My Son’s Fiancée Thought I Was His Mistress

For years I had run the Family's business abroad, keeping the empire clean and quiet from across the ocean. The night word reached me that my son meant to seal a bloodline alliance, I flew home on the red-eye without a second thought.

That evening, my son let it be known through the Family's circles, a photograph of the two of us at supper passed hand to hand among the people who mattered.

The word attached to it read: Grateful to have you by my side through it all the most important woman in my life.

And because of it, the girl promised to him took me for a rival's kept woman. On the day of the alliance sit-down feast, she cornered me at the salon with a whole pack of her friends.

"You shameless slut, how dare you try to seduce my husband."

"I'll make sure you never sleep with a man again as long as you live. Ladies, sew her up down there. Anything happens, I'll take the blame."

They beat me savagely on Family soil, then dragged me to the sit-down feast.

"Today I'm going to show you exactly who it is my husband loves."

The girl ground her heel into my face, nearly humiliating me to death, and every guest at the table roared with laughter.

Just as she stood there flushed with triumph, tearing into her "mistress," my son finally arrived, late.

Barely clinging to life, I looked up at him.

"This alliance feast I'm afraid there's no need to hold it anymore."

When I first heard my son meant to be betrothed to the girl he'd kept close for two years,

I was over the moon, thinking the Vitale bloodline finally had a future. From across the ocean I set down every operation on my plate. I booked the earliest flight I could find and came home on the red-eye that same night.

Tonight my son and I were reunited after so long apart, and while we sat over supper in one of our own restaurants, a quiet front the Family owned outright, he passed that photograph of the two of us to the people in our circle.

He'd sent a line with it too: Grateful to have you the most important woman in my life.

Ever since my son Lorenzo Vitale's father passed away, the entire weight of the Family had come down on my shoulders, and I'd had no choice but to take the empire abroad.

Years had gone by without my seeing my son.

Now that I'd finally heard he was to be betrothed, I made careful preparations. I meant to face the Falcones looking my very best, so I'd never bring shame on my son or the Vitale name.

That night my son and the girl had a fierce quarrel.

I asked him what had happened. The very next day was the sit-down feast.

Furious, he told me, "Adriana Falcone says she's going to drag some mistress into the light. It makes no sense. I'm a Vitale. The way I carry myself, how could I possibly keep a woman on the side?"

I'd never been one to meddle much in my son's affairs, or ask many questions about them.

Still, I gave him his lesson. "A marriage that seals two Families is a matter of loyalty before anything else. Before you take her, you learn what that word costs. And if I ever find out you've mistreated the girl who carries this bloodline, you'll see exactly how a Donna deals with her own." I turned the thin gold band on my left hand a slow quarter-turn with my thumb, though he was in no danger from me yet.

"I don't care whether you really do have another woman out there."

"Since you've chosen Adriana, you cut all of it off. Every last bit."

My words left my son's face damp with sweat.

I never imagined that my son and Adriana, the very night before the sit-down feast that would bind the Vitale and Falcone names, would come apart over this business of a mistress.

Quietly, I made up my mind. Tomorrow, at the feast, I would step in myself and clear the misunderstanding between Lorenzo and the girl.

I'd even had an estate deeded over as a gift for them, worth a hundred million, my present, as the mother of the Family, to the girl I would welcome into the bloodline.

The next day, before the feast, I prepared with great care and even went to the salon for some light work on my face. I meant to attend tonight's gathering looking my very best, as befit the widow who held the Vitale throne.

Just as everything was ready and I was about to leave for my son's betrothal,

I saw Adriana, the girl promised to him, storm into the salon leading a whole group of her friends, seething with rage.

What a small world, I thought, and I was just about to rise and greet her, to make myself known to the girl before the night began.

Adriana's glare landed hard on me, and with all her friends in tow, she came striding straight toward me.

Under everyone's astonished stares,

Adriana slapped me across the face, ruining the work I'd taken such care with, the burning sting sending the whole room spinning around me.

In the chaos,

Adriana reached out, grabbed a fistful of my hair, and screamed in my face,

"You cheap piece of trash, may you rot for the son you bore."

"You think just because Lorenzo wouldn't tell me, hiding out here, I wouldn't find you?"

The sudden slap, and the unspeakable curses that followed, left me aching and mortified.

Every woman in the salon watched with open delight, drinking in this trashy melodrama of a wife tearing into a rival's kept woman. This was Vitale soil, a legitimate front the Family owned three streets over, and not one of them thought to wonder why an old woman would be dragged bleeding across its marble.

"She actually looked so refined."

"Who'd have thought, at her age, still out there seducing another woman's man, doing something this shameless. Just goes to show, the bigger the pond, the stranger the fish."

Their chatter kept landing in my ears.

Fighting through the pain in my face, I forced myself to explain. "Adriana, you've got it all wrong. I'm Lorenzo's"

But Adriana gave me no chance to speak.

She fisted her hand in my hair and shoved me to the floor, and several of her friends swarmed in, punching and kicking me.

The pain was so fierce it left my whole body numb.

Adriana hit and cursed at the same time. "You filthy slut. I'll teach you to seduce my man, and you've still got the nerve to say you're not Lorenzo's kept woman."

"If you're not his woman, then how would you know my name?"

"Ha. I never thought you'd hide yourself away this carefully."

"Let me tell you, a hen is a hen. It'll never fly up to the branch and become a phoenix. Don't you ever dream of fighting me for my man. Once I've married into the Vitale name, I'll sell you off to a house where a thousand men can bed you and ten thousand can ride you!"

Listening to curses that vile, I kept trying to explain. "Adriana, I really am not Lorenzo's woman. If you don't believe me, you can call Lorenzo and ask."

Lorenzo had once shown me photos and videos of himself with Adriana.

In those pictures, Adriana had come across as a gentle, considerate, well-bred girl, the kind of promised bride a bloodline alliance was built on.

But now I realized I'd been wrong.

I never imagined Adriana could be this vicious and cruel. She wouldn't give me the slightest chance to explain. She wrenched my hair loose and yanked at it like a madwoman, and the tearing agony ripped scream after scream out of me.

"Ha. Lorenzo? Listen to how sweetly you say his name. Trash is trash, and here you are still talking back."

Adriana's face went dark. When a lie was laid at her feet she laughed too quickly, and her fingers grazed her collarbone before she caught herself. "Hmph. Stubborn to the last. You cheap women who make yourselves other people's kept whores, you'll never admit what you are, not even on your deathbed!"

"In a little while I'm going to drag you to the sit-down feast and ask Lorenzo myself, did you please him better, or did I?"

"With me around, you can forget marrying into this Family for the rest of your life. At most you're used goods, something Lorenzo kicked aside once he got bored of you."

Adriana's shrill cursing kept scraping at my nerves.

I truly didn't dare imagine, with a woman like Adriana, if my son really sealed the alliance with her someday, what would happen to the bloodline his father had bled for.

Before all this, I'd been so full of hope. I'd even had the estate deeded and waiting for after the alliance was blessed.

"Hmph, beat this cheap thing to death!"

"Strip her clothes off. Today I want to see whether this filthy piece has any shame left at all."

Adriana's friends had a savage glint in their eyes.

They stared at me, unblinking.

Four or five of them dragged me across the floor by the hair, while Adriana teamed up with another woman to rip at the buttons of my evening dress.

In moments I was covered in blood, half exposed.

Every one of them watched me with gloating eyes, as if by now it no longer mattered whether I was a kept woman or not.

The sight of me being humiliated and beaten had become a fine show in their eyes, one they cheered on under their breath.

I clutched desperately at my chest.

But two fists were no match for eight hands. I was no match for them at all.

The savage pain nearly made me faint, and in my daze I even saw Adriana pull out her phone and start snapping photos of me.

"Trash, just wait until you're ruined and disgraced."

And just as my last layer of covering was about to be torn away by Adriana's friends

I screamed it out. "Adriana, I'm Lorenzo's mother!"

Adriana froze for a beat.

Just when I thought she'd put a call through to Lorenzo and hear the truth from his own mouth,

she threw back her head and laughed without a shred of restraint. "You? A little fox like you, fit to be my husband's mother? The Donna of the Vitale blood?"

"You're nothing but a rival's kept woman, the kind who lives in the shadows her whole life. Take away that pretty face and what's left of you?"

"Lorenzo will never want you. Not in a hundred years."

"If you're Lorenzo's mother, then I must sit at the head of the whole Commission!"

Adriana shrieked with laughter, her face twisted with something unhinged. Her hand drifted to her collarbone as she snapped photo after photo of me with her phone.

What crushed me was this: the salon was full of soldiers' wives and made men's daughters now, women who lived off the Family's protection, and through all of it, not one of them stepped in to stop it.

Every last one of them had a phone out, firing off pictures of me.

"You all seeing this?"

"This is what happens to a woman who crawls into a man who isn't hers!"

"Cornered right here on Vitale soil by the promised bride. A rival's whore deserves to rot. Strip her clothes off, ruin her for good, make sure she never crawls out of it!"

The women poured fuel on the fire.

Everything around me was chaos. All I could feel was the blood coating my face, and the certainty that these women were going to beat me to death on the floor of my own Family's front.

Somewhere in the mayhem, I thought I heard one of Adriana's friends, unsure how far this had gone, ask quietly, "Adriana, maybe we should double-check first?"

"What if she really is"

The words cut off halfway, silenced by a wave of Adriana's hand.

Adriana looked down at me, hair matted, sprawled in a pool of blood, and gave a cold, mocking laugh. Her fingers touched her collarbone again, that small flinch dressed up as a gesture. "Ha. My mother-in-law is still overseas, running the Family's business abroad. She sent word she wouldn't land until today."

I had, in fact, told Lorenzo I'd come the day of the alliance sit-down feast.

And that I'd take the measure of my daughter-in-law properly while I was at it.

But I was too happy to wait. My only son was sealing a bloodline alliance, and even if the whole territory burned, I would not miss it.

So I'd flown in early, the night before.

Lorenzo and I had even shared a meal at a quiet place near the airfield, out of the way of watching eyes. Only now did I understand: last night Lorenzo had passed word through the Family's circles, a photograph of the two of us, naming me the most important woman in his life. Adriana had heard of it, and seen it, and read it all wrong.

I was the rival's kept woman she'd set out to tear apart.

Through the clawing and the blows, my dress had been nearly ripped down to my waist. Even that last shred of covering was torn away, my hands pinned by her friends while Adriana pulled it aside herself.

A ripple of gasps went through the room.

"Heh, you've got the nerve to be another man's whore but not the nerve to let people look?"

"So she does have something to work with. Didn't expect her to be this well-kept."

Every single one of them raised a phone and shot at me like animals.

I screamed, wretched and raw, fighting with everything left in my body, but her friends held me down against the floor and would not let go.

"Move her hands. Stop blocking her chest."

"I'm putting this out through every channel we have. Let every soldier from here to the old country get a look at this slut's body."

Adriana had all but lost her mind.

Her frenzied laughter rang through the entire salon.

I lay in the pool of blood, barely clinging to breath.

By now I was certain of one thing: my son had never shown Adriana my face. Whatever passed between the Vitale and Falcone houses, he had kept me out of her sight.

"Adriana, I think she's about to die?"

"Are we still going?"

Seeing the state I was in, even Adriana's friends had begun to lose their nerve.

Adriana let out a cold snort. "What an actress. When you were off warming a rival's bed, did it ever cross your mind it'd end like this today?"

"Relax. Once Lorenzo and I are married and I'm inside the Vitale blood, whatever goes wrong, Lorenzo and my mother-in-law will clean it up for me. That's what famiglia is for."

With that,

Adriana waved a hand. "Drag her into the car."

Then she glanced down at the time on her watch, her expression shifting, and said in a rush, "Hurry, we need to get to the sit-down feast. My mother-in-law should be arriving right about now."

"Lorenzo told me today he's going to formally present me to his mother!"

The moment Adriana finished the words, her circle of hangers-on seized me by the hair and hauled me toward the front of the salon, a Vitale front off the main boulevard.

Before they left, she raised her voice at the owner. "Whatever damages you're out today, send the bill to the Vitale bookkeepers. Tell them the heir's promised bride sent you."

The instant she heard the name Vitale, the owner's face changed. She knew whose territory her polished little shop truly sat on, and she knew what it cost to be on the wrong side of that name.

She quickly plastered on a fawning smile. "So you're the Vitale bride. Don't you worry, whatever happened here today, no one calls the Feds. No one talks. Omert."

Adriana looked smug and pleased with herself.

Nearly drained of all my strength, I suffered the humiliation and let them drag me the whole way out onto the street.

Faced with the pointing fingers of passersby, Adriana planted her hands on her hips and screamed, "I'm teaching a rival's kept woman a lesson. None of your damn business."

Someone couldn't stand it any longer and stepped forward to reason with her. "Young lady, even if she really is some man's woman, you can't beat her until her face is covered in blood and tear her evening dress to pieces."

"Find something to cover her up. Everything's exposed for all to see, and people have their dignity."

"Besides, what you're doing is against the law."

Adriana didn't listen to a word of it.

She even sneered at the woman who'd spoken up, her tone snide and cutting. "Ha. So eager to jump in and plead for this piece of trash." A quick laugh, too quick, and her hand rose to brush her collarbone. "If you ask me, you're just like her, birds of a feather. You're somebody's kept woman too, aren't you?"

"And I've got the Family behind me. My husband is the heir apparent of the Vitale name. Even if I beat her to death, there's tribute enough to bury it."

The woman shot Adriana a furious look. She'd never imagined a girl who looked so gentle and delicate could speak with such venom.

In the end, Adriana and her people drove me to the hotel lobby where the alliance sit-down feast was being held.

For today's betrothal pact, both bloodlines had brought their own. There had to be dozens of tables, capos and their wives, soldiers standing along the walls with their hands folded low. The instant I was dragged in, Adriana's people, Falcone relatives of every kind, all turned their eyes on me at once. The room went quiet the way a room does when the wrong thing is about to happen.

"Adriana, is this the woman you told us about?"

Her parents rose from the head table, staring at me with pure hatred.

Adriana nodded. "That's her. She's the one Lorenzo named through the Family circles last night. The most important woman in his life. There's no way I'm mistaken."

Hearing Adriana confirm it with her own mouth, her mother, Carmela Falcone, matriarch of the Falcone household, ran straight up to me, grabbed a fistful of my hair, and slapped me like a woman gone mad.

"You slut, you dare fight my daughter for her man?"

"Today I'll beat you to death."

The blows landed one after another until I didn't even have the strength to speak. I found myself wondering whether they might actually beat me to death right here today, on a Family floor, with soldiers watching and not one of them moving.

"Kill her!"

"The only one marrying into this bloodline is my daughter!"

Carmela called out to her whole crowd, and the Falcone side closed in around me again.

Then Carmela turned to Adriana. She wet her lips, and her eyes went to the table settings, to the silver laid out for the feast. "Sweetheart, bring me the dinner knife. I'm going to ruin her face."

"Let's see how she seduces other men after that."

Adriana put the dinner knife into her mother's hand.

Everyone was watching me. Not a glass moved. Not a soldier shifted.

Through my splitting, agonizing pain, Carmela actually took the knife and slashed it hard across my face.

"Aah!"

A hoarse scream tore out of my throat.

The boundless pain jolted my hazy, fading mind back into clarity.

And it was right then.

Adriana's phone rang, and she flipped it to speaker with a triumphant flourish. My son Lorenzo's voice came through.

"Adriana, has my mother arrived?"

"What's going on over there? Why is it so loud?"

Adriana sneered. "I'm teaching a rival's kept woman a lesson!"

Lorenzo froze.

"A kept woman?"

"What woman?"