My Ex Played Games, Not Knowing I Was the Don’s Wife

On the feast of San Valentino, when the man who had sworn himself to me finally flew back onto Valente soil, the woman I trusted most steered the three of us into a hotel suite on neutral ground to play what she called a little game. Who cracks first.

The man I called mine lifted his glass and laid out his plans, easy as breathing. "The room's already booked. Your closest friend and I are rolling around in that bed until midnight."

He curled an arm around her shoulder and kissed the corner of her mouth. "And this isn't part of the game. This is me getting a taste the second I got off the plane."

She smiled at me, not a flicker of shame on her face. "Remember when your appointment to the crew fell through because someone put word in the wrong ear? I comforted you for three days. The truth is, I'm the one who whispered it."

She leaned into his arms. "Adriana Mancini, you've got the blood name and the good man both. You can't hog every fine thing in this world, can you?"

He patted my shoulder, his tone offhand. "Don't worry. She and I are just having our fun. When it comes to a real union, I'm still going to bind myself to you."

Gia picked up the thread. "Follow the rules of the game. Whoever cracks first pays for tonight's room."

I looked at the two of them and, out of nowhere, let out a small laugh.

"Who said I lost?"

I drew my phone from my pocket and lit up the screen.

The next second, both of them gasped at once.

...

Enzo Barone's brows knotted together as he stared, hard, at the screen.

"Adriana, I know you're throwing a fit because I neglected you while I was working the crew abroad. There's no need to drag some random man into it just to spite me."

I found it a little funny. In three years across the water, Enzo had always let my messages sit unanswered, blaming the distance between territories.

Even the parting words I'd sent him, he still hadn't opened, not once.

Gia stepped up and gave him a tug, smiling. "Enzo, you were sworn to her seven years. Don't you know her by now? This is just the kind of little trick young girls love to pull. She doctored a marriage pact on purpose so you'd get jealous and come running. You just spoil her too much." Her smile held a half-second too long before her eyes slid to the side.

Enzo let out a breath at that and looked at me, stern. "Adriana, fine. You like to fool around. But how can you joke about something like being bound for life?"

I looked at them, half-amused, and said each word clearly.

"I have no reason to joke about something like this. Believe it or not."

Enzo's eyes went cold in an instant. His tongue wet his lips.

"Which random guy is it? Cut him loose tomorrow and I'll still swear the pact with you. But don't count on a banquet, and you'll only see half the tribute."

Gia snatched my phone and flicked through the image of the marriage pact. "There isn't even a face to it. Why won't you show us a picture of you and this husband together? All you've got is the shell of a document. Who do you think you're frightening?"

"And you were the last-born of the Mancini blood. Wouldn't your union be a grand sit-down for all to see? How is it there's been no word at all, and not even I got the summons?"

Something in me stalled. My husband and I had bound ourselves in private, with only both bloodlines present to bear witness.

And I had no wish to let these two know my husband so much as existed. It would only bring trouble to his door.

Enzo scrolled back at once through the last six months of everyone's posts. Not one soul in our shared circle had breathed a word about my being wed.

He came up to me and stroked my hair, the way he used to when we still belonged to each other.

"All right, Adriana, stop acting up. I was joking too, before. The banquet's still on, and you'll have every last coin of the tribute. I just wanted you to get used to it ahead of time. There'll be sit-downs down the road, and I can't always avoid doing that kind of thing."

I slapped his hand away in disgust. He only took it for sulking and pressed on.

"I just want you to learn how to carry yourself as my woman. And don't be so hard on Gia."

Gia came over too, hooking her arm through mine to smooth things over.

"Adriana, Enzo closed a lot of good rackets abroad. Sit-downs over there are all like this. He's bringing his name back home now. If you can't stand behind him, at least don't make trouble for him."

Their words turned my stomach.

How could anyone dress up treachery against the Family at a sit-down as something noble, something they'd been forced into?

I shoved Gia's hand off me, and she let herself crumple to the floor, covering her face and sobbing.

"Adriana, I know you just hate me, but I never once thought about stealing your place at Enzo's side."

Seeing this, Enzo stepped in and pushed me away hard, ignoring the blood welling up on my forehead where I'd struck the corner of the table.

He gathered Gia up into his arms, his back to me.

"Adriana, she was willing to risk her own respect to help you carry Enzo Barone's name with more grace, and you can't even tolerate the one woman who stood at your shoulder. I'm so disappointed in you."

The clock on the wall pointed to ten, its ticking loud in the sudden quiet. Enzo strode off with Gia in his arms.

"I don't have time for your tantrums. The room upstairs is already paid for. You go and think long and hard about yourself."

I pressed my hand to the blood on my forehead. My phone suddenly lit up with a video call. My husband.

I stood, pulled out a tissue, and wiped the blood from my forehead.

But knowing how little escaped a man like him, he'd probably notice something anyway.

I ended the video and switched it to a voice call. His voice came through a moment later, wounded.

"Cara, why did you hang up on the video? You're the one who sent me off to settle business across the border on Valentine's."

"I'm not blaming you. It just wasn't a good time a second ago."

He let out a breath, and his voice brightened.

"I almost thought you were holding it against me. This dull, endless sit-down has to run another whole day, and I'll be back the day after tomorrow. When I am, I'll throw a grand banquet and call in men from every corner to mark the Family closing the largest pact we've ever touched."

I couldn't help laughing. He'd nearly let the whole thing slip through his fingers just to spend Valentine's with me. It took me threatening to keep a pretty-boy toy on the side before he finally, sniffling, had his soldiers bring the car around and flew out.

Except if I didn't find some gauze to bind this cut on my forehead soon, the bleeding didn't look like it would stop.

"Then congratulations, tesoro. I'll go with you to the banquet."

I hung up quickly and picked up the gauze to bandage the wound.

Two men who both had their dealings, and yet my husband's rackets ran on a scale Enzo would never so much as glimpse. And Lorenzo had always kept his own hands clean where it counted. Even on the night of our blood-bound union he'd flushed and admitted it was his first time.

I'd thought I was done crossing paths with Enzo. Then, at midnight, a message came in.

It was the room charge from upstairs, itemized. Two hours, two thousand dollars total.

Half furious, half amused, I forwarded it to Enzo without a second thought.

He called back right away, his voice rough from what he'd been doing.

"Adriana, why didn't you wait for me to leave first?"

"Enzo, two hours and you're already spent? Or is that little crew of yours about to go under, and you can't even scrape together two grand for a hookup?"

He didn't get angry. He actually laughed.

"Do you have any idea how big a haul I brought back from across the water? Ten million! So many women would kill to carry my name, and I turned down every one, because I gave you my word I'd marry only you."

I couldn't stop myself from rolling my eyes.

"Go marry Gia. She's magnanimous enough, gracious enough. She'll wear the Barone name just fine."

"Adriana, still going to say you're not jealous? I told you, I don't feel anything for her, there's a whole world between us. She's doing this for your sake. There'll be no avoiding these drinking tables in the life we're headed for, playing along for the room, so you need to learn to keep your cool."

I was so angry I nearly swore. In the end I held it back.

"Enzo, I'll say it one more time. I'm married. Stop bothering me! Who takes the Barone name has nothing to do with me!"

I hung up on the spot and blocked his number immediately.

At the same time, I saw the tribute my husband had wired me at midnight, five hundred and twenty thousand routed clean through three of the Valente fronts, and it swept the gloom out of my chest.

After a quick shower, thinking it would wash off the bad luck of the day, I flopped onto the bed and scrolled through my phone.

But I'd forgotten to block Gia.

She'd posted a photo on her feed, a hazy shot of her and Enzo from behind, with the caption:

Spending the night with the one you love is the greatest happiness. And a woman who can't learn to be gracious will never make a good wife to any man worth his respect.

I liked her post right away, and she immediately messaged me:

Adriana, you lose, you pay up. Can't you even cover two thousand for the room? Didn't you say you got married? Go ask your husband for it! Maybe I could even beg Enzo to bring you along to the Boss's grand sit-down the day after tomorrow.

I never imagined Enzo could get his hands on a seat at a banquet my own husband was hosting.

I thought it over for a moment, then decided to send her two thousand so she'd never have a reason to come after me again.

Consider these two thousand a wedding gift for you and Enzo. From here on, our roads run far apart. Let's stay out of each other's lives.

After sending it, I collapsed into bed and pulled the covers over my head, but sleep wouldn't come.

Seven years of holding on. It would be a lie to say none of it hurt.

In my dreams, I dreamed of my past with Enzo.

It was the height of summer, seven years ago, and eighteen-year-old Enzo was nothing like the arrogant man he'd become.

I was nineteen then, taking shelter from the rain under the eaves of the old parish hall, when he'd held up an umbrella, cheeks flushed, and asked if we were headed the same way.

Back then he was just a gutter-born boy with nothing to his name, worlds apart from a Mancini, even a Mancini whose house was already beginning to crack.

He only worked up the nerve to say that one thing that day, and after that he quietly left me gifts and had breakfast waiting for me.

But he never once said a word about wanting to be my sworn suitor.

I watched him hold that umbrella over me in the pouring rain, willing to be soaked to the skin as long as he kept the papers in my arms dry.

I watched him take the money he'd scraped together running errands for two weeks and turn it into a cheap silver necklace.

And I watched him take on more than a dozen of another crew's men alone because someone had put hands on me, breaking a few ribs without making a sound.

I once thought that was love in its purest form, and I was willing to weather every hardship with him.

I never knew that in three years abroad, moving through that world of easy money and borrowed respect, he'd already ground his sincerity down into a chip to be weighed for profit and loss.

Morning sunlight cut through the curtains, and the buzz of my phone dragged me back to reality.

I saw it was an unknown number and answered without thinking. It was Enzo again.

"Adriana, can you drop this habit of blocking me every time you get upset? You're home, right? I'm coming over."

"Enzo, are you ever going to stop? I already told you we're over. I've already"

Before I could finish, he cut me off.

"If you really didn't care, why did you send Gia two thousand last night? Isn't that just you trying to make me jealous on purpose? Quit playing around. I actually have something important to talk to you about."

With that, he hung up.

I couldn't help but hold my head, sitting hunched and speechless on the bed, staring at the little plush toy tucked in the corner by my pillow.

It was ugly, but it was the first gift twenty-year-old Enzo had ever given me.

He'd sewn it himself, stitch by stitch, pricking all ten of his fingers in the process.

All because I'd pointed at a plush toy the heroine received in some drama and said, how cute.

Yet through all three of those years abroad, my messages slowly sank like stones. He either didn't read them or didn't reply.

When he left, he'd sworn to me, so certain of himself.

"Adriana, no matter how far apart we are, my body and my heart belong to you and you alone."

But when they forced me into that marriage pact, of the ninety-nine calls I made to him in desperation, not one was ever answered.

The dozens of texts he'd sent went unread, every single one.

The one thing I could be grateful for was that the man I'd sworn myself to now cherished me, loved me, respected me.

The doorbell rang soon after. I assumed it was Enzo and didn't bother to think twice.

"Signora, this is the invitation Don Valente prepared especially for you."

It was the voice of the Valente family's steward. I got up and opened the door.

During this stretch of time, with my husband away settling business across the water, I'd gone back to stay at my family home so I could sit with my parents easily.

I took the gown box the steward handed me, along with a custom-made invitation, gold-embossed and heavy as a blood oath in my hand.

At the bottom was my husband Lorenzo Valente's signature, and beside it he'd tucked a handwritten card.

Sweetheart, I'll be a little late to the sit-down. Go ahead without me, and I'll get there as fast as I can to be with you.

It seemed that after Lorenzo closed that pact, those old wolves weren't willing to let him head home so soon.

Once the steward had gone, I moved to shut the door, only for it to refuse to budge.

I looked up and found that it was Enzo.

"Adriana, tomorrow night's the grand sit-down the biggest Family in the territory is throwing. Just swallow your pride, and you're still my date. A few crumbs slipping loose from between those made men would be enough to keep us set for lifetimes."

I refused him coldly, and he looked at me as if I were the one who didn't understand how the world worked.

"You're still throwing a fit at a time like this? I only got two ways through that door. Since you won't come, I'll take Gia. You'll never get another chance to walk into the ranks of the made in this lifetime!"

With that, he slammed the door and stormed off.

But contrary to what he wished, I was destined to stand at the very top of that world for the rest of my life.

The crystal chandeliers in the banquet hall blazed dazzlingly bright, and I arrived in full evening dress, the couture gown my husband had chosen for me with his own hands.

Enzo came toward me with Gia on his arm, his eyes brimming with smug ridicule.

He leaned in close and lowered his voice, certain of himself.

"Adriana, I knew you couldn't really let me go. What, you put on a nice dress and think you can pretend you don't know me, when you're the one who rushed over to find me?"

I stepped back from him at once, brows knit tight.

"Enzo, I'm here for the sit-down. Don't go flattering yourself."

Gia clearly didn't buy it. She stepped forward and demanded, "Adriana, how exactly did you slip your way in here? This is the Family's grand sit-down. Everyone through that door is one of the made."

Seeing that I stayed silent, she took it as confirmation of her guess and grew even more pleased with herself.

"Enzo only just earned two seats because he closed a five-million tribute stream across the water. What are you, that you think you belong standing on this floor?"

The guests nearby, who'd been trading low words over their glasses, went quiet one by one, curious eyes swinging toward us all at once.

"That girl's dressed so lavishly, and she carries herself so well. How could she have slipped in?"

"For the Barone boy to be settling personal grudges on a night like this is downright improper."

Enzo frowned, stepped forward, and seized my arm, his voice dropping to a warning. "Adriana, cut it out. This isn't some little-girl make-believe. Get out before the soldiers come for you, before you go and sour the mood of the men inside."

I pulled my arm free, didn't spare him a glance, and walked straight to the long table where I picked up a pastry and took a bite.

At the sight, Enzo flushed with fury and humiliation. He strode over, clamped a hand around my wrist, and tried to drag me from the floor.

"You just have to make a spectacle of yourself, don't you? Get out of here!"

Gia saw it and immediately leveled a finger at me, her voice rising sharp across the hall. "Everyone, look. A thief slipped into the sit-down. Someone call the soldiers and throw her out, before she puts Don Valente in a bad mood!"

A few guests couldn't help speaking up. "That girl doesn't look like the type to do something like that."

Others watched coldly, thinking Enzo and Gia were making an unbearable scene of themselves before their betters.

At that, Gia actually stepped in herself, reaching out to help Enzo pin me down.

Just as they were about to haul me off the floor by force, the great doors of the banquet hall were flung open.

Every guest fell silent in that instant. Glasses stopped halfway to lips. Along the walls, soldiers straightened and hands drifted toward the lapels of their jackets. The man who entered was none other than the host of the sit-down, Don Lorenzo Valente.

He strode in, and the moment he saw the sorry state I was in, his hand went still at his side. His gaze swept the room, hard and merciless.

"Just now who called my wife a thief?"