My Moon, My Broken Vows

Quincy's Underboss escorted me from the study, assigning another bodyguard to take me back to the studio.

On the way, the young bodyguard kept trying to console me.

"Ma'am, please don't be upset."

"The Don, he really does care about you."

I said nothing, just stared out the window at the perfectly manicured roses in the estate's garden.

The bodyguard, thinking I didn't believe him, added hurriedly.

"If Donna Valentina really wanted to marry the Don, it would've happened five years ago. You wouldn't have stood a chance."

"He kept you by his side for almost five years, and he still married you… That has to prove you're special to him."

"The Don would never bring a woman like Donna Valentina home. In the end, he'll always choose you."

I could tell he was genuinely trying to be kind.

Just like everyone else around me.

They all told me to be grateful.

They said a woman sold to cover her family's debts couldn't have dreamed of a better fate than marrying into the Branca family.

In their world, marriage was just another transaction.

Quincy was just placating Valentina; it wasn't as if he was keeping a string of mistresses.

I was already incredibly lucky.

I knew all this.

I knew Quincy would come back to me.

But I was so, so tired.

I didn't want this anymore.

I was never the one who pursued Quincy.

Everyone knew that Quincy Branca had once been Valentina Romano's fiercely devoted protector.

His infatuation was the stuff of legend; the most popular threads on our art school’s online forum were always about his lavish spending on her.

But on the very day Quincy was preparing to propose, Valentina vanished, eloping with some European aristocrat.

Quincy raced his car to the private airport to stop her but was ambushed by a rival family along the way. He spent a full month in the ICU.

As an art student working part-time to pay my tuition, I should have had nothing to do with the melodramas of the rich and powerful.

But Quincy specifically requested me as his private caretaker.

The salary he offered was obscene.

I thought it was just the bored pastime of a man born into wealth and violence.

Later, I found out one of Quincy's men had casually mentioned I was about to work at a strip club to make tuition. That’s why he’d summoned me.

He didn't even know what I looked like before he met me.

Sometimes, he really was like a generous tyrant, saving everyone in his world in his own twisted way.

After that, Quincy pursued me for a full year.

Far longer than he had ever been with Valentina.

So long that when people mentioned Valentina's name, he would have to pause for a moment to place it.

Only then did I agree to be with him.

I never had much confidence in our relationship.

But time and again, Quincy took me to meet his family elders, his most trusted men.

He took me through his territory.

He made a point of introducing me to everyone as the woman he was going to marry.

Quincy knew people compared me to Valentina.

So, less than six months after we got together, he formally proposed.

He said he wanted everyone to know that I was the woman who made him want to settle down—the one thing Valentina could never do.

He even spent an entire year planning the wedding.

Quincy handled every single detail himself.

He said he wanted to give me the grandest wedding Chicago had ever seen.

But on our wedding day, his Underboss showed up instead, telling me Valentina had returned.

I couldn't tell if I was sad or relieved.

It was as if I’d always been bracing for this day.

But Quincy said he wouldn't cancel the engagement.

He said it would be six months, at most. That once he was done with Valentina, he would be the same man who loved me.

But I didn't want to wait anymore.