The Don’s 999 Roses Couldn’t Buy My Freedom

To get me out from under my father's fists, Lorenzo took me abroad with him while he studied the family's overseas interests.

And the old Don, determined to break us apart, cut off every dollar of his allowance.

Back then, on top of his studies, the two of us worked two jobs apiece, hustling in a city where the Falcone name meant nothing.

That stretch of life should have been nothing but exhaustion and worry, and yet even in the space between brushing our teeth, Lorenzo and I couldn't help acting like fools and laughing at nothing.

In that little walk-up we bickered, we made noise, and our eyes were full of each other.

If we could have spent our whole lives like that, how wonderful that would have been…

"Mrs. Falcone? Are you feeling all right?"

The doctor's concern pulled me back.

Today was the third day since I'd walked out of the compound, and my old habit of insomnia had only gotten worse.

Holding the prescription the doctor had written me for sleeping pills, I went to collect them alone, and that was when I ran into Vittoria.

"Mrs. Falcone, what brings you to the hospital all by yourself?"

Vittoria blinked at me, all wide-eyed innocence, and when I said nothing she went on, her voice soft with pity:

"Lorenzo told me about the baby… Don't take it too hard. You're both still so young. You're sure to have another."

"Don't worry. There won't be another."

The words had barely left my mouth when I saw Lorenzo coming toward us, his hard, handsome face dark as a coming storm.

I didn't know why he was angry. I only saw the medical spray clenched tight in his hand.

In a coy, petulant little voice, Vittoria told me she hadn't been careful on the steps and had twisted her ankle.

It was nothing that needed a hospital at all, she said. It was all Lorenzo's fault for insisting on bringing her, for dragging her away from her work running errands for the Family.

It was simply my turn at the pharmacy counter. Seeing the bag in my hand, Lorenzo couldn't stop himself from asking:

"Where does it hurt?"

When I treated him like air and turned to leave, he actually snatched the bag from me and opened it to look inside.

"Insomnia? Since when did you have this?"

"Adriana, I'm talking to you. Tell me, how long do you intend to keep up this performance?"

Lorenzo thought my leaving home was nothing more than a whim, some new way to make him pay attention to me.

So even now, he had never once bothered to learn where I'd actually been staying these past few days, or what I'd been doing with myself.

The cold edge climbed in his voice without his noticing, and people around us slowed and turned to look. In that world a Don who raises his voice has already lost, and somewhere beneath the anger he knew it.

A flicker of disgust crossed my eyes. I took the bag back from him and said quietly:

"I'm not performing anything for you."

Maybe my tone was too gentle, too unbothered, because Lorenzo read it as me softening, giving in.

He offered to take me home first, then bring Vittoria back to the Family's offices.

But I shook my head.

"Your work matters more. I can get back on my own."

By "back," I meant back to my own home.

When my drunk of a father died in a car wreck, he left me more than a next-of-kin payout.

That house I had once been so desperate to escape, where I was always being beaten, had become my one and only safe harbor.

Watching my lonely figure walk away, Lorenzo pressed his lips together and was about to start after me, when Vittoria caught his arm.

The color drained from her face as she said she'd come over very unwell.

Probably her blood sugar, she said.

Lorenzo hesitated a moment, then chose not to follow the way I'd gone. He turned and walked toward the vending machine instead.

On the very day my lawyer finished drafting the papers to sever the blood-bound union, I happened to get a call from Lorenzo.

His voice was urgent and heavy:

"Our son is sick. Come to the estate before six."

Before I could ask what was wrong with the boy, the man had already hung up.

I printed out the agreement and let myself smile in relief.

It was only when I reached the Falcone estate that I realized the whole Family was there.

They were in the middle of their Sunday sit-down, and our son had been wedged into the seat between Lorenzo and Vittoria.

To anyone looking in from the outside, the three of them were the real little family.

My eyes stinging and red, I walked toward the son I hadn't seen in so long, stroked his face, and asked gently what was wrong.

The boy's features were almost a shrunken copy of Lorenzo's.

My son's face twisted with distaste as he slapped my hand away and glared at me warily, then turned to Vittoria as if asking to be saved.

A needle-sharp pain went through my chest.

Vittoria pulled my son cozily into her arms and said in that innocent voice:

"But Matteo isn't sick at all. Adriana, did you take the wrong dose of your sleeping pills and get things confused?"

The moment she said it, every Falcone at that table turned a look of disdain on me.

I knew they were sneering at me in their hearts, the way they always did, especially Lorenzo's sister, Gemma.

She had always believed I was gutter blood, never good enough for her brother, never fit to sit among the bloodline.

In the past, every snub and every petty cruelty of hers I had swallowed for her brother's sake, taking it all without a word.

What a pity that this time, I had no interest in playing the spineless doormat anymore.

I rounded on Lorenzo. "You told me on the phone that our son was sick. You told me to come.

I dropped everything to get here, and your little errand girl says he's fine.

So which of you is lying? Or are the two of you the ones who are actually sick?"

Vittoria clearly hadn't expected me to push back this hard. Panic surfaced in her eyes.

Her lips parted, ready to explain something, but I gave her no opening. With my eyes lowered, I warned her:

"Vittoria, if you want to play lapdog to a married man, that's your business.

But don't use my son as a tool to fight for affection, or don't blame me for what comes after."

The mockery was too blunt to dodge. Vittoria's face went through every shade of green, and her tearful expression held a half-second too long before her eyes welled up red with self-pity.

Lorenzo threw down his fork with a sharp clatter against the china, his face cold and hard, his eyes burning as he stared at me:

"Adriana, all you ever do is stir up jealousy. Our child has had a cold for days. Have you, his mother, shown the slightest concern?

And we agreed on six. You've kept this whole table waiting for ages.

Since you have such a poor sense of time, get out to the side room and eat with the help."

Lorenzo's word was always final.

Under that roof, no one dared cross him. The made men at the lower end of the table kept their eyes on their plates and said nothing.

A flash of secret glee crossed Vittoria's eyes. She pressed her lips together, arranging a sympathetic face, settling in to enjoy the show.

Gemma arched a brow at me, her eyes full of naked contempt.

With every Falcone watching, I walked over to the head of household, Rosa Greco.

"Rosa, when you have time, come to my place. I'll cook for you."

I didn't want Rosa to think that eating with the help was something shameful.

Then I met Lorenzo's eyes and gave him a faint, scornful smile:

"You truly disgust me."

Seeing me lift my foot to go, Lorenzo finally lost his composure. He shot up, locked his hand around my wrist, fury plain across his face:

"Where do you think you're going? Did I say you could leave?"

His shamelessness genuinely infuriated me.

"None of your damn business. Let go of me."

Catching Vittoria's signal, Gemma delicately set down her fork, let the silence sharpen the knife, and then came at me with cold sarcasm:

"Adriana, after all these years you're still exactly the same. Not a shred of breeding. Gutter blood is gutter blood. You'll never be fit to sit at a real table."

At that, Lorenzo actually turned his head and snapped at Gemma:

"Shut your mouth."

While he was distracted, I finally wrenched free of his grip.

The hot, stinging pain in my wrist set fire to the anger I'd buried for years.

I swept my gaze across the table, and that chilling look finally settled on Gemma's ugly, self-satisfied face, the one that thought itself a cut above everyone. I asked her:

"Do you want to know what someone with truly no breeding looks like?"