He Never Made Me His Wife in Ten Years,So I Made His Rival King

"Adriana Costa, where's your band? The band of my name?"

"Don't tell me you left it sitting at the estate!"

I knew exactly why he reacted that way.

In eight years bound to him, the band he'd finally given me had never once left my finger.

Yet his own? He'd never worn it before the Family, not even once.

Put it together with everything else, and something flickered behind Salvatore Falcone's eyes. Unease. The kind a Don can't afford to let his men see.

He gripped my hand so hard it hurt, his stare boring into me. "Say something!"

I was about to tell him the truth when Vittoria suddenly shrieked and burst into tears.

"Ahh! It hurts so much, Salvatore, sob, sob, sob—"

Every soldier in the room turned toward the sound. Vittoria had crumpled to the marble floor beside the long table, her open palm split by a fresh, bleeding cut.

Salvatore shoved me aside and crossed the room to her, gathering her into his arms.

"How could you be so careless!"

Tears streamed down Vittoria's face as she burrowed into his chest.

She stole a few glances my way, all wounded innocence and fear.

"I don't know either, sob, sob, Adriana was supposed to have checked everything last night. Vittoria doesn't understand why there'd be such a big shard of glass left on the table—"

"Sob, sob, Salvatore, Vittoria's really in so much pain—"

Salvatore's gaze landed on the bloodstained glass on the polished wood, and the fury rose plain on his face. The men along the wall went very still, the way men do when the temperature in a room drops.

A second later he wheeled on me, roaring.

"Adriana Costa, are you so consumed by scheming now that you'd actually draw blood under my own roof!"

"Get over here and answer for it, now!"

Ignoring the contempt in every pair of eyes around me, I walked up to the two of them.

"I didn't do it."

"If not you, then who! Every man in this Family knows how you keep your hand on everything. My table is always set in order by you, isn't it!"

Done shouting, Salvatore snatched a small ceramic figurine from beside the wine and smashed it against the floor.

Then he grabbed my hands and pressed them down onto the shards scattered across the marble.

Both my hands went bloody in an instant, countless splinters driving into my flesh.

"This is your lesson this time! No one in this house lifts a finger to help her."

"I'll wait until you've reflected properly. Come and answer for it when you've thought it through!"

With that, Salvatore scooped Vittoria up and walked out without a backward glance, his right hand flexing once at his side as he went, as if testing whether it still answered to him.

My eyes stung against my will, my vision blurring.

My tears fell, drop by drop, onto the broken ceramic.

The wounds hurt. My chest hurt worse, until I could barely breathe.

The two little figures on the ornament had shattered apart, and the blessing charm tucked inside spilled out.

This ornament was the one Salvatore had brought back from the old country, blessed by a priest, the day he swore himself to me before God and no one else.

Back then that young man had eyes only for me. He'd said:

"Adriana, I've made a vow before God. We'll be together for the rest of our lives."

And now, it was his own hands that had broken that vow.

I gathered up every last shard, and along with my memories and the last scraps of my reluctance to let go, I threw them all into the trash. My fist closed once around my bare ring finger, around the place where the band of his name should have sat all these years.

As I passed through the main hall, Salvatore had just finished his showing before the Family.

The room thundered with the low approval of made men, glasses raised, heads inclined. Salvatore, radiant with triumph, stepped down, took Vittoria's hand, and led her back up to stand before them all and accept the respect.

This, a Don's most glorious moment, was something Salvatore had lived through many times.

Not long ago I'd happened to overhear the old Don of the Greco Syndicate ask him, "Adriana poured her heart and soul into building your name all these years. She is your consigliera and your wife both, so why have you never once led her out to stand and take that respect at your side?"