Eight Years of Love, One Day to Walk Away

The light fell across Lorenzo's face. His fingers flew across the keys, his eyes crinkled with a smile, the kind he never wore for me.

I remembered him saying he never stayed up late, which was why he wouldn't see in the New Year at my side, and my heart cooled a few degrees more.

I didn't get the water. I just turned and went back to the room.

The last day was the one we'd set for the families to sanction the union, the signatures that would have made it as binding as a blood oath.

The moment I walked out of the room, he was already nowhere to be found.

Not a word of explanation. Not a single message.

Out of habit, I opened Adriana's feed, and sure enough, she'd posted an update: laid up at the Family doctor's safehouse, an IV line in her arm.

【When will you ever learn to take care of yourself? Ten years gone, and you still have to lean on him.】

A grown woman who knew exactly what she was allergic to, and somehow she ends up on a drip. I knew how that trick was played. Tilt the head, drop the voice to a wounded whisper a half-second before the tears come, and let a man rush in to catch her.

I had no way of proving it, and no wish to waste more time on her.

I spent the whole day packing my bags.

By evening, Lorenzo still hadn't appeared.

He'd only sent one message about being held up on business.

I looked at those few words on the screen, full of scorn.

He wouldn't even bother to think up a decent lie.

The day before, I'd reached his capo on a monitored line, and the man had gone out of his way to say they'd cleared Lorenzo's obligations so he could take his wedding leave with peace of mind.

I supposed he was "held up on business" at the safehouse right about now, holding her hand.

In the dead of night, the countdown on my phone screen finally turned to zero.

I made do on the couch for the night, and the next morning, after washing up, I headed straight for the airport, to the plane that would carry me to the allied family's overseas territory.

On the way, I couldn't help feeling relieved.

Thank God the union was a sham and I hadn't told my own bloodline. Otherwise I really wouldn't have known how to explain fleeing an alliance to my father, what dishonor it would have dragged across our name.

The moment I stepped into the terminal, I called Lorenzo to end it.

The phone rang exactly once before he cut it off.

Then he sent a voice message.

His tone dripping with impatience.

"I'll be there soon, what's the rush? I said we're having the union, what, you think I'm going to run off?"

"Adriana checked out early just to make it, and got caught in a wreck on the way over. Can't you be a little more reasonable?"

"You keep my people entertained for now. I've got something to tell you today."

When the message finished playing, I tapped out a text to him, my face blank.

【Let's end it. I'm leaving the wedding to the two of you.】