The Bride Who Broke Two Bloodlines

The first time Lorenzo Marlowe broke the pact, he took a private photograph of the girl with the red eyes and told me I could do whatever I wanted with it. I loved him so much that I chose to forgive him, telling myself it was nothing more than a careless mistake a soldier makes once and never again.

The second time, Lorenzo let the tape of him and that girl slip loose, and every capo and every kept woman in this city saw it. Omert covers a great many sins, but not that one. Still, I told myself he was the same Lorenzo I had been promised to. So I swallowed my pride and stayed at his side as though nothing had touched us.

It wasn't until the third time that he and Bianca Greco appeared in front of me. Each of them held a child, and both of them were kneeling on the ground of the Marlowe estate as if penance could be performed on cue. Then everything finally broke.

"Adriana, I'm sorry. The children can't grow up without a mother. Bianca is innocent in this. If you want to be angry, to scream, to strike someone, blame me. I'll take all of it. Just please, care for the twins and let Bianca stay under this roof. I'll agree to anything."

"You once told me you were afraid of the birthing bed. Now we have twins already breathing, already here. Don't worry, Bianca won't take your place. As long as you remain in the Marlowe Family, every mouth in the city will call you the children's true mother. No one will speak against you. I'm begging you."

It felt like my heart was being torn out. I laughed while I was crying.

"Lorenzo, when did you ever give me a chance to choose?"

The Maybach pulled away fast down the long gravel drive. I made a phone call, and I said, "You were right. There is no such thing as just one time. A man who breaks the pact breaks it again. I lost. Come and take me away."

......

The man on the line laughed first, then cursed low.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner? You and Lorenzo were sealed together for eight years, blood promise between two Families. If I put my hand in now, it's like stepping into another man's war. I'm not something people take because no one else will have them."

"Besides, I'm well thought of in this city. A Don, unmarried, with respect in every room I walk into. There are girls who'd line up from here to the coast for me. A woman thrown back from a broken alliance? Even a stray off the docks wouldn't want her"

Before he could finish, I turned the ring a quarter-turn on my finger, the stone pressed cold into my palm, and said, "So. Do you want a woman thrown back from a broken alliance, or not?"

He paused. Then his tone changed quick.

"Well. If the strays won't have you, Dominic Falcone still will."

"And if the day ever comes that you get a chance like this again, don't you forget me. I'll be at your door the second you call."

After I hung up, I sent him the time and the place to meet and settle the marriage before the Family. He answered right away with some ridiculous little cat drawing, the kind of thing that had no business coming from a man Lorenzo Marlowe would gladly see dead. Meanwhile I looked up into the endless night, and the pain inside me only cut deeper.

The rain had been falling all night. After one long roll of thunder, it came down harder, soaking me through to the skin. I walked five kilometers from the edge of Salvatore territory and finally reached a small hotel on neutral ground and checked in under a name that wasn't mine. I had barely dried myself when my phone rang. Lorenzo.

His voice was full of guilt, the way it always was after.

"Adriana, I left in a hurry earlier. I was afraid the strain might make Bianca ill. Thank God the doctor says she's fine. Are you still out there in the rain? I'll send one of the men with a car to bring you home."

"Your health has always been fragile. If you catch cold before the ceremony, you won't look right standing up in front of every capo in the city"

"So you still remember there's going to be a ceremony?"

I cut him off, and the bitterness came out plain.

Lorenzo's voice turned cold all at once.

"What is that supposed to mean? I told you, those children were an accident. I didn't know one night would put a child in her, especially with her drugged the way she was. But they're here now. What do you expect me to do, throw them in the river?"

"You forgave me twice already. Why not this time? Can't you look at those two innocent children and feel anything at all? What, you want them out on the street with nothing? The sit-down is in a week, the whole Family will be watching. I don't want to fight with you. Just calm down."

Looking at the message from Dominic lighting up my screen, I spoke, and my voice was cold.

"No. I won't marry you."

"Lorenzo, I've told you before. The one thing I hate most in this life is a man who breaks the pact."

Just as I was about to hang up, Lorenzo shouted, his voice filled with fury.

"Who else do you think I would marry if I don't marry you? A blood pact is not a joke! Every Family in the city knows the Salvatore and Marlowe names are meant to be joined. How can you ask me to let the Marlowe Family lose face in front of every capo we answer to?"

"Adriana, I know you're upset, but do you think I'm happy? Do you think I wanted to bed another woman? If I hadn't been set up, how would I suddenly end up with two children?"

"You know me. I never go where there are women, not even when the Family sends me. What happened with Bianca was a real accident. How many times do I have to explain it?"

He laughed then, a beat too early, too loud, the sound landing wrong against the quiet on the line. "I already took her private photos and put the video out where it would hurt her. I've tried everything to make it up to you. What else do you want me to do, put a bullet in my own head to prove my love?"

His voice grew more tired as he continued. "I'm already exhausted. I don't want the woman promised to me fighting me at every turn. Don't worry. The two children will only be registered under your name. Bianca will just be the nanny, the one who keeps the house."

My tears fell and a bitter smile appeared on my face.

"So you mean I should raise your illegitimate children as my own? And not only that, but live under the same roof as your kept woman every day?"

"Sorry. I'm really not that kind of person."

After a pause, he shouted, "Fine! Remember what you said. Don't come crying later. If you're brave enough to walk away, then go!"

"Do you think any man out there is clean? I've already given you Bianca and the children. I've done all I can. If you can accept it, we seal the alliance. But if you can't, then leave! I don't care anymore!"

He hung up. Only the glowing screen of my phone stayed on, still showing our engagement photo as the lock screen, the picture they'd taken the day two bloodlines swore peace.

The memories from that day came flooding back. I remembered how he knelt in front of me, his eyes full of love, and swore an oath of loyalty in front of both Families. But that love only lasted a year. Tears dropped onto the screen and my hands trembled as I called my parents.

"I'm sorry. I wanted to break the alliance with Lorenzo."

They sighed. It was clear word of Bianca carrying his children had already reached Don Salvatore's ears.

"If you want to break it, break it. No daughter of this Family will suffer through this!"

"Even if you never marry, you'll always be our little princess."

After hearing that, I laughed with tears in my eyes. My nose was running like a child's.

"Papa, there's no need to call off the ceremony. I'm just changing the groom."

"You know Dominic."

My mother sounded shocked and raised her voice slightly.

"Dominic Falcone? Isn't he the one who hates the Marlowe Family most? I heard they nearly went to war over the shipping ground, and the Marlowes lost hundreds of millions to him!"

I smiled and wiped my face.

"Yes. He did it because of me. So I'm willing to take another chance."

Late that night, a request came through on the private channel we used for family matters. The photo attached to it was Bianca and Lorenzo, standing close.

I remembered how Lorenzo once told me he didn't like showing real faces where anyone could see. Now I realized it wasn't that he disliked real photos. He just didn't like showing pictures of us.

I accepted it. A message from Bianca came in right away. It was a photo. Lorenzo asleep on a hospital bed. Two baby cribs sat in the background. She followed it with a playful little face.

[I'm sorry, Miss Salvatore. Mr. Marlowe insisted on staying with me. The room isn't very nice, but he refuses to leave, no matter how I try to talk him into it.]

[We're going to be one family soon. I thought I'd reach out so we could stay in touch. If you ever need anything, feel free to message me directly.]

I didn't reply. My heart felt heavy. Two years ago, when I was sick and would faint every month, no matter the hour, no matter what soldiers he had waiting or what sit-down was on the table, the moment I messaged Lorenzo he would drop it all and rush to take me to the hospital.

But Lorenzo never stayed the night. He said he couldn't stand the smell of disinfectant in the ward, that it made him feel like something pickled in a jar, waiting to be examined. I was in so much pain I was drenched in sweat, but no matter how I begged him, he wouldn't stay.

Now Bianca had become the one who rewrote all his rules.

Maybe I was simply too worn down by all of it, because I actually fell asleep. When I opened my eyes again, it was Lorenzo's voice on the phone that woke me, loud and edged with anger, the impatience of a made man used to being obeyed.

"Adriana, I already told you Bianca doesn't touch your place in my life, and neither do the children. So why did you message her and order her out? Did you think to ask me first?"

"You can't even stomach two babies. How am I supposed to trust you with them later?"

His words left me cold inside.

I understood everything now. I just didn't have it in me to explain anymore.

"Yes. It's my fault," I said calmly.

"Whatever you choose to believe, I can't stand her. I have no respect for her."

"You'd do well to keep her close every day. Just pray I never find the opening to settle things with her."

Before he could answer, I hung up.

It was absurd. Eight years bound to one another, an alliance sealed between two bloodlines, and he wouldn't even try to understand what I felt. He took Bianca's word over mine.

The screen said it was only five in the morning, but sleep was gone. Lorenzo used to know I slept badly. He never once reached me before eight. Now, for Bianca, he was willing to break even that.

Lorenzo kept swearing Bianca would be nothing more than the nanny. Was that really the truth?

I felt hollow, and I didn't want to think anymore. I got up, checked out of the hotel, and took a car back to the estate. The morning rush swallowed the roads, and I sat in traffic close to two hours. When I finally pushed open the front door, I found the crew Lorenzo had brought in already at work.

Lorenzo was speaking to them in that low, serious tone men used when they wanted no mistakes. "Remember, the nursery gets the best materials, nothing less. Anything goes wrong, I don't pay. And repaint that bedroom. Powder blue. Children like it."

Bianca was folded softly into his arms, the two babies held between them. They were laughing together.

"Lorenzo, look! The babies love the color you picked!"

"Isn't Daddy clever? He knows what you want before you even say it. Blood ties really are something, aren't they."

Lorenzo brushed one baby's nose. A bubble of snot burst onto his hand, and he only laughed, his eyes full of light.

"Did you see that? He's praising me!"

"You already know your daddy, don't you? Say 'daddy' for me."

I had never seen him this happy. Not even the day he proposed. That day, he'd barely smiled.

I had asked him then, "Aren't you glad to marry me? Why won't you smile? Most people weep when they propose, they're so moved."

He'd only given me a cold look.

"A man in my position doesn't show too much. It gives others something to use against him."

My footsteps must have carried, because they both turned. Bianca dropped to her knees in front of me, both babies in her arms, her eyes flooding with tears.

"Miss Salvatore, please don't send me away. I can't leave the children. I never meant to come between you and Mr. Marlowe. I swear it, I'm only here to care for the babies. I won't touch your life."

"Please, don't take them from me. Look how sweet they are. They're even smiling at you. Won't you hold one? They take to you like a mother would . . ."

Before I could move, she pressed the baby girl into my arms. I froze. My whole body went stiff, and I didn't know what to do.

Lorenzo lowered his head to check his phone. The baby in his arms suddenly slipped and fell to the floor, letting out a loud, sharp cry. He quickly picked her up and checked to see if she was hurt.

Bianca began crying and knelt on the marble in front of me.

"Miss Salvatore, if you're unhappy, come to me. Please don't touch my children. I beg you. I'll kneel for you!"

When she turned toward Lorenzo and saw his angry expression, her tone changed quickly.

"Signore Marlowe, please don't blame Miss Salvatore. She just didn't hold the baby properly. She didn't mean it"

Before she could finish, Lorenzo's face turned cold. The kind of cold that made every soldier along the far wall find something else to look at.

"Adriana, I already told you Bianca was drugged. That's why she made mistakes. You shouldn't blame her. If you're angry, come to me! Why are you taking it out on a baby?"

"I didn't care when you sent messages threatening Bianca. I even forgave you for dropping the child. But this is your last chance. Today, you will apologize to Bianca."

The baby girl cried even louder, as if she knew her mother was in trouble. Lorenzo helped Bianca up and settled the baby back into her arms. Then he turned to me and glared. His voice was colder than ever.

"Don't you understand what I said? Apologize."

"Adriana, I've really spoiled you."

I looked at him. My eyes were cold and calm. I just felt tired and sad. In the vast, silent room, with the old-family portraits watching from the walls and the smell of leather and gun oil beneath the milk and the garlic, I felt the full weight of what an alliance was worth when it wasn't loved.

"You want me to apologize? Lorenzo, are you out of your mind?"

Bianca suddenly moved in front of me and begged, "Miss Salvatore, please don't be upset with Signore Marlowe. I know you didn't do it on purpose. I don't blame you."

"Just lower your head and say sorry. Don't let me ruin what's between you two"

Before Bianca could finish, she slipped and fell hard to the floor. The two children rolled out of her arms. For half a second, before she turned her face back toward Lorenzo, the tremble dropped clean off her mouth and her eyes went flat and measuring. Then the mask came down again, and she was weeping.

"What are you doing?" Lorenzo shouted at me and shoved me away.

His forehead struck the corner of the table and blood began to run down.

"I think you've gone mad! You keep going after Bianca, again and again, and now you strike her while she's holding children!"

"She gave you your child and she already said sorry to you. What more do you want?"

"Apologize now, or answer for it."

I held back everything rising in me and spoke clearly, word by word.

"I will never apologize to your kept woman, Lorenzo. You can forget about that right now."

He laughed then, a beat too early and too loud, the sound landing wrong in the stillness. "If you won't take kindness," he said, going cold again, "then you'll be punished."

Then Lorenzo told the servant to take Bianca and the children away. He was so far past reason that he called for his men, ten of them, and had them drag me toward the door. One drove a boot into the back of my leg.

I lost my balance and dropped to my knees on the wet stone of the threshold. Two enforcers pressed down on my shoulders to keep me from rising.

Lorenzo stared at me with no emotion at all. "Then kneel here. Get up only when you understand what you've done."

"Watch her. If she stands, not one of you sees morning as a made man."

He turned and went back inside.

The sky had gone dark, and soon it began to rain. Cold water soaked through my clothes. I sat straight and refused to lower my head. On my finger, the alliance diamond had turned itself a quarter-turn inward without my deciding it, the stone hidden against my palm.

But my lower stomach hurt badly.

I realized something was wrong and caught the leg of the nearest man's trousers.

"My stomach hurts Call Lorenzo please"

The soldier didn't even look down at me. He kicked me again.

"Be quiet. Don't play sick. Signore Marlowe is busy warming milk for his babies."

"This is what you get for wounding the woman he favors."

From inside the estate I could hear a baby laughing and Lorenzo's low voice telling some story. My head began to spin. And a warm wetness started to spread from beneath me into the rain.

I couldn't take the pain anymore and collapsed to the ground.

In my blurry state, I thought I saw an eighteen-year-old boy pressing sanitary pads into my hands, his eyes red with worry, the son of a rival house who should have been my enemy and never was.

"I didn't know which brand you used, so I bought all of them. You can pick what you like."

The rain washed away the memory, leaving only my cold body behind on the stone of the Marlowe estate. I didn't know how much time had passed, but I heard familiar footsteps cross the wet flagstones.

Lorenzo's voice was cold.

"Have you finished pretending? If so, stand up."

"Adriana, look at yourself. What makes you different from a jealous woman now?"

"You should learn to control your temper. I'm doing this for your own good."

Before walking away, he threw a blanket over me, the gesture of a made man remembering, too late, that the world was watching how he treated a Salvatore.

He hadn't gotten far when one of his enforcers shouted through the rain.

"Mr. Marlowe, there's blood on the blanket!"

Lorenzo stopped and rushed back to me. He pulled the blanket off and his face turned pale.

"What are you all doing? Call a doctor now!"

"Can't you see my wife isn't well? Are you all blind?"

His voice faded and I lost consciousness completely. I couldn't tell whether my body or my heart hurt more. Memories from the eight years of the alliance flashed through my mind like a movie.

The last image was Bianca smiling, proud, certain, an outsider who had finally clawed her way to the seat that was never hers.

"Adriana, you lost."

When I opened my eyes again, I was lying in someone's arms. Lorenzo was holding me, his hand gently rubbing my lower abdomen. But his face looked cold and distant, the face he wore at sit-downs when a man's life hung on his mood.

When he saw me awake, he frowned.

"Didn't you know your period started? Why didn't you tell me?"

"If I hadn't noticed, were you planning to let yourself die in the rain?"

"Adriana, when will you stop being like this?"

I pushed him away and gave a small, cold smile.

"Does it really matter?"

Lorenzo opened his mouth to speak, but the sound of a baby crying came from the nursery. His expression changed quickly. He stood up and got ready to leave. I smiled faintly.

"Lorenzo, your acting is terrible. It makes me feel sick."

He paused, and a laugh came out of him a beat too soon, too loud, landing wrong in the quiet of the room. Then he still walked out.

"I'll talk to you after I calm the baby. I haven't changed. You're the one who has."

Lorenzo didn't come back for two hours.

A doctor came to give me medicine and mentioned, the way a man mentions weather he doesn't want to discuss, that Lorenzo was busy choosing a new formula for the twins. He said the Marlowe heir was comparing brands, reading every ingredient like it was a contract that could turn on him. The doctor also said he had never seen a made man so nervous about anyone in his life.

I laughed quietly. Because I had never seen it either. Lucky for me, Lorenzo wasn't around, so I started packing my things.

I threw away every gift he had given me across eight years of the blood alliance. Only a few sets of clothes were left. As I got ready to have a car brought around and leave, I passed by the nursery.

Then I walked in. Perhaps, once, I had imagined what a child between Lorenzo and me would look like. Since I was leaving, I thought it would be all right to look just once.

I leaned near the crib and gently poked the baby's soft cheek. The child had Lorenzo's exact eyes and brow. Tears fell before I even noticed.

The baby started crying loudly and blood ran from his nose. I reached out to call for help.

At that moment, the door was kicked open.

Lorenzo slapped me hard across the face. His expression was full of rage.

"I thought you had learned your lesson. These two children aren't even a month old. How could you put something in their milk?"

"Adriana, when did you become so cruel? I barely recognize you anymore!"

"Get out. Don't ever enter this nursery again without my permission."

After those words, Bianca rushed in and knelt before me, begging with tears in her eyes. She pleaded for me to spare her child. She said she was willing to die to make it right. For half a second, when Lorenzo's eyes were on the crib and not on her, the tremble dropped clean off her face and her eyes went flat and calculating, then the mask returned before anyone else could catch it.

When I saw the strange look in Lorenzo's eyes as he watched me, I felt frightened. Every explanation got stuck in my throat. The love I once felt was gone in an instant.

"Lorenzo, don't you believe me?" Bianca cried.

"How do you expect me to believe you? Adriana, please stop hurting my children. They did nothing wrong."

I closed my eyes in despair. Then I smiled sadly and tears fell. My fingers found the diamond on my hand and turned it a quarter-turn inward, hiding the stone against my palm.

"Okay, as you wish."

I picked up my luggage and walked away.

For seven days, Lorenzo did not send a single word. In contrast, Bianca's posts multiplied like a rat colony. She was in Paris, the Maldives, Turkey. He took her on every honeymoon we had once planned together, back when the alliance still meant something.

On the morning of the wedding, Lorenzo boarded the wedding car and drove to the hotel, one of the old-family holdings the Families used to launder their peace into celebration, just like before. But at the entrance, a Falcone soldier stepped into his path.

"Do you have an invitation?" the man asked, unhurried, one hand resting where a hand rests when it wants to be near a weapon.

Lorenzo looked shocked.

"I am the groom. Why would I need an invitation?"

The soldier looked at him the way you look at a man who has already lost and doesn't know it yet, then nodded toward the large wedding photo mounted at the door.

"The bride is Miss Adriana Salvatore, and the groom is Don Dominic Falcone. What business is this to you? If you don't have an invitation, leave. Don't block the way."

Lorenzo's face went pale.