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.

My hand froze on the doorknob. For a long moment, I just stood there, my jaw clenched so tightly it hurt. The sound of their laughter echoed in my ears, but eventually, I pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The shift was immediate. The room fell silent as if someone had cut the sound entirely.

One of his associates looked up, startled, before quickly forcing a smile. "Well, look who's here. Mrs. Falcone."

I didn't even spare him a glance. My eyes went straight to Dante. "I'm here to take you home."

Dante slowly pushed himself to his feet. His face was unreadable, a blank mask that gave nothing away. He staggered slightly as he walked toward me, then casually draped his arm over my shoulders, leaning into me as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He didn't say a word, didn't acknowledge me beyond using me as support.

The weight of him pressed directly against my injured shoulder. Pain flared instantly, sharp and biting, but I kept my expression steady.

I turned, ready to leave, when a voice suddenly cut through the heavy silence.

"Mr. Falcone."

Liliana stood just inside the doorway, her figure framed by the light behind her. "If you were going to have your wife pick you up, why did you message me?"

I looked at her then. Her face was scrunched, her brows drawn together as if she were deeply hurt. Her voice trembled just enough to make it convincing. "You didn't have to go this far just to humiliate me."

She smoothed the edge of her lower lip with her thumbnail, the motion barely visible, as though she were settling into the shape of whatever wound she'd chosen to perform.

Dante's expression changed in an instant. The dull haze in his eyes vanished, replaced by sharp, blazing anger.

He turned on his associates. "Who used my phone to message her?"

No one answered.

"I said, who did it?" His voice rose, cutting through the room like a whip.

The silence grew suffocating. No one dared to speak, no one even shifted in their seats. The two soldiers near the door had straightened without making a sound.

Dante looked like he was on the verge of exploding. "If any of you think this kind of prank is funny, don't say I didn't warn you. Stay the hell away from Liliana."

Liliana stood frozen, her cheeks flushed red, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. For a second, it looked like she might say something, but instead, she turned abruptly and rushed out, barely holding herself together.

Dante didn't hesitate. Despite the alcohol in his system, despite the way he could barely keep his balance, he let go of me immediately and stumbled after her.

"Liliana, don't be upset… wait, please. Just wait."

His voice faded as he followed her down the hallway.

I stood there, watching their figures disappear from view. Strangely, I didn't feel much of anything. No anger, no heartbreak, not even disappointment. Maybe it was because, deep down, I had always known this was how it would be. The moment someone else called, I would be the one he let go of without a second thought.

After he left, the room slowly came back to life. At first, the voices were low, hesitant, but it didn't take long for them to return to normal.

"Jesus, I've never seen him that angry before."

"Think he's serious about her this time?"

"Obviously. Anyone can see it. People who throw themselves at him just come off cheap."

Another round of laughter followed, louder this time, more careless.

They didn't bother lowering their voices. There was no need. Dante didn't care about me, so why should they? I was the heir's wife, and not a man in that room flinched when they laughed at my name. That told me everything about what the Falcone name was worth when the Falcone heir had already turned his back.

The weight he had placed on me earlier had aggravated my already fractured shoulder. The pain pulsed steadily now, spreading down my arm. I lifted my hand and pressed gently against it, trying to steady myself as I prepared to leave.

Then I heard a voice behind me.

"Adriana."

I turned to see Luca standing there.

His expression was tight, his jaw set as if he were holding something back, something he didn't want to say out loud. "Let me drive you home."

He must have been there the entire time. He had seen everything, heard everything, from beginning to end.

I didn't know what he thought about any of it. I wasn't sure I cared anymore.

Luca had always been there, Dante's closest friend, the consigliere-bred ally who moved between the Valente outfit and the Falcone inner circle like a man who belonged in both rooms. From the moment I fell for Dante, Luca had been at his side, witnessing every step of it, every humiliating moment I had tried and failed to hide. There was no point pretending now.

I said nothing, just followed him out.