I Changed the Fate Draw, So the Don Lost His Wife

The Boss of Bosses, Salvatore Vitale, had been circling me for five years, and I never once lifted my eyes to meet his. To him I was nothing but one more name in the arranged-union draw, one more daughter he intended to collect. Whoever was chosen on the eve of his wedding became the wife of the most powerful Don in the city. And I knew, with the certainty of a woman who had already died once, that I was bound to be picked.

I had died before. In my last life I was the chosen bride, the one every daughter in every family envied.

On our wedding night he drank himself blind and missed a call from his adopted made-sister, the only woman he ever truly loved, the only one he mourned when she went cold. Giuliana Rossi.

That night, her heart gave out.

The next morning he dragged me to the safehouse where they laid her out, twisted his fist into my hair, and forced me to kneel before her body a thousand times.

"Why did you rig the draw? You knew I loved Giuliana. If I'd pulled the empty lot, I could have married her. She died crying, clutching your wedding dress, her dress. She was the one I was meant to wed."

"You were a tool. Nothing more. Something to make Giuliana jealous. You think you're fit to stand beside me?" Salvatore's voice was cold and sharp as a blade drawn slow, his eyes fixed on me without mercy.

He poured all his grief and all his rage into me, and blamed me for every second of it. He had my fingers crushed because I wore the ring meant for her. He stripped me and threw me into the river because I wore her gown. And in the end he nailed me into a coffin, his own coffin, and gave me over to marsh justice while I was still breathing.

When I opened my eyes again my body was whole, but it ached for five long years all the same. This time I swore I would change everything. I switched the order of the lots so the empty one would fall to him without fail. After that they could love each other, hate each other, bleed for each other, it would be no concern of mine.

"Salvatore's number is... the empty lot."

A ripple of gasps moved through the ninety-nine daughters gathered in the hall. Every one of them understood what it meant. Giuliana Rossi was the one. The rest of them had lost their shot at becoming the wife of the most powerful man in the city.

"What the hell is this?" one girl cried, tearing her slip in half.

"It's fixed. This whole draw is theater."

"Are you insane?" another hissed, pressing a hand to her mouth.

"Don't you understand? We're only here for the show. Everyone in this city knows how the Don looks at Giuliana. If we don't pull the empty lot and he picks us, we're finished."

A girl set her teeth. "But Giuliana is his sister."

"So what? No blood between them. The union could still be made. The rest of us are filler, nothing else. Honestly, the only one with a real chance of walking out of here alive is Bianca Falcone, number one."

Calm as still water, I tore the slip marked number one from my hand. My fingers trembled without my leave, the old pain still carved somewhere deep inside me. I turned my mother's cheap silver ring once around my finger, slowly, and let it settle.

Across the hall, Salvatore's pupils sparked with a heat I remembered too well. He rose and crossed the room to pull Giuliana Rossi into his arms.

"Giuliana, this time I chose you. You don't get to run anymore." Giuliana flushed and pressed her palms against his chest, but he only held her tighter.

"But... I've always thought of you as a brother."

"That's fine. You'll grow used to it. It's fate, cara."

He cupped her face in both hands, and yet his eyes, cold and sharp, cut straight across the room to me. A chill ran the length of my spine. Without meaning to, I straightened where I stood. Could it be that Salvatore Vitale had been reborn too? But even if he had, I owed him nothing.

This time I had handed him exactly what he wanted. This time I was finally free.

At the head of the table, Donna Vitale cleared her throat lightly, a flicker of something too close to panic passing behind her eyes. Her fingers moved to the pearls at her throat, stroking them in slow, even passes. "Salvatore, your aunt never dreamed that out of ninety-nine lots you would draw the empty one. It seems fate has bound you and Bianca Falcone after all."

"But this result is... unexpected. I'll need to sit down with your father over it."

Salvatore's mouth curved with satisfaction. "Of course," he said, throwing me a glance that dared me to break.

"As for the rest of these women, let them remain at the Vitale estate until after the wedding. Consider it recompense."

He expected me to shatter. He expected the tears. But I gave him neither. I smiled. And I applauded, along with everyone else in the room.

In my previous life, I had also wept tears of joy when the lot fell to me, only to turn and find Salvatore Vitale's face pale as death. His eyes had gone to his adopted made-sister, not sparing me so much as a glance.

Now that I had been reborn, I refused to be the pathetic fool I once was.

At the head of the room, Salvatore suddenly flared, pulling Giuliana tight against him. He said in a cold, level voice that they were "leaving together," then walked out without a backward look, and the enforcers along the wall straightened as he passed.

With the principals gone, the remaining ninety-eight women scattered like startled birds.

I was turning to gather my things when Donna Vitale dragged me into a corner beneath the balcony.

Before I could react, a stinging slap landed across my cheek. "You wretched girl," she hissed.

"Didn't I tell you Salvatore would draw your number? Why did it come out an empty lot?" Another slap followed.

"You're just like that broken-down father of yours, shameless. I am your blood-mother, not some stranger off the street. I told you to listen and you threw my words to the dogs."

My face burned from the blows, but not as much as my heart did. "The day you married into the Vitale Family alongside that scheming little cheat Giuliana, that was the day you stopped being my daughter."

Donna Vitale's eyes turned vicious. She stroked once at the pearls at her throat, slow and even. "If anything happens to Giuliana because of you, I swear on the Family you will pay with your life."

In my previous life, they had nailed me into a box and given me the marsh justice, burial for a supposed betrayer. Only in that dark did I understand the arranged-union draw had been rigged from the start. Of course Donna Vitale had wanted Giuliana wed into power. But she also needed to bury a secret Giuliana carried. And me? I had been the sacrifice that secret demanded.

Now I wanted nothing more than to sit back and watch them cut each other to pieces. Their secrets were no concern of mine any longer.

I rubbed my swelling cheek, my gaze flat and empty. "I'll be marrying Arthur Corvo. Consider it the Family's cut repaid, for the tribute you spent keeping my father breathing all these years."

Her expression wavered.

Arthur Corvo was a name spoken carefully in every corner of this city's underworld, the Don they called the Angel-Faced Devil, a man rumored to answer to no code but his own. His temper ran unpredictable, and the whispers said he took men and women alike to his bed.

He was infamous for his lovers, some claiming as many as eight hundred had passed through his hands.

And now, word had it, he was looking to bring home a wife.

If I did not choose for myself, Donna Vitale would see me handed off to some brute soldier or some broken debtor she owed a favor.

So I chose Arthur Corvo first, because I already knew he was far from the simple animal everyone believed him to be.

Donna Vitale smiled coldly. "All right, good daughter. Then wait quietly to be married off."

She turned and swept away, her hips swaying with each step.

I let out a breath. My room sat at the far west end of the Vitale compound, past the garden inside the walls. And the garden, just then, was in an uproar.

Giuliana had a hand pressed to her mouth, sneezing softly. "Salvatore, brother," she whined, "who planted all this lavender? Don't they know I'm allergic?"

Salvatore held his handkerchief gently to her nose, all tenderness. Then he turned to the groundskeeper and gave the order. "Cut down every stalk of lavender in this bed. Take out that swing while you're at it, and clear any bird nests in the way."

That patch of lavender had been gathered from the roadside by my father, back when he was still sober, still whole, before the machines.

He used to say, "When I'm gone, the flowers go too."

I stared at the shovel in the groundskeeper's hand, my eyes wide. "Wait." I said it loud.

Everyone stilled, glancing nervously toward Salvatore. He frowned, his expression unreadable, the signet ring turning slow against his thumb.

"You think this is your home?" he said.

"You plant whatever you please? Or are you doing it to set off Giuliana's allergies on purpose?"

When I was five, my father had fallen gravely ill. I had run to the Vitale estate and begged Donna Vitale to help him. She had wanted me thrown out into the street, until old Vitale himself intervened.

He had cleared his throat, low, the way that alone once ended arguments in that house. "She can stay," he had said. "We can afford to keep a few charity cases under our roof."

And so I lived in the Vitale Family's shadow for twenty years. Salvatore had once been the quiet, withdrawn boy who let me play among the house soldiers' children. He had even told me, "The Vitale Family will always be your home."

Right beside the lavender stood a small wooden plaque, faded and worn. Salvatore had carved it himself as a child. It read: "A place that belongs only to Bianca Falcone and me, a home forever."

I dropped my eyes, ignoring the rotting wooden plaque, and bowed deeply the way a dependent bows to a made man.

"Don Corvo, Miss Giuliana, I'm sorry."

"It was my fault for not knowing the rules, but please, Don Corvo, don't destroy my flowers. I'll clean everything up."

Arthur Corvo seemed a bit taken aback by my bow. The angel-faced devil studied me the way he studied everything he might one day have to bury. Suddenly, Giuliana began trembling.

"Arthur, I feel dizzy..."

Her delicate, soft voice snapped him back to attention. With a wave of his hand, the gesture of a Don who never needs to repeat himself, he barked, "What are you waiting for? Do it!"

The lush lavender was fed into the grass crusher, turning into purple juice.

"No!" I screamed, desperately lunging forward and clutching whatever I could.

Arthur Corvo, startled, let go of Giuliana Rossi, who stumbled back and hit a tree trunk.

"Are you crazy?!"

His eyes were red with fury as he pulled me away, until he noticed what I held in my palm: a crushed flower and a broken, rotting wooden plaque.

"You..." he started.

Tears burst from my eyes. "You said you couldn't sleep well... That's why I planted the lavender. My father gave it to me to help you sleep."

The wooden plaque crumbled in my hand as I held it out to him. The old man's hands had planted that lavender for me before the machines and the safehouse infirmary took him from me for good.

"Arthur, I don't have a home anymore."

He froze. For a breath the whole garden went quiet, the enforcers by the wall gone still, and he reached out as if to embrace me.

But then a scream pierced the air. It was Giuliana. A cluster of caterpillars had fallen from the birdhouse I'd made, right onto her.

Arthur flinched and rushed forward, pulling Giuliana away. The caterpillars carried mild toxins, but he used his bare hands to pick them out of her hair, those same hands that had signed death warrants without a tremor.

When he turned back to me, his eyes were full of disgust.

"Almost fooled me with your act."

"Like throwing bugs, huh? Fine. All of you, stuff the bugs on the ground into her clothes."

His smile was gone, dropped flat, and the house soldiers moved at once, scooping up the caterpillars. The gardener seized me, holding me tightly.

"I didn't do it! How could it be me?!"

Arthur snorted, saying nothing. Of course. He hadn't believed me in a long time. Otherwise, in our past lives, he wouldn't have accused me of rigging the arranged-union draw without even asking.

At first, I still clung to the memory of the Corvo Family's kindness and wanted to warn him that Giuliana was hiding a secret. But now, I regretted it. I wanted to see him lose it when the truth came out.

So I stopped struggling and let the caterpillars crawl all over me. The spots they touched reddened, swelled, and itched unbearably.

Giuliana finally calmed down and gently tugged on Arthur's sleeve. Her tearful gaze flicked sideways, a half-beat too fast, before she resumed her trembling.

"Will this be bad? I'm fine now..."

"Giuliana, you're just too kind. That's why people take advantage of you," he said. "Come. I'll take you to the doctor."

He carried Giuliana and walked away, leaving me behind on the cold ground of the Vitale compound.

My body gave out and I collapsed onto the earth. My fingers had dug deep into the soil from trying to endure the pain, mud and blood coating my skin. I turned my mother's cheap silver ring once around my finger, slowly, the way I always did when the fear came back.

Because of Arthur Corvo, no one came to help me. In this house his word was law, and law meant no associate would risk touching what a Don had cast aside. I endured the nausea and pain, finally throwing off the caterpillars and staggering to the family doctor.

Inside, I saw Arthur behind a curtain, applying medicine to Giuliana. Though it was just a simple treatment, she gasped dramatically.

By the time he pulled the curtain back, Giuliana was limp in his arms, and his fingers were still wet with medicine.

Arthur glanced at my red, swollen, festering neck and tossed a bottle of potion at me. I was a second too slow. The glass shattered on the floor, spilling the liquid everywhere, the only sound in the sudden hush.

"No need to see a doctor. You're only good for filth."

In the Corvo Family, and in the whole city, Arthur was like the sky itself. If a Don of his rank said I couldn't see the doctor, no doctor in any territory would even look at me.

I knelt on the floor, half-covered in dirt, applying the potion with my mud-stained hands. When I finally looked up, I saw Arthur tenderly disinfecting Giuliana's fingers as if she were made of porcelain.

"Arthur, I'm leaving the Vitale Family." When we were nine, Arthur Sinclair once swore he'd give me a home.

But that home was gone now, and it was time for me to say goodbye.

Arthur Sinclair wiped Giuliana Rossi's hand clean and kissed her fingertips lightly. His expression barely changed.

"Say that again," he said flatly.

I took a deep breath. "I said, you and Miss Giuliana are pledged now, and I'm nothing but an outsider. Just like the other ninety-eight daughters they drew for the union. I should leave."

"Arthur, this isn't a request. It's a notice."

"Notice?!" His tone shifted without him even realizing it, and his jaw worked, teeth grinding once before he caught himself. "Bianca Falcone," he sneered, "that broken old made-man of yours, rotting on his machines. Are you giving up on his treatment?"

His voice carried a threat beneath it that made me freeze. Memories from my past life made me tremble. He had once held me close, only to push me into a coffin with those same cold hands.

It was a pity. No matter how possessive Arthur Sinclair once was, he never imagined I'd soon be wed to another man's blood.

Before, when I wanted him to soften, I would threaten to leave the Vitale house. But now I didn't need his softness anymore. I really needed to go.

After a long silence, Arthur snorted.

"If you're so scared, then stay put. Giuliana needs a personal maid, especially on our wedding night. You can warm the bed for us."

Giuliana flushed, tapping his chest lightly with a small pink fist.

"Arthur, shame on you."

Arthur caught her delicate white hand, wrapped an arm around her waist, and pulled her into him.

"What are you shy about? Come, I'll take you out."

She kicked me with the point of her high heel as she passed, sending me crashing down into the shards of glass on the floor.

I picked up the tweezers from the tray and calmly drew the broken pieces from my leg. Then I dabbed on antiseptic as if it were nothing.

I went back to the room I'd lived in for twenty years inside these walls. I tried to pack the way some heroine from a novel might. But I quickly understood that none of it belonged to me.

Arthur used to have his picture taken with me. But at some point, the girl beside him in those photos was always ten years old. Giuliana had been across the water for ten years, and he had spent every one of them aching for her.

The dark room he'd made ready for the wedding was plastered wall to wall with photographs of Giuliana, taken in secret by a man he'd paid to follow her. All of it obsessive.

I stuffed my documents into my pocket and sat dazed at the edge of the bed.

My phone buzzed. A message from the caretaker at the safehouse infirmary.

"Miss Bianca, your father has come round a little. He's calling your name!"

I limped across the city to him. There, in that quiet room, I heard my father weakly call my name in a whisper barely louder than the hum of the machines.

That had never happened in my previous life.

Back then, the power was cut and the ventilator went silent. He was gone within a minute.

But now he spoke my name. For a man kept alive by wires and prayers, this was nothing short of a miracle. Maybe, just maybe, I would live to see him open his eyes.

The caretaker slipped out and left us alone, giving me a warm smile at the door. I sat beside the bed and held his hand tightly. His fingers twitched, reaching toward the withered sprig of lavender kept at his bedside.

"I'm leaving the Vitale Family. Those people... they'll have nothing to do with me anymore."

"I'm sorry. I couldn't keep the lavender you gave me."

"Pap, can you get up and tell me... where did you find those seeds?"

I bowed my head and let the tears fall freely.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk... I've been looking everywhere for you. And here you are, crying over a dying man."

Giuliana stood in the doorway, arms crossed, swaying her hips with a smirk. Her eyes narrowed as she sauntered in.

I wiped away my tears. "What are you doing here?"

Giuliana lifted her foot and kicked the frame of the bed. The monitors beeped in protest as the machines jolted.

She tilted her chin arrogantly. "I heard Mamma say you're planning to wed that Angel-Faced pervert from the Corvo Family?"

I didn't answer. I just watched her, wary.

"It's no business of mine if you want to marry a beggar," she sneered. Then her tearful gaze flicked sideways, a half-beat too fast, before she settled it back on me. "But I heard you know my secret?"

I wont tell.

Giuliana Rossi looked at me as if Id just told the funniest joke shed ever heard. The safehouse infirmary was silent but for the machines, and in that silence her amusement felt obscene.

How can I be sure you wont say anything? If you do, Arthur will leave me! Her eyes turned red as she spoke, that tearful gaze flicking sideways a half-beat too fast before she settled back into trembling.

Only if youre dead can I finally feel at ease!

With that, a blade slipped from her sleeve and flashed toward me. I instinctively leaned back, falling straight onto my fathers unmoving body. Giuliana didnt look soft at all. With the blade clenched between her fingers, she aimed directly for my throat.

But suddenly, a dry, pale hand caught her wrist. The monitors around us beeped erratically, filling the small room with a rising alarm.

The infirmary doctor had said that a man might wake if the machines cried out like that.

I whipped around in shock. Dad?

He didnt open his eyes, but his hand firmly stopped Giuliana from hurting me. No you touch my daughter, came his hoarse, broken whisper. The old made-man, all that was left of him, still fighting.

I couldnt believe it. His hand still held firm.

Footsteps echoed down the corridor fast, heavy and familiar. In a flash, Giuliana cut her own fingertip with the blade and slipped it into my fathers hand. Tears streamed down her face.

Dont kill me!

The next second, Arthur Sinclair burst into the room. She flew into his arms like shed found a life raft.

Arthur! My sisters father tried to kill me I just heard he was waking and wanted to see him Did Giuliana do something wrong? Blood dripped from her fingertip, catching Arthur Sinclairs eye. His face darkened instantly.

Without a word, he seized my wrist with an iron grip, nearly crushing it.

You were going to get Giuliana killed again, werent you?!

I paid for your fathers care in this house all these years, and this is how you honor that debt?!

I shook my head, panicked. I didnt! It wasnt me!

Arthurs smile twisted cold and cruel, like a demon from the underworld. Yeah. Not you this time. It was your father.

I felt my stomach sink. I dropped to my knees and bowed, forehead slamming against the floor.

It wasnt my dad! Hes just a vegetable, he doesnt even know anything!

It was Giuliana! She tried to kill me! She But Giuliana interrupted with a sob. I didnt! You know about my blood condition, Arthur, youve always known

Then she clutched her forehead and staggered back, her performance flawless. Arthur glanced at her, jaw working, teeth grinding as his control frayed. He looked at the blade in my fathers limp hand, and his jaw clenched harder.

Good. Very good

Without another word, he crossed to the bed and pulled the plug on my fathers respirator. The monitor screamed, a piercing beep ringing in my ears like a curse. No one touched a helpless elder. It was the oldest line in the code, and he had just stepped over it as if it were nothing.

I lunged forward and tried to reconnect it, but he shoved me away.

Stop, Arthur, please, Im begging you! My dad will die without the ventilator!

Hit me, kill me, do anything to me, but please dont do this to him!

Arthur stared down at me like I was dirt beneath his shoes.

Dying is the easiest thing in the world.

Dont think I dont know a vegetable wont die just because the machines off for ten minutes. Im only punishing you.

He pulled out his phone and called the house soldiers to cut power to the ward, this room alone, ten minutes exactly. Then he picked up Giuliana Rossi like she weighed nothing and turned back one last time.

Tomorrow night. My wedding night. You come back and warm the bed.

If you dont, just wait and see what happens!

He walked out. I crawled to my father, crying, forcing air into his mouth. But it was useless.

Ten minutes later, the power returned. I reconnected the ventilator at once. The screen flickered, then steadied Into a flat line.

He was gone. My dad, who had been left like a dog in that bed for years, was dead. I sat on the cold infirmary floor, arms wrapped around my knees, eyes swollen and burning from crying. I turned my mothers cheap silver ring around my finger, once, slowly. Then the ring went still.

And then, I heard footsteps again. I looked up, my vision blurred.

Do me a favor? I whispered.

I didnt know what I was trying to prove anymore. But Arthur Sinclair threw a wedding grander than I had ever dared to dream, a Family feast dressed as a celebration, every Don in the city seated beneath the chandeliers.

The brides gown shimmered, thousands of stitched gems dazzling under the lights.

When Arthur entered the grand hall, his gaze instinctively swept the crowd. But he didnt find me in the seat that had been set aside for me.

The ceremony proceeded. The marriage oath was spoken. Applause filled the air. Then came the toast, ninety-eight daughters he had once collected like lots drawn from an arranged-union draw, all raising their glasses together.

He rarely asked questions. But this time, he did.

Where is Giuliana?

Serafina paused, thinking.

You mean Sister Candidate One? I didnt see her.

Arthur frowned.

She has a name. She isnt just Candidate One.

Serafina nodded, pressing her fingertips to her lips as if to catch the words already loosed, confused, and watched Arthur go.

It struck him then that Donna Vitale was the brides mother too. So he crossed the venue to find her.

Donna Vitale stood smiling, murmuring lightly into the phone with Mira Morello, stroking the pearls at her throat in slow, even passes.

Aunt Jessy, Serafina said politely, why isnt Giuliana here today?

At the words, Donna Vitale and Mira Morello exchanged a strange, meaningful glance. Her fingers on the pearls quickened, just slightly.

And just like that, Arthur felt a jolt in his chest. An inexplicable pain.

The next second, Donna Vitale raised her phone. The dim screen lit, and what Arthur saw burned into his mind forever.