the pot.

In our house, everyone got to fight for the food they loved.

Mamma taught me, by living it every day, what it meant to love yourself first, and only then love others.

But now, it had been five years since she'd tasted her own favorite goods from the family cellars.

Whenever any came in, she saved it up and shipped it to me.

Just so I could live a little better inside these walls. With a little more dignity.

My fault.

I was the one who'd been stubborn, the one who dragged Mamma into all this fretting and second-guessing too.

At least it was almost over now.

Lorenzo didn't come home until the small hours.

On Gemma's feed, the two of them looked like they'd had a wonderful time.

Not just the spicy poached fish. A private room afterward, wine too, the kind that only came out for made men and the girls they wanted to impress.

From start to finish, not a single word to me. Not even a call to the soldier posted downstairs.

After a stretch of rustling in the dark, he came into the bedroom.

I shut my eyes, lying on the far side of the bed, and spoke again.

"Lorenzo, let's dissolve the alliance."

No answer.

When I heard that familiar tapping, I sat up and looked at him.

Only then did I realize he was busy typing a reply to Gemma. He hadn't heard a word I'd said.

It was a long moment before he even glanced my way.

"Gemma says she feels awful for leaving you behind by accident. She had me bring you home a box of the spicy poached fish."

I froze. He kept going.

"Get up and have a bite. I'll film a little video for her, so I've got something to show her."

Red-eyed, I stared at him, unable to believe it.

"Lorenzo, I told you I'm allergic to chili peppers!"

Lorenzo gave me a helpless look and spread his palms open, one drifting flat against his stomach the way it always did when he was talking himself into something.

"I know. That's why I've got the allergy medicine ready."

"Adriana, be good. Just play along with me, that's all."

His voice was gentle, but his eyes held the quiet pressure of a man used to being obeyed, a pressure that left no room to argue.

He'd seen what it looked like when my allergy hit.

Writhing on the floor, clawing at my own throat, choking like I was about to die.

The day the soldiers carried me back through that door, Lorenzo had clutched my hand and cried until he passed out.

Now, to keep Gemma happy, he was willing to gamble with my life.

Even though I'd already lost every last hope, my heart still tore like it was being ripped apart.

I took the medicine and swallowed it straight down.

Satisfied, Lorenzo lifted his phone.

While he filmed the video for Gemma, I was in the bathroom throwing up until the room spun.

Weakly, I braced myself against the sink. My throat clenched, and up came another mouthful of bile.

Lorenzo knocked on the door.

"That's enough. You took the allergy pill, nothing's going to happen. It's all in your head."

"Gemma's water pipe is broken. I'm going over to fix it for her. Get some rest early."

The sound of the front door closing carried in from outside the bathroom, and with it the low murmur of the enforcer letting him pass into the night.

I lifted my head and looked at myself in the mirror.

Ghost-pale, hair a mess, like a madwoman.

The phone screen said it was two in the morning.

Six hours until the plane took off.

I couldn't wait anymore, I thought.

I wanted, desperately, to get out of here.

I changed my clothes and pulled up the suitcase I'd packed and left by the front door.

Two thirty in the morning, a quiet car carried me toward the airfield, past the last of the Falcone territory and out where the Family's reach thinned to nothing.

By eight, the sky was bright with morning.

When Lorenzo pushed open the door, there was still a flicker of unease in his chest.

It was the first time he'd stayed the night at another woman's place, and he wasn't sure whether Adriana would be jealous.

But then he reconsidered.

Adriana loved him so much. She'd given up her own clinic, her own name among the Families, willingly rolled up her sleeves to cook and keep the house that kept him alive.

As long as he explained it well, Adriana surely wouldn't have the heart to stay angry with him.

At that thought, the corner of his mouth curved up again.

Worst case, that matching pair of trinkets he'd bought a while back, he'd just wear his beside hers.

But Lorenzo made a full round of the house and didn't find any sign of Adriana.

Something was wrong.

Before, even when Adriana stepped out on short notice, she'd always sent word first thing.

Now the message window was as quiet as the rooms. Terrifyingly quiet.

A panic he'd never felt before surged up in Lorenzo, and he couldn't hold back from shouting.

"Adriana? Adriana!"

Just then, Serafina walked in, heels striking the marble like measured shots.

"Stop shouting. She's already on the plane."

She drew off her black lace gloves, finger by finger, folding each one before she set the document on the table.

"I've already got the dissolution of the alliance drawn up. Sign it, now."