I Was the Cover Story for the Don’s Forbidden Obsession

The first time Lorenzo and I truly saw each other for who we were was five years into our blood-bound union.

He was furious. Adriana, do you have to throw yourself at me every day? Do you even understand what a sacred union means?

I blinked awake, realizing I'd fallen asleep in the bathtub from sheer exhaustion.

Before I could explain, he threw on his clothes, dragged my naked body outside into the courtyard and hissed, "If you love being naked that much, why not enjoy it out here?"

He ignored my pleading, ignored the freezing winter air off the estate walls, and even called the household soldiers to come and watch. It wasn't until I collapsed with a high fever that he finally let me be.

Half-conscious from the heat burning through me, I stumbled to find medicine. Only to hear heavy breathing coming from his room.

Peering through the crack of the door, I caught a glimpse of him tangled up in the sheets, with my widowed sister-in-law.

So this was his idea of a "sacred" union.

Barely able to stand, I staggered back to my room and called his mother, Donna. "Donna, remember how you once suggested letting Lorenzo carry on both lines? I'm ready to agree. But I have one condition."

Donna paused, clearly stunned, then lit up with excitement. "Adriana, are you serious? You're really willing to share Lorenzo? You're not just trying to comfort an old woman in the middle of the night, are you? Name your condition. I'll agree to anything."

I stared at the ceiling, silent tears slipping down my cheeks.

The first time she brought up that absurd idea, that Lorenzo should "honor both houses," I was so furious I shattered a teacup against the marble.

She wanted me to give up my husband so Serena, her widowed daughter-in-law, could stay inside the compound and "carry on the line"?

How could I ever agree to something like that?

But I could care less now. Now that the two of them are already sneaking around behind my back, what difference does it make whether I agree or not?

The man who once swore he loved me, who spoke so poetically about the two of us pursuing something sacred together...

He's tainted now.

How ironic. When he dragged me, completely naked, into the freezing courtyard to "punish" me, he had the nerve to say I was the one who ruined his ideal of love.

Everyone across the Family's territory saw us as the perfect couple, the golden alliance of two houses. Even I believed it. I thought that even without touch, what we had would stay beautiful. Pure.

That illusion got shattered, completely and irreversibly, the moment I heard those breathy moans rising from the guest room. I could still hear them now. Faint, but unmistakable, threading through the walls of a house built on omert.

I let out a bitter laugh and said softly into the phone, "No, I'm not just saying this to humor you. I really agree. I only have one condition. Lorenzo needs to sign a pact."

Her excitement was almost shrill. "Yes, yes, of course. I knew you were a sensible girl, Adriana. First thing tomorrow, I'll speak to Lorenzo about it. I promise, it's only to help Serena bear a child. You two will still be the golden union that every house in the Cosa Nostra envies."

After hanging up the phone, I curled into a ball.

Even with the heat on full blast and wrapped in layers of blankets, I couldn't stop shaking. Not from the cold, but from the sound coming through the wall.

They didn't stop until nearly dawn. Every breathless moan, every creak of the bed, felt like a knife slowly carving into my chest.

Five years of marriage. Five years of a so-called sacred union. In the end, it was all just a cruel joke.

I first met Lorenzo in the university library. He was sitting by the window, sunlight spilling over him like gold. He was reading The Republic, completely absorbed. He looked so calm, so focused. It was love at first sight.

"You like Plato too?" I asked.

When Lorenzo looked up, his eyes were so bright they practically sparkled. I had no idea then that this simple question would become the chain around my neck for the next five years.

Before we were married, Lorenzo treated me with such respectful distance. I thought it was because he truly loved me, loved me enough to be gentle, patient, even reverent. I didn't yet know that a man born to run a Family learns young how to make a mask look like devotion.

Yet, after we said our vows before the whole famiglia, he refused to touch me.

When I asked why, confused and hurt, he held my face in his hands and said, with that soft look in his eyes, "Adriana, real love should transcend the flesh. We should aim for something higher. Something of the spirit."

I loved Lorenzo, so I believed him. I even felt proud of our situation. Proud that our union was so pure, so untouched by desire a sacred alliance, the way the old ones spoke of it, blessed by the Family and the Church both.

Every time I reached for him, needing closeness, craving connection, he'd gently push me away with the same soft excuse, "Let's not taint what we have, Adriana. Our bond is sacred."

Looking back now, the signs were all there, so obvious I almost hate myself for missing them. The way his eyes lit up when Serena crossed the threshold of the compound. How he'd dress like he was going to a sit-down every time she visited. The times I walked in on them alone in the study and they'd spring apart like guilty children caught skimming from the collection.

I cried until my pillow was soaked. My heart felt hollowed out. That night, in the silence of a house where even the walls kept omert, I drafted the papers for the dissolution of the union. Then finally drifted into a fitful, aching sleep.

I was woken the next morning by a gentle voice.

Lorenzo stood by the bed, wearing an apron over his shirtsleeves, holding a plate of my favorite, strawberry pancakes. "Tesoro, breakfast is ready," he said cheerfully. "Come on, time to enjoy something delicious."

He leaned down to kiss my forehead. I instinctively pulled away.

He paused, surprised, then smiled even more tenderly, like he hadn't dragged me naked into the freezing courtyard and humiliated me before the soldiers just hours ago.

"What's wrong? Didn't sleep well?" He reached out to touch my face.

I flinched again.

The red marks on Lorenzo's neck stung more than my eyes could bear.

He noticed where I was looking and scratched his neck awkwardly. "Must've been a mosquito last night weird, right? How'd you sleep?"

I didn't answer.

Outside the door, a few of the house staff exchanged glances. Their eyes flicked toward me, some with pity, others with barely hidden amusement. In a house like this one, nobody spoke of what they saw. But they all saw.

I turned and headed straight for the bathroom, only to nearly collide with Serena at the door.

"Morning, Adriana!" she said, all saccharine cheer. "Hope you don't mind me crashing breakfast."

She casually tugged at her neckline, revealing more skin. Her chest and collarbone were littered with unmistakable love bites.

"Huh strange. This time of year shouldn't have mosquitoes, right?" She leaned in slightly, her tone mocking. "Enzo and I both got bitten. Guess you must've been spared, huh?"

Her eyes flicked to my bare neck, a smirk curling at the corner of her lipstick-slicked mouth.

I clenched my fists, nails digging into my palms so hard I should've felt pain. I didn't.

"Move," I said, my voice low.

She stepped aside with a little laugh, but as I brushed past, she leaned in and whispered, "You heard how passionate Enzo was with me last night, didn't you? Poor thing. You've never had it that good."

Suddenly, it all made sense. The reason Lorenzo always bolted the bedroom door at night like he was guarding the Family vault. Serena must've left it ajar on purpose. Wanted me to hear. Wanted me to know.

The smugness in her eyes, the triumph on her face, it snapped something in me. Without thinking, I raised my hand and slapped her. Hard. Serena stumbled back, clutching her cheek, wide-eyed, tears welling fast.

"If you didn't want me joining you for breakfast, Adriana, you could've just said so," Serena said, voice trembling with wounded innocence. She pressed a black-lace handkerchief to her lips, the grief arriving a beat too late, the way it always did. "You didn't have to hit me"

She turned and hurried off, her steps quick and shaky, only to run straight into Lorenzo at the end of the hall.

He caught her instinctively, arms wrapping around her as she buried herself in his chest. His expression shifted the moment he saw her face, reddened, marked by my hand.

He gently cupped her cheek, examining her like she was some delicate porcelain saint. His eyes filled with concern, with a protectiveness he'd never once shown me.

Then he turned to me, fury flashing in his eyes. The house went still around us. "Adriana! What the hell is wrong with you? Why would you strike Serena? Have you lost your mind?"

Serena provoked me. She wanted this. She asked for it.

Before I could even open my mouth, Serena spoke first, soft and self-effacing. "Enzo it's my fault. I shouldn't have come and interrupted your time with Adriana. It's only natural she'd be upset. Don't be angry with her, please"

And just like that, he looked at me like I was a monster. Like I was the one tearing the whole Family apart.

"Apologize to her," he snapped. His voice sharp as glass.

I stared straight into his eyes and said, clear and cold, "She deserved it."

That was the last straw. His face darkened, his fury boiling over. In a flash, he grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked me toward the staircase.

I clung desperately to the marble balustrade, but he pried my fingers off, one after another. Down the length of the gallery the house staff stood in a loose, silent knot, whispering behind their hands. Not one of them dared step in. In this house you learned young that a soldier does not touch what the young Don has claimed for himself.

My nightdress tore in the struggle, baring my skin to the icy air. Humiliation rushed back like a wave, the memory of last night, stripped and punished in front of the whole household. Lorenzo didn't even flinch.

"So you're still angry about last night," he said coldly. "Fine. Be angry with me. But don't take it out on others."

"You'll kneel right here and think about what you've done. When you finally understand your mistake, you'll apologize to your sister-in-law. Don't you realize what people will begin to say? That the Marchetti name couldn't stomach a widow beneath its roof?" With that, he threw me, hard, into the snow.

My knees slammed into the ice. The cold pierced through the thin silk like knives.

"Lorenzo, I did nothing wrong." I clenched my teeth, shivering, refusing to comply.

He scoffed, then turned to the old butler who ran the estate with a sneer. "Gather everyone. Let them all see how petty she is."

Within minutes a dozen servants were lined up beneath the covered walkway, watching. I knelt alone in the snow like a woman awaiting a verdict she already knew.

"Say it again, I dare you," Lorenzo snapped. "If you're so desperate for a man, I'll put a hundred at your door to keep you company. But lay a hand on my sister-in-law again and you're finished."

His words cut deeper than if he had stripped me bare and marched me through the piazza in front of every made man in the territory.

This was the man I had loved for three years. The man I had entered a blood-bound union with and built a life beside for five.

He could stomach other men seeing me exposed. He could even stomach whispers that I ran to other beds. Yet he could not tolerate, would not even think twice, about me upsetting the woman he truly cared for.

Serena stood smugly at his side, slipping into that soft, sweet voice she had perfected. "Lorenzo, let it go, please. Adriana was probably just having a bad day."

"Oh, so a bad day gives her the right to strike people?" Lorenzo raised his voice, loud enough for the whole estate to hear. A Don who raises his voice has already lost, my father used to say. Lorenzo had never learned that. "If she doesn't apologize today, I don't care if she faints. She's not getting up until she does."

Snow began to fall. Within minutes my hair and lashes were coated in a frosty white sheen. My fingers had gone numb, my lips trembling uncontrollably from the cold.

Serena took the chance to crouch beside me, wearing her grief like a costume, one gloved hand drifting toward her lips. But her words were knives, whispered only for me. "Did you know Lorenzo says you're not worth a single strand of my hair? That every time he touches you it turns his stomach? Honestly, if I were you, I'd save everyone the trouble and just die."

I looked up sharply and caught the cruel smile behind her eyes.

Something inside me snapped. Rage boiled over. I grabbed a fistful of snow and slammed it straight into her smug, pretty face.

Serena let out a theatrical scream and dropped to the ground as though struck by lightning. Only then, a beat too late, did the black-lace handkerchief flutter up to her mouth.

That was all it took for Lorenzo to lose himself. He seized the front of my nightdress, wrenched it open, and shoved me down into the snow.

"So you still won't admit your mistake?"

Before I could react he scooped up a handful of snow and forced it down the front of my dress. The freezing cold hit me like a shot through the system. A scream tore out of me I didn't know I'd been holding.

But he didn't stop. He kept grinding snow into my face, my neck, rough, relentless, until my skin burned from the cold.

"Apologize!" he barked.

I choked on a mouthful of snow, coughing violently, tears streaming down my face. I couldn't force out a single word.

Furious, Lorenzo stood and turned to the butler. "Two hours. Start the clock. She doesn't move until it's up."

Then, as if none of it had happened, he slipped off his coat and draped it tenderly over Serena's shoulders.

"Come," he said softly. "Let's get you inside before you catch a chill."

The two of them turned and walked away as though I did not exist. Their backs burned into my vision like a slap.

Around me the servants murmured. Some giggled. Others only stared with that look, the pity you give someone already halfway to the grave.

Time dragged. The cold seeped deep into my bones. My knees had gone numb long ago. I felt myself swaying, losing the last of my control, until at last I pitched face-first into the snow.

"Madam!" Someone cried out in panic.

The door creaked open. Lorenzo stepped into the room, his cold gaze fixed on me.

"Have you figured out what you did wrong yet?"

I opened my mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Everything went dark and thenI was out.

When I came to, I was back in the bedroom, lying under a thick, heavy comforter. The heat from the radiator pressed down like a hand, suffocating, but I still couldn't stop shivering.

"You're awake?"

Lorenzo sat on the edge of the bed, holding a steaming cup of water. Behind him, a soldier stood just inside the door, hands folded, eyes on nothing.

"Take your meds," he said, as if nothing had happened. "Why didn't you say anything if you were feeling sick? Instead, you chose to throw a tantrum and cause a scene in front of the whole compound."

I turned my face away, refusing to look at him.

"Don't be so stubborn," he said sharply. "Your fever's hit 104. Are you trying to die?"

"Wouldn't that be convenient for you?"

My voice was raw and raspy, barely more than a whisper. Lorenzo's expression shiftedguilt and something like concern flickered across his face. For a moment, he didn't look like the same man who'd forced me into the snow before every associate in the house.

He took advantage of my hesitation, grabbed my chin and forced the pills into my mouth, then tipped the cup of water after them.

I choked, coughing hard, water spilling down my chin and soaking my neck. I must've looked completely pathetic.

Right then, the door swung open.

Serena walked in, her eyes glinting with triumph. "Enzo, your mother's here!"

A moment later, Donna appeared in the doorway, black rosary beads moving slow through her fingers. She took one look at me and gasped.

"What on earthAdriana, what happened to you?"

Lorenzo let go of me, wiping the spilled water off his hand like it was nothing. "She's just being dramatic. Got sick, threw a fit and now refuses to take her medicine."

Donna immediately scolded her son for not taking better care of me. Then, smiling sweetly, she produced a beautifully wrapped box and held it out.

"Adriana, this is something I picked out just for you."

She gave me a subtle wink, her way of saying this is your reward for cooperating. Her eyes told me the rest: it was time I raised the matter of letting Lorenzo take both women under one roof, the way the old houses did when the blood demanded it.

I didn't take the gift. My throat burned too much to speak and honestly, I didn't want to say a single word. So I shut my eyes and turned away.

But she couldn't wait.

Donna clutched Lorenzo's hand, the beads gone still against her palm. "Enzo, I've been meaning to talk to you. Adriana said something yesterday. She was thinking, since Serena's stayed so loyal to this Family after your brother passed, maybe it's time she carried a child. It would give her someone to rely on. Something to secure her place, for the future of the name."

The room fell silent. Even the soldier by the door seemed to stop breathing.

Lorenzo's face shifted, shock, then rage, like he'd just been slapped. "What the hell are you talking about, Mamma?"

Completely oblivious, she kept going, excited now. "It's not just me. Adriana brought it up herself. And honestly, I think it makes sense. What do you say?"

"Adriana." He spun toward me, fury written across his face.

"All this because I haven't touched you? Did you dream up something this insane to shame me under my own roof? What happened to what we swore to each other? And what the hell does that make Serenajust a womb to be passed around the Family?"

I opened my eyes, finally meeting the gaze of the man putting on a show as if he hadn't been sneaking to her bed behind my back for God knows how long.

So I said calmly, "I brought it up. What, are you saying you're not interested?"

My question caught Lorenzo mid-breath, his angry words dying in his throat.

He didn't dare deny it, not really. But he also didn't want to look too eager, didn't want the truth in his eyes to betray the thrill he was trying to hide. His thumb found the rim of the water cup and traced it slowly, though he never drank.

Before he could answer, Serena suddenly burst into tears.

"Enzo, I don't know what I did to upset your wife so much, to make her humiliate me like this," she sobbed, voice trembling just enough to sound believable. She pressed a black-lace handkerchief to her lips, a beat too late. "I'm your brother's widow. I've buried a husband. People in this Family already whisper enough about me, and now this."

Lorenzo gently patted her shoulder, eyes full of pity. You could see the tension in him, how badly he wanted to wrap her in his arms and play the hero. But instead he turned to me, face hardening.

"Adriana, I can't believe how twisted you've become."

Finally, Donna seemed to feel the shift in the room. The rosary began to move again. Awkwardly, she tried to smooth things over.

"Enzo, come on, can't you just do this one thing, for your brother's sake?" she said, her voice hopeful, a little desperate. "I know you want to protect what you have with Adriana, but the Marchetti name can't end with you. Can't you think of it as giving your mother the grandchild this Family needs?"

Donna leaned in, the black rosary beads sliding through her fingers, her voice dropping low as though the scheme itself required reverence.

"Once Serena carries a child, we'll simply say it came from your brother's seed, frozen before he passed. A doctor's miracle. No one will ever know the truth. It won't touch your union with Adriana at all"

Lorenzo cut her off, his voice flat as a blade laid on velvet. "Mother. It's one thing for Adriana to make a spectacle of herself. Why are you feeding her poison?"

He turned to me, and his voice climbed. "This is nothing but a woman throwing a tantrum because I haven't laid a hand on her in years!"

I let out a cold laugh, watching him perform as if there were an audience beyond these walls he needed to convince.

What a farce. This union was beyond saving. Rotten to the marrow.

Lorenzo loved Serena. That much no mask could hide. Yet for the sake of appearances, for her precious standing in the Family, he would not dissolve our union and take her openly.

He refused to be known as the Don who cast off his wife for his dead brother's widow. So instead he did everything behind locked doors. Every betrayal, every filthy thing. And used me as the front. Their shield. Their alibi before the whole Cosa Nostra.

"What in God's name are you laughing at?" he snapped.

"Nothing," I said softly.

I pushed myself up from the bed, weak but numb, my voice light. Careless.

"It was only a passing thought. Do as you please."

Something in Lorenzo's expression shifted. His eyes burned red, fury clouding them. Except beneath the anger sat something else. Glee. A quiet, hungry satisfaction.

"Since you're feeling so generous," he said coldly, his arm curling around Serena, "I'll take you at your word."

Then, with deliberate cruelty, he made his declaration.

"I'll be taking Serena to a foreign city for a honeymoon. Somewhere far from the territory. As for you, you'll stay here and see to my mother. And while you're at it, you may as well learn to tend a woman with child. And later, the child itself."

Donna lit up as though it were Christmas dinner and the whole table had risen for her. "Oh, Lorenzo, how thoughtful. It's better this way. Adriana won't have to watch the two of you together. It would only break her heart."

Serena flushed and pressed herself into him, all false modesty and fluttering lashes, a widow playing the trembling virgin. She lifted her black-lace handkerchief to her lips, the grief arriving a beat too late, the way it always did when there was someone to see it. She made a show of shrinking back, of objecting.

Lorenzo silenced her with a kiss. Right there. In front of me.

Donna cast a careful glance my way, bracing for a reaction. I didn't flinch. I only stared, my face empty as an unlit room.

That seemed enough to settle her. "Lorenzo, perhaps just soften it a little in front of Adriana, hmm?" she murmured gently, still watching me from the corner of her eye, the beads never pausing between her fingers.

This whole Family. What a circus of them. They truly believed I saw none of it.

By the end of the day, Lorenzo had already arranged the travel for the following week. The flight out of the territory, beyond the Family's reach.

He couldn't wait.

After the fever finally broke, I went quietly to work.

I had to gather proof. Real leverage. Enough to detonate all of it before they slipped away to their little fairy tale abroad.

That night, while Lorenzo sat late over Family business in the study, I slipped into the one place I had never been permitted to enter. His bedroom.

Five years bound to him, and I had never once crossed that threshold.

Lorenzo always said that a true, sacred union demanded boundaries. Purity of spirit. Even his bedroom had been forbidden to me. His own wife.

The room was cold and clinical. Stark gray and white, not a single human trace in it. Just like him. Distant, sterile, controlled.

I searched everything. Drawers, the nightstands, beneath the bed. Nothing.

I was ready to give up when I noticed it, tucked into the far corner of the wardrobe. A small safe, nearly swallowed by the shadow.

I tried Serena's birthday. The lock gave without resistance.

Inside was a flood of photographs. Hundreds, perhaps more. All of Serena.

The earliest were plainly stolen. Grainy shots from crooked angles, a man watching through a cracked door, a window. Then the tone changed. They became her own. Deliberate, sultry, pupils blown wide, lips parted. Her gaze full of knowing.

Disgust clawed up my throat, but I forced myself to keep looking.

Beside the photographs lay a leather-bound journal. I opened it. The first entry was dated the day Lorenzo and I met.

"Met a girl at the library today. She asked whether I loved Plato too. The way she said it almost made her feel like my sister-in-law. But I can't hold thoughts like that about Serena, can I. I need a distraction. A girl on my arm. Adriana will do."

My hands began to shake, but I read on.

"Adriana is na?ve. She'll never see that she's only a tool. Every time Serena is near, I have to fight myself not to stare. Not to touch."

"Today we buried my brother. I nearly did something unforgivable in the chapel, at the graveside. Lucky that Serena was too lost in grief to notice how vile I truly am."

"Adriana keeps trying to reach me. It's pathetic. Why are women always so desperate. Serena isn't like that. She's pure. She's still keeping herself for my brother."

Tears blurred the page. I bit my lip hard enough to taste blood, anything to keep from making a sound. Everything I had believed was love. Every soft word, every distant smile. All of it a lie.

I was done being their cover story.

The final page was dated three months ago.

"Visited my brother's grave today. Serena said she's known all along about the photos, that she's been suppressing her feelings for me for years. I was overwhelmed. Lost control. I took her right there, in front of my brother's headstone."

The journal slipped from my hands and hit the Persian carpet with a dull thud.

A wave of cold swept through me, seizing my chest. My stomach churned violently. I gripped the wall just to stay upright.

So this was it. From the very beginning, I had never been the love story. I was just the cover. The sacred union sold to every capo and every allied house so the Marchetti name could keep its honor clean while the two of them buried their sin beneath it.

A shield for their shame.

Then, a sound. Soft, almost imperceptible, coming from deep inside the closet. I turned, pulse hammering in my ears, and noticed something I'd missed before: a narrow seam in the back panel.

It was a hidden door.

I pushed it open. A narrow, dusty passage stretched forward, connecting to the house next door, his dead brother's old quarters within the compound.

The walls were plastered with photos of Lorenzo and Serena. Candid shots, posed portraits, some so graphic I had to look away.

My hands were shaking as I raised my phone.

Click. Click. Click.

Every photo. Every piece of it. I recorded it all.

I had just turned to leave when footsteps echoed from the hallway.

Serena's voice, sickly sweet, edged with laughter. "Lorenzo, are you sure Adriana won't find out?"

Then Lorenzo's voice, dismissive. "Relax. That idiot's probably in our room crying her eyes out right now."

I froze. There was no time to think. No time to breathe. I ducked into the passageway and pulled the hidden door shut just as their shadows crossed the closet.

Through the narrow gap in the hidden door, I watched Lorenzo pull Serena down onto the bed.

They didn't even try to pretend. They couldn't wait to get their hands on each other.

Serena giggled, casting a lazy glance toward the half-closed panel. "Easy. You were a little rough last night," she purred.

Lorenzo sank his teeth into her earlobe. "Well, you shouldn't be so irresistible."

He laughed low in his throat, voice thick with lust. "When we're out of the country, away from all of them, I'm not letting you out of bed for three days."

I clamped both hands over my mouth, pressing so hard my fingernails dug into my palms.

Their moans, their breathless whispers, it was like venom, sliding into my ears, coiling around the last threads of my dignity.

I didn't move. Not until it was over. Not until they were wrapped in each other's arms, fast asleep.

Then I slipped out through the hidden passage and ran away. I got back to my room, silently shaking as I calmed down my nerves.

Once the door clicked shut behind me, I didn't cry. I opened my laptop. Gathered every photo, every recording. Then I called a different consigliere. One who actually worked for me.

We drafted a new dissolution of the union. One that wouldn't leave me empty-handed this time.

In the days that followed, Lorenzo didn't even bother hiding it. He'd kiss Serena right in front of me. Whisper things in her ear, let his hands wander across her waist as if I wasn't even there.

I said nothing. I packed my things, one bag at a time.

When I threw all the gifts he'd ever given me into the trash, he finally snapped.

"Adriana! What the hell are you doing?"

I calmly slid the dissolution papers across the table. "Sign it."

Lorenzo glanced down, lips curling into a smirk. He picked up his wine glass and ran his thumb slowly along the rim, not drinking.

"What's this? A confession letter? Shame you only realized your mistakes now. Bit late for that, don't you think?" Without reading a word of it, he scribbled his name, then flung the document in my face.

"Serena and I fly out this afternoon, somewhere none of this can touch us. You stay here, get cozy with that maternity nurse and start learning how to take care of pregnant women and babies."

As Lorenzo spoke, he casually pointed to a woman I hadn't even noticed standing in the doorway.

"By the way, this is the specialist I brought in for the birth. Paid top dollar, laundered clean. So do yourself a favor and learn from her."

With that, Lorenzo wrapped his arm around Serena and walked out like he was the hero of his own story.

I didn't flinch. I picked up the dissolution papers from the floor, ignoring the smug, amused looks of the soldiers who lined the hall. Then I went upstairs, packed the last of my things, and walked out of that house for good.

The moment I got into the car, my phone rang.

It was Donna. "Adriana, honey, I know you're upset. But going with Lorenzo will only make things harder on you. Just stay home, out of sight, out of mind. It's better that way, don't you think?" I could hear the faint click of her rosary beads working through her fingers.

That faux-concerned tone, that smug little martyr act. She didn't care about me. She just didn't want me disgracing her golden boy's escape.

I answered coolly, without a flicker of emotion. "You don't have to worry. Lorenzo and I are done. The union's dissolved. I won't be ruining any more of his plans."

Before she could respond, I hung up, and blocked her number.

Not long after, just as I arrived at the airfield, my phone buzzed again.

A message from Lorenzo.

["I'll come back once Serena's carrying. As long as you behave, I'll still give you a child. Through IVF, of course."]

I stared at the screen and smiled.

Not the kind of smile he would recognize. This one wasn't bitter. Or broken. It was the beginning of something he would never see coming.

His message was meant to sound generous. Merciful, even. But it only made me laugh. A bitter, humorless laugh.

I blocked him without hesitation.

Then I opened my photo gallery, selected every intimate photo of him and Serena, the ones that would break Omert and burn his standing in the Cosa Nostra to ash, and sent the whole batch straight to an outsider I knew wouldn't hesitate.