He Traded My Pain for Another Woman’s Smile

Right up until we came of age in the life, we were still good. He stayed in the Capital to build his own crew; I went back home to the Falcone house.

This year, our two families had already sat down to talk of sealing the alliance, the wedding that would bind Moretti blood to Falcone.

I'd stepped back from my own duties before the Christmas gathering on purpose, just waiting for the new year so I could come to the Capital and earn my place, so the two of us would never have to be apart again.

Now all of it had come to nothing.

Dario had another girl he wanted to bring before his parents.

He'd even started to despise me.

The words I'd once torn open my own scars to share, to comfort him, he was now trading around as a joke, entertainment for the men in his crew.

The sky darkened, and the crowds in the street slowly thinned.

I found some random hotel near the docks.

I'd just gotten settled when my phone lit up.

It was a message from Mamma.

【Bianca, sweetie, have you two eaten yet? We've laid out such a feast over here!】

A photo of the Christmas Eve table followed right after.

The family were all gathered around it, laughing without a care, the old ones at the head, wine poured deep.

A draft slipped through the hotel window into my sleeve, and the cold made me shiver.

I pressed down the ache rising in my throat and made my voice sound easy.

"The food's all ready, we'll be eating any minute. Don't you worry."

I didn't dare tell the truth. I couldn't have Mamma and my father fretting over me during the holy days. A Falcone daughter did not bleed where the family could see it.

I found some random photo of a holiday table online and sent it to them.

Then, without thinking, I glanced at Dario's message thread.

Empty and silent, the way it always was.

In the middle of the night, firecrackers cracked outside the window, sharp enough to sound like something else.

The noise was so festive I couldn't sleep.

Like I was punishing myself, I tapped into Dario's feed, trying to hunt for any trace of when he'd first broken the pact between us.

He'd hidden it well, kept her covered so tight not a drop leaked through. Omertà, even in his sins.

I scrolled back and forth, over and over.

At last, in one screenshot passed around from his crew's private thread, I caught Vanessa's handle.

A very distinctive name.

Something clicked, and I searched that name across every platform.

Among all the accounts sharing that name, I spotted her at a glance.

The profile picture was painfully familiar. It was Dario's half of a couple's icon.

Back when Dario changed his picture, I'd happily gone and found the matching half to put up as mine.

He hadn't looked pleased at the time.

He'd said he just grabbed some random image and didn't want to be flaunting the alliance in front of family and the men who watched everything.

In the end he'd half forced me to change mine back.

Vanessa's account had only a scattered handful of followers.

Hundreds of posts, carrying the whole history of her and Dario.

It had started showing back in May last year.

【My capo is so pitiful, stuck holed up running his end of things for a whole month, eating takeout every single day. Today at lunch I brought him some brodo I made myself, and he actually cried drinking it. No idea what kind of woman he's even promised to.】

At that time, Salvatore Moretti had broken his leg.

So Dario could keep his focus on the crew without worrying, none of us told him.

I took a month away from my own duties, running around caring for his father, getting the old man home from the doctor's.

Later, my own people struck my name off the list for the end of the operation I'd been rising to run.

【My capo pushed back so many jobs and took me along on runs, all so I could travel on the family's dime. Being someone's favorite really is the best feeling.】

That day was our tenth anniversary. It was also my birthday.

I'd worked through the night to close out my end of things and scraped together three days, hoping to spend them with him.

He told me he had business he genuinely couldn't step away from, a matter for the family.

【My capo gave me a bag! But this pendant that came with it as a set is way too ugly. I'll just leave this one for him.】

I froze and looked at the pendant at my own throat.

My hand rose to it without my telling it to, closed around it. There it was, the exact match. It was the birthday gift Dario had given me later, to make up for things.

I'd treasured it for so long, even sealed it under a film to keep it whole.

It took me two hours to get through everything on Vanessa's account.

My heart went cold all the way through.

Not one of the photos in the posts had caught Dario's face straight on.