Chapter 2

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.