I Was the Cover Story for the Don’s Forbidden Obsession

The final page was dated three months ago.

"Visited my brother's grave today. Serena said she's known all along about the photos, that she's been suppressing her feelings for me for years. I was overwhelmed. Lost control. I took her right there, in front of my brother's headstone."

The journal slipped from my hands and hit the Persian carpet with a dull thud.

A wave of cold swept through me, seizing my chest. My stomach churned violently. I gripped the wall just to stay upright.

So this was it. From the very beginning, I had never been the love story. I was just the cover. The sacred union sold to every capo and every allied house so the Marchetti name could keep its honor clean while the two of them buried their sin beneath it.

A shield for their shame.

Then, a sound. Soft, almost imperceptible, coming from deep inside the closet. I turned, pulse hammering in my ears, and noticed something I'd missed before: a narrow seam in the back panel.

It was a hidden door.

I pushed it open. A narrow, dusty passage stretched forward, connecting to the house next door, his dead brother's old quarters within the compound.

The walls were plastered with photos of Lorenzo and Serena. Candid shots, posed portraits, some so graphic I had to look away.

My hands were shaking as I raised my phone.

Click. Click. Click.

Every photo. Every piece of it. I recorded it all.

I had just turned to leave when footsteps echoed from the hallway.

Serena's voice, sickly sweet, edged with laughter. "Lorenzo, are you sure Adriana won't find out?"

Then Lorenzo's voice, dismissive. "Relax. That idiot's probably in our room crying her eyes out right now."

I froze. There was no time to think. No time to breathe. I ducked into the passageway and pulled the hidden door shut just as their shadows crossed the closet.

Through the narrow gap in the hidden door, I watched Lorenzo pull Serena down onto the bed.

They didn't even try to pretend. They couldn't wait to get their hands on each other.

Serena giggled, casting a lazy glance toward the half-closed panel. "Easy. You were a little rough last night," she purred.

Lorenzo sank his teeth into her earlobe. "Well, you shouldn't be so irresistible."

He laughed low in his throat, voice thick with lust. "When we're out of the country, away from all of them, I'm not letting you out of bed for three days."

I clamped both hands over my mouth, pressing so hard my fingernails dug into my palms.

Their moans, their breathless whispers, it was like venom, sliding into my ears, coiling around the last threads of my dignity.

I didn't move. Not until it was over. Not until they were wrapped in each other's arms, fast asleep.

Then I slipped out through the hidden passage and ran away. I got back to my room, silently shaking as I calmed down my nerves.

Once the door clicked shut behind me, I didn't cry. I opened my laptop. Gathered every photo, every recording. Then I called a different consigliere. One who actually worked for me.

We drafted a new dissolution of the union. One that wouldn't leave me empty-handed this time.

In the days that followed, Lorenzo didn't even bother hiding it. He'd kiss Serena right in front of me. Whisper things in her ear, let his hands wander across her waist as if I wasn't even there.

I said nothing. I packed my things, one bag at a time.

When I threw all the gifts he'd ever given me into the trash, he finally snapped.

"Adriana! What the hell are you doing?"

I calmly slid the dissolution papers across the table. "Sign it."

Lorenzo glanced down, lips curling into a smirk. He picked up his wine glass and ran his thumb slowly along the rim, not drinking.

"What's this? A confession letter? Shame you only realized your mistakes now. Bit late for that, don't you think?" Without reading a word of it, he scribbled his name, then flung the document in my face.

"Serena and I fly out this afternoon, somewhere none of this can touch us. You stay here, get cozy with that maternity nurse and start learning how to take care of pregnant women and babies."

As Lorenzo spoke, he casually pointed to a woman I hadn't even noticed standing in the doorway.

"By the way, this is the specialist I brought in for the birth. Paid top dollar, laundered clean. So do yourself a favor and learn from her."

With that, Lorenzo wrapped his arm around Serena and walked out like he was the hero of his own story.

I didn't flinch. I picked up the dissolution papers from the floor, ignoring the smug, amused looks of the soldiers who lined the hall. Then I went upstairs, packed the last of my things, and walked out of that house for good.

The moment I got into the car, my phone rang.

It was Donna. "Adriana, honey, I know you're upset. But going with Lorenzo will only make things harder on you. Just stay home, out of sight, out of mind. It's better that way, don't you think?" I could hear the faint click of her rosary beads working through her fingers.

That faux-concerned tone, that smug little martyr act. She didn't care about me. She just didn't want me disgracing her golden boy's escape.

I answered coolly, without a flicker of emotion. "You don't have to worry. Lorenzo and I are done. The union's dissolved. I won't be ruining any more of his plans."

Before she could respond, I hung up, and blocked her number.

Not long after, just as I arrived at the airfield, my phone buzzed again.

A message from Lorenzo.

["I'll come back once Serena's carrying. As long as you behave, I'll still give you a child. Through IVF, of course."]

I stared at the screen and smiled.

Not the kind of smile he would recognize. This one wasn't bitter. Or broken. It was the beginning of something he would never see coming.

His message was meant to sound generous. Merciful, even. But it only made me laugh. A bitter, humorless laugh.

I blocked him without hesitation.

Then I opened my photo gallery, selected every intimate photo of him and Serena, the ones that would break Omertà and burn his standing in the Cosa Nostra to ash, and sent the whole batch straight to an outsider I knew wouldn't hesitate.