He Traded My Pain for Another Woman’s Smile

But that familiar hem, and the couple's ring on his finger that matched mine, spelled out exactly who the man was, every single second.

Dario had betrayed the pact a long time ago.

In the distance, fireworks went screaming up into the sky over the territory.

I came out of my daze, ripped the pendant off, and threw it into the trash.

Ding.

Vanessa had posted something new.

This time it was a voice recording.

In it, she asked in a coy, bratty little voice:

"Dario, me and your promised bride, which one do you love more?"

"Hmm?"

Dario's voice sounded a little hazy, tender and clinging.

"You. I love you most. How could she even compare to you?"

"Baby, let's do it one more time, okay?"

The violent rustle of fabric left nothing to the imagination.

I switched off my phone, rushed into the bathroom, and dry-heaved until my whole body shook.

I lifted my eyes to the mirror.

At some point, tears had streaked all down my face.

I booked a seat on the first train out at seven the next morning.

All I wanted was to get out of Capital City as fast as I could, to get away from Dario.

I don't remember how I got home to my father's house.

By the time I came back to myself, it was already the sixth day of the Christmas holiday.

My mother and the Don could tell something was wrong with me, but they didn't ask. My mother just kept finding little things to press into my hands, and once I caught her smoothing a stray hair back from my face without a word, the way her worry always spoke when her voice wouldn't.

That morning, she asked me carefully,

"The Morettis have asked you to come to dinner. Do you want to go?"

I glanced at my phone.

Dario had only answered me yesterday.

Two messages.

One of them pulled back before I could read it.

The most recent one was a single word:

【Fine.】

I said yes anyway.

Some things just have to be said out loud, once and for all, in front of the two houses.

There was a crowd gathered outside the Moretti estate. The block families had come, the ones who whisper and remember. When they saw me arrive, their looks turned strange.

Some pitying, some just there for the show.

My chest tightened. The moment I stepped through the door, I saw Dario kneeling in the middle of the front room.

Standing awkwardly beside him was Vanessa.

Working out the timing, he must have rushed her back here the instant he saw my message.

Inside, Rosaria Moretti's face was flushed red with rage, and she slammed her hand down on the table again and again.

"You ungrateful boy, how can you do this to Bianca! To a promised bride, to a Falcone!"

Dario looked a little disheveled, but his expression was set.

"I'll go and make things clear with her. I don't love her anymore. Vanessa is my woman now."

My heart felt like it was being crushed in someone's fist.

Hearing him say it with my own ears, the pain was more than I could bear.

Rosaria was almost laughing from fury.

"Then go on, tell us how wonderful she is, that you'd throw away ten years and a pact between families for her."

Dario opened up like a floodgate, his face glowing with happiness and sweetness.

"She cooks for me. She irons out the shirts that are always wrinkled."

"Even when the crew hit a crisis, she stayed up night after night working right beside me, got us through it."

"Bianca just hides back home and pays me no attention. She can't even bring me a hot meal."

"So why should I stay bound to her!"

He said it with such righteous conviction, so impassioned. His thumb turned the ring on his finger as he spoke.

It was as if he weren't only trying to convince his parents, but himself.

Around me came the low talk of relatives and neighbors, tongues loosened where they should have stayed still.

"Put that way, the Falcone girl really isn't up to much. Isn't the whole point of an alliance that someone looks after you, warm and caring?"

I stopped in my tracks, an unmelting bitterness rising in my throat.

How laughable.

No one knew that I had originally meant to make my own name in Capital City too.

There were more chances there, bigger territory to be won, and every operation I had dreamed of running was opening up across that contested ground.

But Dario wanted to build his own crew, and his parents were sick with worry.