The Bride Who Returned His Ring Before Taking His Name

The union had reached the exchange of rings when my husband suddenly said he needed five minutes.

Then he turned, dropped to one knee before his first love in front of every Capo the Moretti Family had ever seated at its table, and said, Bianca Gallo, I once swore I'd ask you before all of them. So if there's a next life, will you marry me?

Bianca covered her mouth and nodded, sobbing as she threw herself into my husband's arms. Then she turned to me. "Adriana Ferraro, I know I won't get the chance to marry Dominic in this life, but I hope you'll take good care of him for me."

Around me, the made men and their wives were whispering behind their hands, glancing between us the way soldiers watch a debt about to come due.

Across from me, the young Don was kissing another woman like he couldn't bear to let go.

The whole room had gone still, everyone waiting for the bride to shame herself.

Instead I walked toward Bianca, smiling, and pressed my bridal bouquet into her hands. "How could there be no chance? Since this rotten cucumber is someone you just can't let go of, I'll hand him over to you right now."

...

For ten years I had bowed and scraped, keeping the Moretti books clean and the legitimate fronts spotless, desperate for the family to accept me as one of their own.

And in the end it was the child in my belly that finally bought me this long-overdue union.

I'd told myself that once the alliance was sealed, once the child was born, Dominic would finally settle.

But now I stood watching the man who was supposed to be swearing his life to me kiss someone else like he couldn't let go.

I dug my half-inch nails all the way into my palms, and still my heart hurt until I couldn't breathe.

And all at once, I didn't want to swallow it anymore.

Because of what I'd said, Bianca clutched her chest and collapsed into Dominic's arms. Her fingers reached the silk a half-second too late.

He didn't hesitate. He scooped her up and rushed for the hospital, and even on his way past the seated Capos he couldn't resist calling me "vicious" and "petty."

Saying it was a matter of five minutes, and I'd had to make a scene and humiliate the whole table before the family.

His parents and mine couldn't stop the young Don from leaving. No one in that room would dare.

So I took the full brunt of everything that was left.

The officiant stood there holding his blessing, looking at me in embarrassment while an enforcer near the door shifted his weight and said nothing.

My Ashford, mortified before the Don's household, wept as she struck me and demanded I go bring Dominic back.

My Vale let out a cold snort, told me to sort myself out, and dragged her away by force.

My Ashford-in-law had never thought much of the associate's daughter married in by arrangement, and now she coldly berated me for having no sense of the bigger picture.

She lectured me: if I wanted to keep a place in a family like theirs, I had to learn to swallow my grievances, not shame my own husband in front of the men who answered to him.

In ten years, it was the first time I truly felt that a sincere heart earned nothing in return.

This Moretti daughter-in-law. I didn't want to be her anymore.

They left with the remaining guests, telling me to walk back on my own and think hard about what I'd done.

I stood at the entrance of the estate, holding up the hem of my white gown with both hands, watching every last one of them disappear down the drive.

Behind me the great house sat silent and empty, all its Sunday-dinner warmth gone cold.

In front of me the rain crashed down in a sudden downpour.

Once the Don's parents and the rest of them had gone,

my parents pulled their car up in front of me.

My Ashford rolled down the window, and at the sight of them all the hurt inside me broke loose at once. My lashes trembled, tears spilled down in a string, and in a hoarse voice I called out, "Mom."

I reached for the door, but from inside came the sound of the locks clicking shut.

I stared at them, stunned.

My Ashford scolded me the way you'd scold someone hopeless. "This is what you get for not listening to me back then. Now you listen to your in-laws, reflect properly, and find a way to coax Dominic back. You're carrying their family's blood either way. No matter what Bianca does, she can never get ahead of you."

"Mom, how can you say that"

She didn't answer. The window went up and the car drove off.

I twisted the plain wedding band on my finger, biting down hard on my lip, watching the taillights shrink into the distance, and the tears fell and wouldn't stop.

The union had been sealed at a resort hotel built halfway up a hillside, the kind of neutral ground the Family favored when it wanted its business dressed as celebration.

Up there, no signal reached out to call for a car.

A kind waiter pressed an umbrella into my hands, his eyes full of pity as he looked at me, a woman who'd married into the Moretti name and been left standing in it like a stranger.

I thanked him, then, one hand holding the umbrella and the other clutching the heavy weight of my wedding gown, I made my way down the mountain.

The slanting rain soaked me through, cold to the bone.

The backs of my heels were rubbed raw and bloody.

When my phone finally caught a signal, more than a dozen messages popped up at once.

Every one of them from Dominic.

Word after word demanding to know why, when he'd already explained that he only saw Bianca as a little sister, some girl from the old neighborhood, I still had to go after her at every turn.

I ignored him. The next second, an unknown number sent me a video.

In it, Dominic held Bianca's hand as a doctor examined her in a private room, kissing her fingertips now and then, his eyes red as he begged her not to let anything happen to her.

I thought of when I'd first found out I was pregnant, when low blood sugar sent me collapsing in the bathroom of the estate.

That fall broke one of my legs, and my stomach ached terribly.

I was terrified, and instinctively called him, needing someone to lean on.

He only reprimanded me coldly, saying he wasn't a doctor, so what was the point of calling him.

I was in the hospital a full two weeks that time, and he never once showed up.

Later I learned that on the day I fell, Bianca had cut her hand cooking, and because the doctor told her it might scar, she'd cried her eyes out.

So Dominic took all his anger and heartache out on me.

I stopped walking and gave a bitter little laugh.

In the end I had simply woken up too late, and that was how I'd let myself sink into something this humiliating.

I was trying to flag down a car when Dominic's call came through.

After a torrent of shouting, he caught his heavy breath and told me that I'd frightened Bianca so badly her heart condition had flared up, and that I was to get over there immediately and apologize to her.

I forced the flimsy umbrella steady in my hand and answered calmly, "I'm still at the hotel."

As my words fell, a bolt of lightning split the dark sky, followed by a crash of thunder.

Dominic's voice turned tense. "It's pouring out there. They didn't take you home? Then I'll come now."

Halfway through, Bianca suddenly started crying, her hand flying to her chest a half-second too late. "Is Adriana angry? It's all my fault. Maybe I should have just died overseas back then, the day I ran..."

Dominic immediately soothed her in a gentle voice.

Then he turned that anger on me. "This is a mess you made yourself. What have you got to feel wronged about? It was five minutes. If you'd just been a little more gracious back there, in front of the Capos, I wouldn't have left you..."

The string inside me snapped clean through. I curved my lips and cut him off. "Let's sever it. The alliance, the marriage, all of it. I'm not going to apologize to Bianca. The one in the wrong was never me. It was the two of you."

If they couldn't let each other go.

Then why had Dominic come and bound me into this bloodline at all?

He was the one who confessed to me first. He was the one who said he wanted to spend his whole life with me, which was why I'd chosen him without any doubt.

Ten years. I'd spent them keeping the books clean, the fronts breathing, the Family's name unstained. Were their love and their youth so precious, and mine worth nothing at all?

After I hung up, I quickly caught a cab down in the valley.

Sitting in the back, I got another text from Dominic. Adriana, when you do wrong you own up to it. Ten years, I've long since played you dirty. Who do you think would want you besides me? Not to mention you schemed your way into carrying my child.

I stared blankly at the message.

I'd thought that after everything today, nothing could hurt me more. It turned out there was still something.

I rolled the window down and let the cold wind hit my face, and my heart, aching itself into a blur, slowly cleared.

I told the driver to turn around and take me straight to the hospital.

I walked in wearing my mud-stained wedding gown.

The moment I stepped into the clinic the Family used for its own, one of the nurses asked if I needed help.

Calmly, I told her I was here to end a pregnancy.

She froze for a second, and then her eyes filled with sympathy before she led me up to the third floor.

The moment I lay down on the table, listening to the strong heartbeat of the baby on the monitor, I still called Dominic.

Bianca's voice came on the instant the call connected, sobbing an apology to me.

Dominic snatched the phone away almost at once and gave a cold snort. "Adriana, it's too late to admit you were wrong now. You've put Bianca through so much. Unless you get over here this second and kneel and apologize to her, I will never forgive you."

The words I'd been about to say went back down my throat. I looked at the doctor. "Please begin."

"The baby is perfectly healthy. Do you want to discuss it once more with the Vale?"

"That won't be necessary."

When I got back to the apartment, nothing had been touched.

So it turned out Dominic had been staying at Bianca's side all these days.

I opened Bianca's feed.

She'd posted a lot of new updates.

The lofty young Don of the Moretti Family, rolling up his sleeves to cook out of love, drawing envy from everyone who saw it.

I saved every single one, then pressed the screen dark.

I packed a few things and moved straight into one of the Family's hotels downtown.

I ran a hot bath, and only then did the cold slowly leave my body.

I took a few days off from the front offices, and once my body had mostly recovered, I went back in.

The whole time, my Ashford kept calling, asking whether I'd smoothed things over with Dominic.

I told her I would never be with Dominic again.

She cried and wailed until my nerves were frayed raw, so I simply stopped answering her calls.

The moment I walked into the office, everyone looked at me strangely.

My fellow associate Gemma Fontana dragged me to my desk. She pressed her phone face-down against her chest for a moment before she spoke, and only then did I notice the whole thing had already exploded across every site.

She gripped my hand, astonished and envious. "I never would've guessed there was a Don's wife sitting right next to me! And here I thought Bianca Gallo was married to the young Don. Turns out it's you, Adriana."

I gave an awkward smile and skimmed through the posts.

Someone had filmed the gathering that day and put it online.

They'd written it up as the most lurid kind of story: a powerful family favoring the mistress over the wife.

Because of Dominic's bizarre behavior in front of the Capos, even the Moretti fronts had taken a hit, and men who understood these things knew a crack in the armor was exactly what drew the Feds.

Before, I would have been desperate to help Dominic bury the leak, but now that I'd decided to sever the alliance, I couldn't be bothered.

By the time the day ended.

Dominic, for once in his life, was waiting outside.

I turned to slip away.

But he caught up in a few strides and forced me into the car, two soldiers stepping back from the curb the instant they saw whose hand was on my arm.

"Still angry? Can't you tell the difference between a ceremony and a person's life?"

"You're a grown woman, and you're still throwing fits about severing the alliance and running away from home. Aren't you being childish?"

"All right, haven't you always wanted to go to that Starlight Rooftop up in the north end? I'll take you now."

Dominic finished speaking and pulled a box out of the console, tossing it to me.

The thing inside rolled out. A diamond ring.

It looked a good deal more expensive than the one from the ceremony.

Dominic watched me with a look that said, surely now you're satisfied. "Bianca has a bad heart, and since that ring is already on her hand, I'm giving it to her. This one costs a lot more than that one, so stop holding a grudge."

I turned the diamond ring over in my hand. The price tag, 999,999, hadn't even been removed.

He'd probably just bought it off the shelf, laundered cash for a woman's silence.

Before, whenever I was upset, he would cook for me with his own hands, sit patiently through a whole picture to comfort and reassure me, spend a whole day walking the shops with me to pick out the gift that suited me best.

Now he'd become just like the rest of that household, putting a price tag on my real feelings and expecting me to accept it with gratitude.

I put the ring back in the console and shook my head. "This is far too expensive. Better keep it for Bianca."

"And I'm not throwing a fit. Since you and Bianca can't let go of each other, why don't I give her the place of the Don's wife? Let's find some time and sever the alliance."

Before the gathering, Dominic and I had already been bound by blood between our households.

To split now, we'd have to go through the whole shameful business of undoing it before both families.

I'd overheard it once, at a dinner with Bianca and a crowd of his men, someone asking why a Don like him would ever fall for an ordinary woman like me.

He'd fed a peeled grape into Bianca's mouth and laughed like it was nothing. "I wouldn't call it love, but Adriana's stuck by me for ten years, kept the books clean, and now she's carrying my child. It'd be a little pathetic not to marry her. It's just the title. If she wants it, she can have it."

Our marriage, to him, was charity and pity handed down to me.

But to me it had been a whole heart's worth of love and sincerity.

Now that I no longer loved him, I had no use for the title either.

I thought that by stepping aside for him and Bianca of my own accord, he'd be happy.

I didn't expect him to suddenly flush red around the eyes, his right hand slamming down on the wheel.

"Adriana! What's the point of saying all this? You spent all these years fawning over my family like a dog, went to all that trouble to get pregnant, all so you could become the Don's wife, and now you're telling me you're stepping aside? Do you hear how ridiculous you sound?"

"So the ceremony didn't happen. I'll just hold another one for you next time, and that settles it, doesn't it? And whose fault is this anyway? I already agreed to marry you. I only offered Bianca my word, and you had to carry on like some shrew who wouldn't let it go."

He always said I'd schemed to get pregnant.

But it was him who'd said he wanted his family to accept me, that he wanted a child of our own.

It was only after Bianca came back into Family life that he regretted it, and dumped all the blame on me.

He leaned on the horn until it shrieked.

Before, if he'd gotten this angry, I'd have been crying and apologizing and explaining long ago.

But now I didn't want to argue a single word.

I turned my head and looked at the scenery outside.

After a long while, as if he'd waited in vain for me to grovel my way back to him, he turned to look at me and called out, "Adriana."

I closed my eyes and didn't answer.

The navigation announced the road now and then.

When we were 0.2 kilometers from the place, his phone suddenly rang.

On the line, Bianca sobbed that her heart was acting up again, asking whether she was going to die.

Honestly, she could have kept saying it and I'd still be sick of hearing it before she was sick of saying it.

Ever since she came back, on every day that carried any weight in this Family, her heart would act up.

Anyone who wasn't blind could see she was faking it. Too bad Dominic couldn't.

I spoke first. "Just drop me at that intersection up ahead."

Dominic looked at me, stunned. "You're not angry? You're not fighting to come with me?"

I shook my head.

Before, I hadn't liked him being alone with Bianca, so I'd offered to come along and help take care of her.

Back then he'd cursed me for having a filthy, petty little mind, and told me to learn to be as pure and kind as Bianca.

He pressed his thin lips together, the phone still buzzing without stop.

The car reached the intersection soon enough.

I'd just gathered my bag and was about to get out when he grabbed my wrist, studying me with a complicated look. "I'll go check on her, and I'll come back later to take you to dinner. Don't worry, the place of the Don's wife is yours for certain. Don't be angry."

"Sure, I'm not angry." I brushed him off and tried to push him away.

But he only gripped tighter. "Adriana, why are you so different from before? Why aren't you"

"Not jealous anymore? What's there to be jealous about? A young girl sees you as a big brother, so of course you're the first person she turns to when something's wrong. Go on, hurry."

I smiled, pried his hand loose, and got out of the car.

Then I took a cab back to the hotel, ate downstairs, and dropped into bed to sleep.

Half asleep, I got a call from Dominic. He explained that Bianca couldn't be left alone right now, said he couldn't take me to dinner after all, and told me not to wait up for him.

I only replied, "I've already eaten."

He went silent at once, then asked me through gritted teeth, "Do you really have to be like this?"

I gave a single "Mm," hung up, and went right back to sleep.

It wasn't until the next day that I saw the text he'd sent, warning me not to play with fire and get myself burned.

When I went back to the front office, I finally understood what he meant.

Every operation I'd been running, every ledger and legitimate front, had already been signed over to Bianca's name.

She was our new capo over the books now, always smiling as she handed me the scut work.

Dominic came by every noon to take her out to lunch.

When his eyes landed on me, they were pure ice.

Out in the streets, the whisper against the Moretti name kept spreading.

He wanted me to stand with him on Monday, at the sit-down the Family was holding before the Capos.

To help set the record straight, that Bianca had never been the outsider at all.

That years ago, when she'd fled the territory, I'd used her absence to force my way between her and Dominic, then leveraged a pregnancy to pressure him into a blood-bound marriage.

He made it sound generous. He said I'd still be the envied wife of the young Don, I'd only have to carry a small stain on my name.

That way the storm around the Family would settle, and Bianca wouldn't be touched by it.

He even said the whole thing had started with me making a scene at the union, so it was only right that I bear the cost.

Of course I wouldn't accept it. I cut him off on the spot.

Then his parents came to me, warning me I'd best do exactly as the household arranged, and not fool myself into thinking a Moretti heir in my belly let me run wild.

I gave them the same silence I'd given Dominic.

And I walked away from the Family's operations for good.

My work is clean and my hands are good with numbers. Other Families had tried to draw me over before, but now, when I reached out one by one, every door had gone strangely quiet.

I knew this was the Moretti household's doing.

They were squeezing me toward that sit-down.

But this time I didn't want to bend.

After another dead-end meeting, an old contact reached me. A foreign syndicate had a new overseas supply line running clean money through legitimate fronts, and they needed someone who knew the books. The tribute would be no worse than what the Morettis paid. The only catch was that the work sat beyond the vendetta, across the water. They asked if I was interested.

I was my parents' only child, after all. Thinking of them, I only agreed to consider it.

I got back to the hotel.

My Vale called, saying my Ashford's headaches had flared up again.

I flagged a cab home right away.

The moment I pushed the door open, Dominic was there too.

My Ashford took my bag from my hands, looking perfectly lively.

I looked at her, heavy-eyed. I knew. My own blood had sold me out again.

At the dinner table, Dominic sat beside me, endlessly piling food onto my plate.

The three of them put on a picture of warm harmony, as if they were the real famiglia.

My Ashford kept praising him from the side. "Dominic really is a son-in-law you don't find twice. Good blood, a good name, and so considerate to Addie."

My Vale was the elder at this table, yet he wore a fawning smile, hovering with the bottle and refilling the young Don's glass before it was ever empty.

He made small talk about the union, saying I'd been too willful, and thanking Dominic for enduring me.

The sight of them bowing and scraping to the man who'd shamed me made everything I'd held onto these past days crumble in an instant.

My eyes went hot and red.

I gripped the glass of milk my Ashford pushed in front of me until my knuckles were pathetic and white.

"It's fine. We're bound by oath now, husband and wife. Even when Adriana's in the wrong, I'll do my best to be patient. It's only the sit-down..."

Dominic's gaze never left me.

Full of contempt, and certain of his win.

My hand clenched, and the milk overflowed, dripping off the edge of the table onto the floor.

I looked at my parents, unable to bear it any longer. "Am I even your own blood? Why is it that my whole life, the second anything goes wrong, you never once stand on my side? I've already told you. I won't go back to Dominic."

Dominic's brow drew tight, unable, no doubt, to work out why, after giving in so many times, I was digging in now.

My Ashford's hand froze in the middle of wiping the table, and the milk-soaked rag came down across my head.

Sticky milk mixed with grayish grime ran down my face.

She turned to Dominic with an apologetic little smile. "Dominic! It's all my fault, that I raised Addie so poorly she'd want to sever the alliance over something this small."

Then, without a moment's hesitation, she slapped me across the face and snapped, "Adriana, do you think you're still some girl of twenty? You're thirty. A woman at thirty is spoiled goods. The young Don doesn't hold your age against you, doesn't hold your willfulness against you, and you should be on your knees kissing his ring in gratitude, yet you still want to break faith! Have you no manners at all!"

"It was one small thing at the union. How long will you keep making a scene? If you won't think of yourself, at least think of the child in your belly and of your parents!"

My face was knocked to one side, burning with pain.

Dominic seemed not to have expected my Ashford to raise a hand.

He shot to his feet and reached out to steady me, and my Ashford's next blow landed on his shoulder instead.

His voice was tender with concern. "Are you all right? Let me get you to a doctor."

Then he turned back to my Ashford, and the room went still around the softness of his tone. "Signora. She's my woman, and she carries a Moretti child. If there's a next time, Ashford or not, I won't go easy on you."

My Ashford stood there, stunned.

I let out a scoff, my eyes full of disgust. "Dominic, what's this act, playing the good man? Isn't this exactly what you wanted to see?"

Something in my look shook him. He was always so far above everyone, the young Don whose word bent whole rooms, and now his face showed nothing but a lost, helpless daze.

"Adriana, you"

"Ha. You want it this badly, for me to take the fall as the outsider so Bianca comes out clean? Fine. I'll stand at the sit-down. Just don't regret it."

With that, I slammed the door behind me, hard.