No One Told the Cripple the Story Was Fake

Donna Falcone's eyes flickered with unease.

"Adriana, why didn't you wait for us before going in?"

Don Falcone's frown deepened beside her, one hand resting where his jacket hid the weight beneath it. "Didn't we tell you the clinic is crowded, full of the wrong sort of people? We can't let you go in alone. It isn't safe."

I met their worried gazes with calm indifference.

"I couldn't wait any longer, so I went inside to use the restroom," I replied evenly, my face betraying nothing.

Donna Falcone hesitated before asking, "You didn't see anyone, did you?"

The flicker of panic in her expression cut through me like a blade. I wanted to scream, to demand answers; why did you lie to me?

But I already knew the truth. Asking wouldn't change anything.

I had already decided to leave.

"See anyone? I was in a hurry and spent a while in the restroom. I wasn't paying attention."

Don Falcone exhaled, his thumb finding the worn silver medallion in his pocket, rolling it slow. "Let's go. We'll take you upstairs."

He took hold of my wheelchair while Donna Falcone crouched down, adjusting my mask with delicate care, the crucifix at her throat catching the light.

"The sickness is spreading through the ward. You need to protect yourself. If you fall ill, it'll break my heart." Her fingers brushed the cross at her neck, quick, as if asking pardon for the words even as she said them.

Once, the concern in her eyes would have moved me to tears.

But now, I couldn't feel even a trace of warmth in her gaze.

When we reached the private ward the Family kept on the twelfth floor, I lay on the bed as Dr. Russo pressed the anesthesia through the line. Drowsiness pulled me under, but just before I slipped into unconsciousness, their voices drifted through the haze.

"Miss Falcone's leg has gone untreated far too long. If she doesn't have the surgery soon, she may never stand again."

"Every course of rehabilitation was done halfway, and the medication swapped for nothing but vitamins, per your orders. Don Falcone, are you truly willing to watch your own blood remain crippled for life, so young?"

"I didn't pay a fortune to launder you back into this country just to hear your conscience. Do as I say."

The Don's words held no room for argument.

"So what if she never walks again? The Family will keep her for the rest of her days. Why should an outsider like you concern yourself with it?"

"Don't forget who has fed your envelope these five years. Do you truly believe you answer to this clinic, and not to me?"

Dr. Russo hesitated, and I heard the faint sound of glass against fabric, his lenses being wiped clean. "That isn't what I meant. It's only that Adriana has been under anesthesia for years now. If this continues, her body may learn to resist it. What do we do then?"

"That's your problem to solve. Just see to it her legs neither heal nor rot. Keep it controlled."

A beat of hesitation. Then, Dr. Russo's reluctant answer.

"Understood."

The door eased open and their footsteps faded down the corridor, swallowed by the silence a Don leaves behind him.

I lay there as if I had plunged into an icy abyss.

They didn't know.

Didn't know the anesthesia had long lost its hold on me.

Didn't know I had heard every single word.

Didn't know I had recorded it all.

So this was their design all along.

Five years they had spent feeding me lies, laundering a physician back across the border only to deceive me. No wonder the so-called rehabilitation was buried on the twelfth floor of a ward no one wandered into. All of it a carefully built illusion, mortar over rot.

A sharp pain lanced through my chest and silent tears slipped from the corners of my eyes. Beneath the sheet, I pressed my thumb hard against the inside of my wrist, into the old spot where the line had always sat.

After the "treatment," my parents wheeled me home in good cheer, warmth laced into every word and gesture, as though they hadn't just handed down a sentence of lifelong suffering.

Two hours ago, Lorenzo had been at that clinic, murmuring soft things to Vittoria.

Now he stood at the door in an apron, smiling like the devoted husband he pretended to be.

"Cara, the rehabilitation must have worn you out. I made you some bone broth. It'll bring your strength back faster."

His gaze brimmed with tenderness, his voice rich with concern, exactly like the man who once swore before the Family to love me, to keep me, to stand at my side to the last.

If I hadn't seen him with Vittoria at the clinic, if I hadn't heard the truth pass between them, I might have believed him.

Might have let that warmth seep into my frozen heart.

But now, all I saw was the lie.

His love had never been mine.

It had always belonged to the very woman who shattered my legs.