He Didn't Know Whose Ring I Was Wearing

"Adriana, I only did this to protect Vittoria. Dante Salvatore is cold, half-blind, and buried in blood. I couldn't stand by and watch her walk into the fire on his arm. Taking her under the alliance was only a temporary measure. Give it time, and I'll cut her loose."

He had already rehearsed his excuse.

"Signor Gallo, I have no interest in being another man's mistress. Leave."

From the moment he abandoned me at the betrothal sit-down, whatever we were had already ended.

Lorenzo's face darkened. "Adriana, can you stop being so selfish? Vittoria was afraid you'd be heartbroken, so she sent me back to keep you company. And this is how you repay her mercy? If you had any sense, I could come to you Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays. Vittoria and I are bound now, so my time belongs mostly to her."

A bitter feeling rose in my heart. Eight years of loyalty, only to be offered a place in the shadows.

"Lorenzo, we're finished!"

His face darkened further, the temperature in the room dropping with it. "Adriana, are you taking my kindness for granted? It was only a betrothal, a few words spoken between families. Why are you making such a fuss? Long before any oath was sworn, you let me into your bed for eight years. Now you play the wounded woman? If it weren't for you clinging to me, whispering you couldn't live without me, do you think I'd still want you? At your age, still playing coy. How pathetic is that?"

I was shaking with rage.

He had been the one who chased me back then, the one who wept drunk against my shoulder and begged me to ease his pain.

Now he'd bound himself to Vittoria, turned me into a joke whispered through every family in the territory, and still he called me selfish and cold.

"Lorenzo, we're done. From now on, you live your life and I'll live mine. There is nothing between us."

Lorenzo was furious. He flashed that too-wide grin, cracked his knuckles against his palm, then snatched the little box of seashells and hurled it to the floor, scattering it into pieces.

"Adriana, you think you'll be bound to another man? In this circle, every family knows you were mine for eight years. You're used goods. Who would take a spinster no one else wanted?"

In the tense silence, the bathroom door swung open.

Vittoria stepped out, wrapped in a towel, barefoot, the stolen glint of some heirloom already at her throat.

I stopped breathing.

At the sit-down, Lorenzo had taken a call and vanished. For days since, I had watched them parade their devotion through the whisper-network, every image a fresh cut.

Now I couldn't tell whether it was more pain, more bitterness, or more rage I felt.

This house had been bought when Lorenzo and I still believed in each other, each of us paying half. He'd called it our refuge, a safe place filled with our happy memories.

"Adriana, don't blame Lorenzo, he was only trying to help me. If you must blame someone, blame me. I'm the one who shouldn't be here…"

She reached out to take my hand, answering a half-second too quick, her fingers brushing the jewels at her neck as if to be sure they were still hers.

I pulled my hand back on instinct, never touching her, yet she let out a cry and crumpled to the floor.

Before I could react, Lorenzo's hand cracked across my face, knocking me to the ground.

The pain in my hand was immediate. The broken seashells on the floor drove deep into my palm, and blood began to well up and drip, spattering the tile.

"Are you all right, Vittoria?"

He turned and glared at me with disgust.

"If anything happens to her, I won't let you off easy!"

He lifted Vittoria and carried her down the stairs, rushing for the hospital.

I struggled to stand, looking around the house I'd lived in for eight years, and it felt strangely unfamiliar.

On my bed the sheets were rumpled, a torn black stocking hung off the edge, the floor littered with used tissues. The air was thick with a smell that turned my stomach.

I hurried out, tears streaming down my face I couldn't stop.

It was filthy. Even the walls felt dirty now.

Too many shards were buried in my palm to work loose, so I had no choice but to take a taxi to the hospital, pressing my thumb hard against the bare base of my ring finger the whole way.