For Three Years, I Loved the Man Who Betrayed My Mother

The Corsini soldiers walked me off the estate without a word, the way men escort a problem they've been told not to mark. Two hours passed before Lorenzo's message finally reached me.

[Adriana just got out. She's still shaken, so don't hold it against her. Making you apologize tonight was only for the Corsinis' benefit. I'll settle everything and come home to make it up to you, alright? I told you I had a gift waiting. Don't stay angry, cara.]

I knew the performance had nothing to do with the Corsinis. It was for me. Lorenzo had been staging this devotion for three years. Now it was time to bring the curtain down.

I waited at home with the severance of the union until the small hours, but he never came. Instead, the whispers ran the length of the territory before dawn: the Don of the Gallo Family had turned a hospital ward upside down, all for the sake of one woman.

Adriana had barely a scratch on her, yet Lorenzo had assembled a circle of the finest physicians the Family's money could summon, more than a million spent without a flicker of hesitation. The photographs showed him cradling her against his chest, his eyes soft with a tenderness I had never once seen aimed at me.

When the light came gray over the rooftops, I called him. He didn't greet me. He was busy giving orders to his man.

"Don Gallo, are you certain about signing the overseas hotel over to Signora Bellandi? The Family stands to lose more than a billion. You should reconsider."

"No need. Do as I said. It's the tribute I owe her. And draft another pact while you're at it. Half the rackets, transferred to Adriana's name."

Only then did Lorenzo notice the open line and answer. "Francesca? Forgive me for keeping you waiting. I'll be home soon. Did you need something?"

I looked down at the severance papers in my hand. "No. Nothing. You're busy. I won't keep you."

"Good girl. Wait for me at home. I won't be long."

I didn't want to wait any longer. So I signed the papers, packed my bags, and left.

At the precinct, where the Family's reach ended and the Feds' began, I asked for a copy of a document I had long suspected existed. Once it was in my hands, I made a duplicate and mailed it to Lorenzo. By my reckoning, he would hold it just as my plane lifted off the ground.

I hadn't gone home for a day and a night. Neither had he. When the timer on my phone counted down to nothing, telling me it was time to board, he finally sent a message.

[Francesca, I had my man leave the gift at the house. Why won't you open the door? Still sulking? Stop it. Be good. I'll be home soon.]

Adriana's newest post showed her still in the ward. In the photograph Lorenzo was lifting a spoon of broth to her lips, gentle as a man who had never carried a gun. I didn't answer. When word came that my papers had been canceled and there was nothing left to tie me to this name, I erased every trace of him from my life.

Lorenzo's man came through the hospital doors fast, the duplicate Francesca had mailed crushed in his fist. The color had drained from his face. "Don Gallo. It's bad. The Signora found the forged pardon from three years ago. I've been trying to reach her. She won't pick up."