I Took My Heart Back From the Man Who Never Loved Me

Every month Lorenzo wired generous tribute to the families of those donors, kept them comfortable, kept them quiet.

There was only one condition: their blood could never be promised to anyone else. If Gianna ever needed a heart, they had to be ready to surrender it on demand, no questions, no refusals. That was Family law beneath the charity.

And the last form in that box was mine, except the recipient had been changed from my mother to Gianna.

Back then Lorenzo had me sign a stack of papers, said it was just paperwork the clinic required. All I could think about was getting my mother onto the table as fast as possible, so I never read any of it closely.

That form must have been slipped in somewhere along the way, and my mother's form had probably been burned long ago, the way the Family disposes of anything inconvenient.

Lorenzo. For Gianna, you really did think of everything.

After I printed the renunciation of the union, I sat on the couch, hollowed out.

The bleakness filled me, and I didn't sleep all night.

The next morning Lorenzo only assumed I'd risen early, and suspected nothing.

Maybe because I'd coughed up blood again the night before, he cooked himself, those surgeon's hands laying out a careful, well-balanced breakfast, the cuffs of his shirt buttoned neat at the wrist.

When I didn't touch a bite, a flicker of concern crossed his face.

"Serafina, why aren't you eating? Are you upset about something?"

"It's nothing. I just miss my mom."

He sighed.

"Serafina, it isn't only you. I think about her all the time too. She was such a kind, gentle woman, and it was my failure that I couldn't save her. I still remember her holding my hand, telling us we had to be happy together."

If my mother still had the strength to lift that hand, she'd probably want to wrap it around his throat.

Watching him perform that hollow grief, something sour twisted in me.

I was about to bring up the renunciation when Lorenzo spoke first, as if the thought had only just occurred to him.

"Serafina, you've been low for a while now. Gianna's flying back today, and it's her saint's day. The old estate is holding a Family banquet. Why don't we go too, get out a little? It might lift your mood."

"I know that because of your mother you've never wanted to see her. But it's been so many years, and Gianna never meant for it to happen. We're blood, after all. She's always been sensitive. If we don't go, I'm afraid it'll wound her."

So this was what the morning had been building toward. All those careful words spent, just so he could go see the woman he loved.

I cut him off.

"Whatever you want."

Lorenzo smiled.

"I knew my Serafina was the most understanding."

The moment we walked through the gates of the old estate, soldiers straightening along the drive, there was Gianna, dressed like a high-born princess of the bloodline, hanging off Donna Abbatelli's arm and playing the spoiled darling.

The old Donna laughed and let her carry on, feeding her sliced fruit by hand.

Doted on in every possible way.

Gianna spotted me at once, her fingers drifting to the pendant at her throat, toying with it as she said to the old Donna, voice dripping with mockery,

"Nonna~ you've fed me so much I'm getting fat. Look, the little aunt's here. I don't want these last few pieces, so just give them to her. She doesn't have a mother, after all."

Donna Abbatelli saw me too. She looked me up and down, took in my shabby clothes, and her face curled with contempt. The heavy mourning ring on her finger began to turn, slow, and the soldiers nearest the doorway went still.

"Who told a sickly thing like you to come? Do you want to rub your poor, wretched bad luck off on this house too?"

"This is the Falcone bloodline, a line that has always healed and ruled. You go around dressed like a beggar every day, dragging my son's name through the dirt before the whole Family. Blood-bound to him for years now, and not only can't you give him an heir, you haven't even got the sense the Lord gave a stone. Did that dead mother of yours never teach you what respect is?"

Lorenzo wasn't blood to Gianna's father. He was the boy his stepmother had brought into the Family.

Afraid her stepson would be overlooked among the made men, she'd always wanted Lorenzo blood-bound to a woman of matching standing, someone whose name could lift his own.

Later, Gianna's father died in a car that left the road, and Lorenzo, on his own merit, rose to become the feared "Golden Blade" the whole syndicate spoke of in hushed tones, earning his father-in-law's trust, until the entire Family was placed in his hands.

Only then did Donna Abbatelli hold her nose and allow Lorenzo to be bound to me.