The Don's Forgotten Bride

The night I lost the baby and the blood wouldn't stop, my parents drove through a downpour to reach the territory the Family used for clean work. They never made it. A car came out of the rain and took them on the bridge.

I lay on the table while the man they called The Surgeon's people worked over me, and I signed the consent for my parents' surgery with hands still slick with my own blood.

I couldn't save the baby. I couldn't save my parents either.

The man I'd called seventy-six times without an answer had posted a celebration for the whole circle to see.

【Congratulations to our little Sweetie. One long night, and she's finally a mama.】

Too weak to do anything else, I tapped "like." He messaged me immediately.

Two words: "Delete that."

I sent him the location pin.

"Come to the territory. I need to tell you something in person."

"I have something important to deal with. I can't come. Ask your parents to take you to the checkup. It's not like they have anything better to do."

"Your important thing is delivering puppies for her dog?"

"Since when did carrying a child turn you into a jealous shrew? You're seriously jealous of a dog?"

I didn't have the strength to argue. If he wouldn't come, he could speak to my consigliere.

……

By the time I'd buried my parents the way the Family buries its own, it was the following evening.

I dragged myself to the door of the apartment and pushed it open.

The rooms I'd kept immaculate were torn apart. Everything pulled out, thrown down, left where it fell.

Lorenzo Falcone was hunched over a drawer, digging through it, tossing aside whatever he touched without a second look.

The carelessness of a man who had always had someone to clean up behind him.

He didn't look up when the door opened. His voice carried that note of irritation.

"It's the weekend. Where have you been all day? I had to send out for lunch."

I stared at him. So he hadn't come home last night either.

Two years of this.

When the light in Gemma Vitale's place went out, he could roll out of bed at two in the morning to go fix it for her.

But he'd leave our own door unlocked behind him, letting some drunk wander up off the street, leaving me with nightmares that ran a solid month.

When Gemma's dog went into labor, he could refuse to come to my prenatal checkup.

But he'd take a full week at her side, doing work that should have belonged to a vet.

When I said nothing, Lorenzo finally looked at me. Surprise flickered across his face.

"You're white as a sheet. Is the baby giving you trouble again?"

I stepped back, away from the hand he was reaching toward my stomach. My voice was flat.

"I called you seventy-six times yesterday. Why didn't you pick up?"

His hand hung in the air. He frowned.

"Adriana Russo, are you interrogating me right now?"

"Gemma and I came up together, you know that. And that dog isn't just some animal in her club. She raised it from a pup. They have a bond."

"The dog was whelping. Gemma was sick with worry. I had to be there. That's life or death. You think I had time to answer your pointless calls?"

"It was just a checkup. Plenty of pregnant women go alone. And you have your parents. They're hardly busy. What difference does it make whether I'm there or not?"

I looked at him standing there, so certain of himself.

I wanted to ask: And what about my parents?

The crash had been brutal. My father had no vital signs by the time they reached the table.

My mother made it into surgery, but her injuries were severe and complicated.

His own man told me that only Lorenzo himself, with his hands, might have given her a chance.

He said he'd had no time to answer my calls. But the second I touched that "like," he'd found the time to order me to take it back.

Afraid Gemma might read something into it.

"Are we really just childhood friends?"

"Because I saw you kiss her, Lorenzo."

In the same restaurant where he'd asked me to bind my life to his. At the same table.

I'd been so shaken I didn't see the motorcycle bearing down on me.

The rider braked in time. But the life inside me, barely three months along, was already gone.