For the longest time, I truly believed that Dario's love for me was real. The way he had come for me, the soft words, the tenderness he showed beneath all that lethal calm made me feel chosen, like I had finally found the one man in this bloody world who saw me and not the Falcone name I carried.

But now, looking back, I see it all for what it really was. From the very first sit-down, it had been a lie.

His pursuit? Fake.

Our alliance, sworn under the Family's witness? Fake.

Even his death-debt, the mortal obligation I had opened my own body to settle? Completely fake.

And somehow, I had fallen for it all, hook, line, and sinker. I had been drawn into his so-called love and couldn't escape, the way a soldier walks into a room he'll never walk out of.

Don Costa was wrong about me. I'm not like my mother. Isabella Falcone gave everything, her life, her soul, for the honor of the Family, a name men still lowered their voices to speak. But maybe, just maybe, I'd found where I truly belong.

Three days after I woke in the Family doctor's keep, Dario came in, the way he always did, his presence filling the doorway before his voice ever reached me. "Adriana, how are you feeling? Any pain?" His voice was full of concern, the same it had always been.

But this time, I couldn't bring myself to answer with the warmth I once had.

Instead, I gave him a cold look and said, "I want to go home."

He went still for a moment, hesitation flashing across his face. Two fingers drifted to the inside of his left wrist, resting there over the old scar.

After a long pause, he finally said, "I'll ask the doctor if you're good to go."

A few hours later, after a thorough examination, I was cleared to leave. Dario brought me back to the place I had let myself call home.

As soon as we crossed the threshold, I felt something was off. The whole house was decorated like a celebration, streamers and balloons strung along the walls, a huge cake sitting in the center of the dining table where, in this Family, only matters of weight were ever decided.

"Happy twenty-sixth birthday, Adriana," Dario said, smiling as he cupped my face in his hands and kissed me.

I stared at the cake, completely stunned. "You remembered..."

"Of course I did," he said with a grin. "Now, make a wish and blow out the candles."

I sat down in front of the cake, still in shock, but just as I was about to close my eyes to make a wish, my phone rang. Dario's face changed at once. His brows drew together, and he stepped quickly into the study to take it.

When he came back, his face was full of urgency. "Adriana, something's happened with Lorenzo. I have to go to him. I'm sorry." Two fingers pressed flat to the inside of his wrist as he said it.

Before I could even answer, he was already out the door.

A few minutes later, a video came through on my phone. I tapped it, and suddenly, my whole world shattered.

The footage showed Noemi clinging to Dario's sleeve, pale and fragile, like a woman about to break.

"Dario, I'm pregnant. I can't believe it, I'm really pregnant. What am I going to do?" she sobbed, her voice trembling.

Dario wiped away her tears, his expression grave, steady, reassuring. "Don't worry, Noemi. I'll take care of you and the child."

Noemi's eyes filled with fear. "But Aldo... he's dead. That accident on the road. What if my child grows up without a father?"

"Don't worry," Dario said, his voice low but certain, the voice that closed every matter it touched. "I swear it to you. I'll be the father to this child."

And with that, Noemi collapsed into his arms, her face lighting with hope. For a single breath her smile held a moment too long, her eyes flat and calculating behind the tears, before the mask sealed shut again.

I couldn't breathe. My chest felt like it was being crushed. I was trembling as I held the phone. The image of them holding each other was seared into my mind. Each second of that moment felt like a hammer, striking over and over.

My vision blurred as hot tears spilled down my cheeks, one after another, beyond any control.

Instinctively, my hand moved to my abdomen.

I remembered the image of her, how tiny she was, how fragile. She should have been here.

But the Family doctor had told me a body couldn't carry a blood debt and a child both. The decision had been made for me, and I'd had no choice but to give her up.

At first I had been so happy when I learned I was carrying her. I wanted to give her the best life, everything the matriarch's blood could buy.

But in this cruel twist, I had taken away her right to live.

And her father? He was making vows to another woman, swearing himself to a child not even his.

"Why? Why are you doing this to me?" I screamed, my voice breaking. I swept my arm across the table, sending the cake to the floor, watching it crash.

I cleared everything off the table, plates, glasses, all of it scattering across the ground.

But no matter how much I broke or shattered, the only thing that remained was the suffocating pain in my chest.

I sat there on the floor of the safe house, the silence pressing down on me, my sobs the only sound in those high, empty rooms. The weight of everything was crushing me.

By the time Dario finally returned, I was standing before the long mirror in the matriarch's old quarters, staring at the scars where they had opened me, taken what was inside, and sewn me shut again. Its reflection was all I could see. The deep reminders of the blood debt I had paid for him.

Dario approached me, his steps hesitant, like a man crossing neutral ground unsure whether he'd be shot.

He rested his head on my shoulder, his voice thick with emotion as he said, "Adriana, thank you. I promise I'll make it up to you. I'll treat you twice as well from now on."

I didn't even look at him. My eyes remained fixed on the scars on my body.

And under my breath, I muttered, "Disgusting!"

Then, before I even realized it, I started rubbing at the scars, over and over, desperately trying to scrub them away. But the pain, it didn't even register. I couldn't stop myself.

Dario panicked, his hand going for an instant to the inside of his left wrist before he caught it and seized mine instead, trying to hold me still. "They're not disgusting! If you don't like them, I'll bring the Family's own doctor to take them off. Just please, stop!"

He pulled me into his arms, lifting me back onto the bed. But I barely felt it.

It wasn't until I looked into his eyes that I realized something was different. I reached out without thinking, touching the scar between his brows, the one he took when he pulled me out of the ambush in that frozen border country, when the guns came and the snow ran red.

"Some scars can never be erased," I said softly, my voice barely a whisper.

Dario didn't say anything. He just sat there, staying close to me for the next week as if waiting for me to break. Outside the door, his men kept their posts and pretended not to hear.

One evening, as I stared out the window at the dark grounds, my thoughts heavy, I turned to him and said, "I want the roasted chestnuts from the old vendor on Night Garden Street."

Without a second thought, he took his keys and went out the door.

I used to love how he'd never refuse anything I asked. But now, I knew the truth. It wasn't love. It was guilt.

As soon as Dario left, I had a car take me straight to the Family doctor's keep, to the private rooms where men recovered from things that never reached the Feds.

Noemi was there, sipping broth, looking completely unfazed. She didn't even flinch when I walked in. It was like she was expecting me.

She casually took another sip, her eyes meeting mine with that same smile that held a beat too long.

"I know what you're thinking," she said. "Dario and I came up together. He's my childhood sweetheart. I was the one who told him to court you."

I didn't say anything. I just stared at her, my anger bubbling up.

She seemed to enjoy my silence, watching me like I was some kind of show.

Finally, I broke the silence, my voice barely above a whisper. "You were never dying, were you?"

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, then grinned, and for half a breath her eyes went flat and cold beneath it. "Nope. Thanks for the blood, though. I never used what they cut out of you. Threw it to a stray dog. Hilarious, right?"

The words hit me like a punch to the gut. A hot rage spread through me, my hands shaking with fury. I wanted to lash out, to rip her apart.

But it wasn't just about her. It was about him.

"Dario never loved you," Noemi said, as she stood up and sauntered over to me. She casually tapped my abdomen with one finger, that cruel smile still on her lips. "By the way. How does it feel to kill your own child?"

"Shut up!" I screamed, the rage exploding.

I shoved her with everything I had, sending her stumbling backward. But at that exact moment, the door burst open.

"Stop!"

Dario rushed in, grabbing my wrist and throwing me to the ground. Without a second thought, he picked up Noemi and cradled her in his arms.

His eyes, cold and piercing, looked down at me. "Adriana, Noemi is sick. You shouldn't have laid a hand on her!"

Sick? He didn't seem to care that they had carved a debt out of me only weeks ago.

But he ignored that. He was too busy fussing over Noemi, making sure she was all right.

I just stared at his back, my body trembling, my heart numb. There was no point anymore. I picked myself up and walked out without a word.

...

Back at the safe house, I laid everything out on the table, every piece of the lie. The forged alliance pact sworn under the Family's witness, the records of the child they took from me, the recording of Noemi's own voice confessing it all.

I twisted my mother's old signet ring once around my finger, the way she used to before a verdict, and set a note down beside the proof, written in Sicilian, the private tongue I had learned in secret and never let them know I understood:

[We're even. From now on, we are strangers in life and death.]

Then, without another word, I walked out the door and went straight for the airport.