Dante had been drinking, so naturally, I was the one driving. I took the wheel without a word. He slipped into the back seat instead of sitting beside me, putting that familiar, invisible distance between us.

In the rearview mirror, I caught a glimpse of him.

His usually immaculate appearance was gone. His hair, always styled to perfection, was now messy and unkempt. His crisp shirt was wrinkled, the collar torn slightly as if someone had grabbed him in the scuffle. One of his hands rested loosely against his lap, bruised and wrapped in a hastily applied bandage. The signet ring on his right hand caught the passing streetlight, and for once he wasn't rolling it. It just sat there, still against his knuckle.

Dante had always been the type to maintain control over every detail, especially his image. He never allowed himself to appear anything less than flawless. Even among made men, where violence was currency, he carried himself as though the blood never touched him.

And yet, here he was. Disheveled, injured, reduced to this state.

All because of a new courier.

The thought settled heavily in my chest.

Just then, his phone rang, the sound cutting through the silence of the car. He picked it up almost immediately.

"Hello?"

The change in his voice was instant.

Soft. Gentle. Warm in a way I hadn't heard in years.

"It's nothing. Don't worry, I'm fine," he said, his tone soothing, almost tender.

A pause.

"It's late. You should sleep. No need to wait up."

The words themselves were simple, ordinary even. But the affection woven into them was unmistakable, impossible to ignore.

My grip tightened slightly on the steering wheel. My thumb found the small silver rosary bracelet at my wrist and pressed against it, hard.

I lifted my eyes to the rearview mirror, just in time to catch the faint smile that lingered on his lips as he ended the call. It was small, almost unnoticeable, but it was real. Unforced.

Something inside me twisted.

Keeping my voice light, almost casual, I asked, "Was that the fight over Liliana?"

"Adriana, don't start." Dante didn't even hesitate. His tone hardened instantly, the warmth from moments ago vanishing without a trace. "She's my courier. If someone disrespects her and I do nothing, what do you think that says about me in front of the Family?"

I said nothing.

He continued, his voice edged with irritation now. "You're a Falcone. You don't have to deal with this kind of crap. But she's not you."

It had been a simple question. Nothing more than that.

And yet, somehow, it had still managed to provoke him.

I fell silent, letting the words settle between us like something heavy and unspoken.

Even so, the tension lingered. He was still annoyed.

After a moment, he spoke again, more curt this time. "Take me to the club. I've got business to finish."

I glanced at him through the mirror once more.

There had been a time when I would have worried. I would have told him to go home, to rest, to stop pushing himself so hard. I would have reached for him, tried to bridge the distance.

But now, those words felt foreign, as if they no longer belonged to me. They rose to my throat, only to dissolve before they could be spoken.

Without another word, I made a U-turn and headed toward the social club.

The drive passed in silence.

When we arrived, I pulled over smoothly beneath the faded awning. Dante opened the door, stepping out without hesitation. Before closing it, he said what he always did, his tone automatic, almost rehearsed.

"Thanks for tonight."

The same words. Every time.

Then the door slammed shut.

He walked away without looking back, his figure disappearing through the unmarked side entrance as if I were no longer part of his world the moment he stepped out of the car.

I sat there for a moment longer, staring ahead.

It wasn't until I shifted to put the car in gear that I noticed it.

His phone.

Left behind on the seat.

I picked up Dante's phone from the seat, the screen still faintly warm from his touch, and headed upstairs to his office in the social club. The building was quiet at this hour, the kind of silence that made every footstep echo off marble floors that had been paid for with laundered money. The elevator ride felt longer than usual, each passing second stretching thin with something heavy pressing against my chest.

Before I even reached the door, voices slipped through the crack. Soft, intimate, unmistakable.

Liliana.

"Mr. Falcone, thank you so much. I don't know what I would've done without you today." Her voice trembled slightly, laced with tears, fragile in a way that invited comfort.

I froze just outside. My thumb found the silver rosary bracelet at my wrist and held it there.

Through the narrow gap, I saw Dante step closer to her, his movements unhurried, natural. He pulled her into his arms as if it were the most instinctive thing in the world, as if he had done it a thousand times before.

"I'm here. Don't be afraid," he murmured, his voice low and gentle.

The softness in his tone struck harder than anything else.

Liliana clung to him, burying her face against his neck, her shoulders shaking as she cried openly, without restraint or shame. And Dante… Dante didn't pull away. He held her, one hand resting protectively against her back, his gaze lowered to her with unmistakable concern.

I had never seen him look at me like that.

Not once.

He leaned down slowly, his lips brushing the shell of her ear, lingering there just enough to blur the line between comfort and something more until suddenly, she pushed him away.

"We can't," she said, breathless, her eyes red and glistening. "Mr. Falcone, you're married. We can't do this."

For a brief moment, I thought, hoped, that would be the end of it.

But Dante didn't get angry. He didn't step back.

Instead, he moved toward her again.

His voice dropped, softer this time, deliberate and almost coaxing. "Lily, if this is making you unhappy… I can have the union dissolved."

The words hit me like a physical blow.

My hands clenched tightly at my sides, nails digging into my palms. Dante said it so easily. Dissolution. As if it were nothing more than a casual decision. As if the ten years we had spent together, the years I had given him, the years I had built my life around him, meant absolutely nothing. As if the blood-bound marriage sanctioned before Salvatore and the Family could simply be waved away for a woman who smoothed her thumbnail across her lower lip and waited for him to crumble.

I didn't stay to hear anything more.

There was nothing left worth hearing.

He had never once called me by a nickname, not even in private moments when the world outside didn't matter. Always "Adriana." Polite. Distant. Formal to the point of coldness. Even in bed, he treated it like an obligation, something to be completed efficiently rather than shared. There was never warmth, never closeness.

I had always been the one reaching out.

The one trying.

The one convincing myself that if I just held on a little longer, he would eventually meet me halfway.

For ten years, that was the story of us.

I used to believe he was simply reserved, someone who didn't know how to express emotion. I excused his distance, softened his indifference, turned every absence into something understandable. He was the heir to the Falcone Syndicate. He carried weight no civilian husband carried. I told myself that was enough to explain the silence.

But now, standing outside that door, listening to the tenderness in his voice for someone else, I finally understood.

He wasn't incapable of love.

He just didn't love me.

I bit down hard on my lower lip, the sharp sting grounding me as I stepped forward quietly. Without making a sound, I placed his phone by the office door, setting it down gently as if even that small noise might shatter what little composure I had left.

Then I turned and walked away.

The soldier stationed at the end of the hall glanced at me, then looked away. He had heard everything. In this Family, everyone always heard everything, and no one ever said a word.

By the time I reached the street, it had started to rain.

At first, it was a light drizzle, barely noticeable. But within moments, the sky opened up, rain pouring down in sheets, drenching everything in seconds. The cold water soaked through my clothes, clung to my skin, and still, I felt nothing compared to the storm breaking inside me.

I could barely hold myself together.

My vision blurred, whether from the rain or the tears I couldn't stop, I didn't know.

Distracted. Overwhelmed. Hollow.

I ran a red light.

The truck came out of nowhere.

There was a deafening crash as it slammed into the side of my car, the force of the impact sending everything spinning. Metal crumpled. Glass shattered. The world tilted violently before coming to a sudden, crushing stop.

For a moment, there was nothing but ringing silence.

Then the pain hit.

Sharp. Blinding.

I was trapped inside the wreck, the door crushed inward, my body pinned awkwardly against the seat. I tried to move, but even the smallest motion sent waves of pain through me.

My fingers trembled as I fumbled for my phone.

Out of instinct, habit more than thought, I called Dante.

The line connected quickly.

"What is it?" His voice was cold, flat, devoid of concern.

I forced myself to speak, each word dragging through the pain. "I was in a car accident… I'm stuck… I can't get out."

The smell of gasoline filled the air, sharp and suffocating. I could hear it dripping somewhere nearby. If a spark caught…

Before I could finish, another voice came through the line.

Liliana.

"Mr. Falcone, you must be tired. Let me give you a little massage."

Dante didn't hesitate.

"I'm in the middle of something," he said, almost impatiently. "I'll send someone."

And just like that, the call ended.

He never handled things himself.

Maybe, in his mind, this was responsibility. Delegating, ensuring things were taken care of. Sending a soldier, sending a driver, sending anyone but himself. But to me, it was always the same.

There was always something more important.

A sit-down.

A trip to meet the associates upstate.

A shipment to oversee.

Anything.

Everything.

Even now, even when I was trapped in a wrecked car with gasoline leaking around me, I wasn't important enough for him to come in person.

"Adriana! Are you okay?"

A man's voice cut through the chaos, urgent and breathless.

I turned my head slightly, wincing, and saw Luca Valente running toward me. Dante's closest friend. A consigliere-grade attorney from the allied Valente outfit, the one man in Dante's orbit who still treated me like a person rather than a position.

So this time, Dante hadn't even sent one of his own soldiers.

He'd sent Luca.

"I'm stuck," I said weakly. "I can't get out."

Luca's expression tightened immediately. He scanned the scene quickly, his eyes moving the way a man trained in crisis moved, cataloging damage, measuring risk, checking for the gasoline pooling under the wreck. Then he rushed back to his car without another word. Within a minute, he returned with tools, working efficiently and carefully to pry the damaged door open.

Metal groaned under the pressure.

Piece by piece, he created enough space to pull me free.

When I was finally out, my legs nearly gave way beneath me. Luca caught me instinctively, steadying me with one arm as he looked me over, his brows drawn tight with worry.

"Can you walk?" he asked. "I'll take you to the hospital."

He looked more panicked than I felt.

I didn't answer right away. Instead, I leaned slightly against him, using his arm for support, grounding myself. Rain ran down both of us. Somewhere behind the wreck, a siren started up. Luca's jacket smelled like clean wool and nothing else, no gunpowder, no cologne chosen to intimidate.

"Luca," I said quietly after a moment, my voice hoarse, "you're a top lawyer, right?"

He met my gaze, clearly confused by the question, but nodded anyway.

I managed a faint, fragile smile. "Then… could I trouble you to draw up a dissolution agreement for me?"

At the hospital, the one on Mulberry Street that operated under Falcone influence, where the nurses knew not to ask questions and the intake forms never told the full truth, the diagnosis came quickly.

A fractured shoulder, crushed from the impact.

Multiple other injuries. Bruises, cuts, internal strain. They kept me under observation in case of a concussion, monitoring me through the night.

Two days passed.

Dante didn't call once.

Not a message. Not a question. Nothing.

In the end, I signed my own discharge papers, the pen steady in my hand despite everything. No one came to pick me up.

No one needed to.

When I stepped back into the house, the guarded estate that had never once felt like mine, the silence felt heavier than before, pressing in from all sides. The soldier at the gate had nodded when I walked through. He was the only person in the Falcone compound who had acknowledged my return.

It wasn't until I had just set my things down that my phone rang.

Dante.

For a second, I simply stared at the screen.

Then I answered.

"Adriana, come pick me up."

No greeting. No explanation.

Just an order.

And before I could respond, the line went dead.

To everyone else, I was Adriana Falcone, the blood-bound bride of the heir, the woman who sat at the right hand of power and smiled when the Family required it. In reality, I felt more like his on-call, unpaid maid, someone he summoned when it was convenient and dismissed just as easily when it wasn't.

A moment later, my phone buzzed in my hand, the sharp vibration cutting through the silence. I glanced down and saw a location pin. No explanation, no message, just a demand disguised as convenience. I let out a quiet sigh, already knowing what it meant. Grabbing my keys, I pushed myself up despite the dull, persistent pain in my shoulder, forcing my body to cooperate as I headed out the door and into the night.

The drive felt longer than usual. Every turn of the wheel sent a faint jolt of pain through me, but I ignored it, focusing instead on the empty stretch of road ahead. By the time I arrived at the private club, exhaustion had settled deep into my bones.

Inside, the air was thick with alcohol and laughter. Two soldiers stood near the entrance with their jackets unbuttoned, off-duty in posture if not in fact. I found Dante slumped on the leather couch in the back room, his usual sharp presence dulled into something almost unrecognizable. He looked utterly defeated, shoulders heavy, gaze unfocused. For a man as ambitious and composed as he was, it was a rare and unsettling sight.

One of his associates leaned in, handing him another drink with a careless grin. "Come on, Dante. She's just a courier. If you want a woman, it's not that hard."

"Liliana turned you down?" another chimed in, scoffing. "Big deal. There are a dozen women dying to throw themselves at you."

Someone in the corner snickered, their voice low but clear enough to carry. "Like Adriana."

Laughter erupted, loud and unrestrained, filling the room.

So this was it. This was why he was here, drowning himself in alcohol. Not because of anything that had to do with me, not because of the life we shared, but because Liliana had turned him down.