Chapter 5

"I'd love to see what you can do once you're out of this Family!!"

I gave a flat hum and didn't look up.

An hour later, someone dropped a live link to the associates' gathering into the club's group chat.

The camera happened to pan across Salvatore's chair at the head table, and his gaze had settled on Gina speaking up before the room, soft with tenderness.

My feed refreshed. Gina had posted a new update, standing beside that heavy-money backer, her smile sweet, every strand of her hair catching the light.

【Everything went perfectly! Who knew a workday could mean meeting my idol AND getting gorgeous shots! Huge thanks to Mr. Falcone's absolutely killer photography skills!】

My heart skipped a beat.

For eight years, one of the things Salvatore hated most in the world was taking photos.

The first time we ever went out together, I wore a dress I'd saved up forever to buy, and I pleaded and coaxed him for the longest time before he finally agreed to take my picture.

Every single shot came out with me blending straight into the scenery, so when I showed them around, people thought it was a spot-the-difference game.

After that, I always assumed he simply couldn't take a decent photo.

I'd rather set up a tripod and take selfies than ever let him do it.

Yet now, here he was, capturing someone else looking vivid and playful.

A line suddenly came back to me.

A lens has feelings. Someone who loves you will make you look beautiful.

I opened a private line to the most respected Consigliere I could find, the kind who handled the severing of a blood-bound union, and added his name.

Over the next while, I started handing off my operations and my contacts, clearing out the last of the odds and ends.

Dozens of arrangements a day, running from one corner of the outfit to the next.

On my last day, the moment I walked into the club, everyone's eyes crawled over me, and the whispering never stopped.

"That's her, the one who thinks that just because she came in with a few clean scores at the outer territory, she's forgotten who outranks who."

"So annoying. Now we're stuck pulling extra work again today."

Before I could make sense of any of it, the second I sat down at my desk, Salvatore came striding over. Conversations died the way they always did when he crossed a room.

He slammed a stack of documents down, the pages fanning out, a sharp edge slicing my finger.

"Adriana! Look at what you've done!"

"Because of your screwup, the whole rollout got pushed back three full days."

"Do you have any idea what that means for the Family? The routes, the supply, the whole schedule of tribute and payoff, all thrown off. Can you afford to eat a loss like that?"

Gina stood at his side, eyes rimmed red, her face all frantic concern.

"Adriana, I know you think I don't deserve this captaincy, so you don't want to work with me." Her voice climbed half a register, fast, and her hand drifted toward her stomach. "But that's between the two of us. If you're holding a grudge, you can take it out on me in private. Hit me, curse at me, I'll accept it."

"Everyone's been putting in the hours for three whole months on this, and just when we're about to see the payoff, you go and……"

By the end she was practically in tears.

I drew in a deep breath and didn't rush to defend myself.

I turned my father's signet ring once around my finger, twice, then pulled a flash drive from my bag and threw the screen recordings of every step of my work over the past three days up onto the wall.

"Anyone with working eyes, open them wide and take a good look."

Then I turned my gaze to Gina. The ring went still on my finger.

"An operation this size, why was the single most critical milestone merged onto me, without my knowledge, when I'm someone already walking away, someone who technically no longer even answers to this outfit?"

"Is that how a clean process runs?"

I paused, then looked at Salvatore.

"And let's say I did take it on, granting every benefit of the doubt. Did I even have the access to the ledgers?"

The whole room went silent. Not a chair scraped. A made man near the door shifted his weight and thought better of it.

Salvatore pressed his lips together, his expression cold and distant. His thumb moved once against his wedding band, then folded into a fist.

"Even so, you still should have flagged it in time!"

"The Family not handing you this captaincy was truly the best call it ever made."

"An irresponsible person like you doesn't deserve to stay here."

Each word landed hard against my ears, and my heart gave a violent lurch.

I wanted to speak, but I couldn't even seem to find the strength to breathe.

I'd carried this work faithfully for all these years, and in his hardest days I'd given up the blood-money my father left me to seed his rise.

Listened to him and stepped aside to kill the talk. Listened to him and shipped out to the outer territory.

Even, for the sake of what he called his years to build the throne, ended my first pregnancy.

And now, he was calling me irresponsible.

He pulled a sheet off the desk and handed it to Gina.

"Mistakes happen. Bring your books to my office and we'll go through it."

Watching his expression turn soft for her, I started to wonder if he was two men in one skin.

To wonder what, exactly, these eight years had all been for.

But I no longer had any wish to dig into it.

"Salvatore."

He stopped mid-step and turned back.

"Adriana, I don't recall anyone in this Family teaching a soldier to call the Don by his given name."

"Of course they didn't."

I looked at him steadily.

"But this is the first time, and the last."

Then I set my badge on the desk and walked out without a backward glance.

Early the next morning, right after I finished my last round of sit-downs over the line, I took out my phone, ready to tell him about severing the union, when Gina's feed updated.

In the photo, she was lying on a bed at a private clinic, covered with the thin blanket I'd knitted last year, while he stood talking to the doctor, his brow tightly furrowed.

I stared at that photo for a long time, then blocked his contact.

Before the plane took off, I handed the whole dissolution over to my Consigliere.

From then on, my life would never again have him in it.