The Family's house physician studied the fake smile pasted on my face and teased me.

"Your capo already left, so you don't have to torture yourself by forcing a smile. Gruff as he is, that man of yours has a soft heart underneath. He covered every dollar of the bill himself."

The fake smile slid into a bitter one.

Lorenzo had played his part too well.

That was why, apart from a handful of his made friends, not a single soul in the Family knew we'd been together. Five years of it.

I'd asked him countless times when he'd finally let me stand at his side in the open. Every time, he'd brushed me off with the same line about how the timing wasn't right, how a man in his position couldn't afford whispers running through the crew.

To the point where I no longer knew what, exactly, we even were.

Today, he'd given me the answer.

Mistaking me for someone who'd lost her memory, the words that flew out of his mouth, "I'm just your capo," were what he truly believed.

The car hadn't hurt me badly. After three days under the doctor's watch in the back rooms of the social club, I was cleared to leave.

Because the Family's arrangement covered most of it, the overpayment went straight back into Lorenzo's account.

The man who hadn't shown his face or sent a single word in three days finally called.

"Out already? You could've given me a heads-up. I've got a sit-down today, no time to come for you."

"Mm."

I swallowed the accusation that nearly broke loose.

His location pinged from a hotel downtown.

What kept him busy needed no explanation.

A woman's voice rang out behind him.

"Come dry my hair already…"

He hung up immediately.

Not long after, the transfers came through.

One for $13.14, one for $5.20.

Sweet little amounts, both of them. The exact numbers I'd wanted to receive for five years, the ones he'd always shot down.

I'd wanted what every other woman gets, to show off being loved, just once in a while.

Now that I'd decided to let go, for whatever was going on behind those eyes of his, he'd finally given me what I wanted.

Looking at his new profile photo, I tapped refund on both.

His picture was unmistakably half of a matching pair.

Just not with me.

Lorenzo sent me a string of question marks. I didn't reply.

Back at the apartment he kept for me, the place looked exactly as it had the day I left.

So he hadn't set foot here once since the night of the concert.

I reined in my thoughts and started packing.

In just half a day, the home I'd spent five years carefully putting together stood noticeably bare.

Most of it was the couple's things I'd bought with my own money. But Lorenzo had grown so used to keeping us hidden that he hated wearing or carrying anything that might hint he had a woman of his own.

I used to tease him about being as careful as a man living a double life.

Turns out it was because, in his heart, I had never been his woman at all.

Halfway through, Lorenzo actually came back.

"Adriana, what's your problem? I call you for dinner and you won't pick up or answer!"

The scent of a perfume that wasn't mine came off him, and I quickly put up a hand to keep him from getting closer.

I glanced at the suspicious mark on the side of his neck and said flatly,

"Was busy. Didn't check the phone."

He swept his eyes over the apartment, clearly irritated.

"Don't tell me you've been busy tearing the place apart. You just got out of bed, ever think about resting?"

He pointed at the few boxes of brand-new things on the floor I hadn't gotten around to throwing out yet.

"This stuff all junk now?"

I bent down to lift the box, and he took it from my hands.

"Enough, I'll go toss it. And quit buying useless crap from now on. Money burning a hole in your pocket?"

"Hurry up and change. I'm taking you out to eat."

I was leaving. Some things had to be said straight.

From the balcony, I watched him drop those couple's things into the trash without a shred of reluctance.

Just like the five years between us. Not worth a thing.

We went to a restaurant together, one of the quiet places the Family kept as a front, and he ordered several of the dishes we always got. But he also ordered the one thing I hate most, the bitter melon with scrambled eggs.

My appetite vanished in an instant, and I refused to keep swallowing my own hurt.

“Excuse me, could you take this dish away? I'll still pay for it.”

But Lorenzo slid the plate over in front of himself.

“So I didn't sit with you while you were laid up. When did you get so dramatic? If you'd watched where you were going, you wouldn't have ended up there in the first place.”

I'd seen what he looked like when he cared about me. So the fact that he didn't love me was just as obvious now.

Once, when I'd run a high fever, this was the man who'd carried me on his back in the dead of night, running through empty streets until he was nearly in tears. Yet when he was the one who'd put me in that hospital bed, he was nowhere to be found.

The man who knew I hated bitter melon, who'd never once set anything bitter in front of me, had suddenly gone back to the way he was five years ago when we first met, ordering it like a stranger across the table.

I tugged my lips into a faint smile and said evenly,

“I hate eating bitter melon. The smell makes me sick.”

“Then just don't eat it. Problem solved, isn't it?”

His impatience was plain. My smile didn't waver.

“Let's brea—……”

Before I could finish, a woman appeared beside the table.

“Lorenzo, after all these years, you still remember I love bitter melon!”

I lifted my eyes calmly and looked at her, her makeup flawless, staring down at me with open contempt.

She nudged Lorenzo over without a word, squeezing in to sit right beside him, directly across from me.

“Let me introduce myself. I'm Lorenzo's woman, Bianca Russo.”

I didn't respond.

So she made a point of pressing against Lorenzo's arm.

“Lorenzo, why don't you introduce her? She's……”

Lorenzo's expression wasn't pleasant. Around us the low murmur of the club's regulars carried on, ice settling in glasses, men talking business that wasn't ours to hear. But at our table the air had gone tight.

Clearly Bianca's sudden arrival had caught him off guard.

The way his eyes darted away, the way his thumb found the heavy signet ring on his right hand and began to turn it, struck me as almost funny.

“She's an associate in my crew. The place was full, so we just shared a table.”

Lorenzo's head snapped toward me, shock flashing through his eyes for a split second before he let out a long breath of relief.

“Ah, right. This is one of mine, Adriana Bellandi.”

At that, Bianca smiled, sweet and lovely. The corner of her mouth lifted a fraction too fast before she remembered to look gracious.

“Miss Bellandi must be exceptionally useful to him. This is the first time I've ever seen Lorenzo sit at a table with a woman other than me.”

With that, she set her phone down beside her, casually nudging it forward.

The provocation in it was unmistakable.

I caught a glimpse of the photo on her screen. Just as I'd thought, it was the two of them, a matched pair.

Even the clothes they wore today fell in the same palette, like something chosen together, the kind of thing tribute money buys.

Now, sitting close under the soft lamps of the club, they made a strikingly well-matched pair, the handsome man and the beautiful woman.

I set down my fork and rose to leave.

Bianca grabbed my hand, her long nails digging viciously into my flesh where Lorenzo couldn't see.

“Miss Bellandi, you're leaving the second I arrive? Did I say something wrong? I'll apologize. Isn't that enough?”

Faced with a snake like her, I had no patience for these games. I yanked my hand free.

I was just checking the welts she'd dug into my wrist when, out of nowhere, her hand came down in a slap across a little boy playing near the tables.

The boy yelped in pain and burst into loud sobs.

Bianca's eyes instantly reddened, and she rushed to apologize to him.

Lorenzo hurried to press a fold of cash into the parents' hands along with his own apology, the way these things are smoothed over.

Then, without warning, the little boy pointed straight at me and said,

“It was her! She swung this lady's hand at me and hit me! I want her to apologize!”

Bianca immediately put on the picture of wounded innocence.

“Miss Bellandi, I don't know how I offended you, but if you have a problem with me, take it out on me. Don't drag an innocent child into it.”

In an instant, the diners around us were pointing and whispering, the way whispers move through the Family, faster than truth.

Lorenzo shot me a furious glare and said coldly,

“What are you standing there for? Hurry up and apologize to him! Have you no shame?”

With the room behind him now, the boy darted forward and sank his teeth into my hand, jaw locked tight, refusing to let go.

The more Bianca cooed at him, the harder he bit.

I couldn't very well wage war on a child in front of half the Family, so I murmured an apology to the boy.

But Lorenzo still wasn't satisfied. Blind to the blood the bite had drawn on my hand, he caught my wrist as I tried to rise from the table.

"Adriana, apologize to Bianca."

Bianca pleaded with him, the picture of reluctance, her free hand pressed to her chest.

"Lorenzo, let it go. I'm fine, aren't I? The little one probably got struck and it frightened him, that's all."

He looked at the angry red mark on the back of Bianca's hand, and something in his face twisted with pity.

Then he turned and pressed my hand straight down into the bowl of broth that had just been set before me.

The soup wasn't scalding, but the salted stock, easily over a hundred and forty degrees, seeped into the bite wound, and the burning sting was enough to leave my whole body trembling. Across the club, a glass was set down too softly. No one spoke.

"Adriana, how can your heart be this vicious? Let this be a lesson to you."

"Is this really who you think I am?"

Even though I already knew the answer in my heart, I still humiliated myself by asking it.

The whole farce had the others at the sit-down murmuring among themselves.

"Wait. Which one's actually his woman?"

"Are you blind? Obviously the one he's shielding is the real one. You can't even read matching colors that plain?"

When their eyes landed on me, they were full of pity.

"That's enough, son. Keep this up and you'll cook the girl's hand clean off."

My face was ghostly pale, but I didn't rage. I looked at Lorenzo and laughed instead, and under my gaze, for once, he seemed thrown. His thumb found the heavy signet ring on his right hand and turned it, slow.

In the end he finally deigned to release my hand, then swept out of the club with Bianca on his arm.

Back at his place, he had a tube of burn salve sent up by one of his runners.

"Adriana, don't be so sensitive. Don't go looking for ways to cross Bianca. We'll be moving in the same circles from now on, and I want the two of you to get along."

Did he think one tube of salve would settle the account, so he could keep both his standing and his obsession and call it peace?

I worked the salve into the wound and said nothing. He stayed out all night again.

The next morning at the club, the associates all looked at me strangely.

When I took my place at the desk in the back office, Carla, the one I was close to, leaned in. She glanced over her shoulder once, then again, before she spoke under her breath.

"Adriana, they're all saying you tried to throw yourself at Lorenzo and his woman caught you in the act. The whole crew's passing it around like it came down from the Don himself..."

I took the phone she pressed into my hand.

That was when I understood someone else had been at that table last night too. Overnight they'd strung together a group thread, picking apart my supposed bid to climb into the capo's bed.

Before I could say a word in my own defense, Lorenzo appeared before the whole room with Bianca at his side.

"I want you all to meet someone. This is Bianca Russo. She'll be running the floor from now on, over you."

So this was what Lorenzo had meant by moving in the same circles. He'd placed Bianca above me, made her my lieutenant.

In an instant, every eye in the room turned to me.

Because ever since the last lieutenant was cut loose, I'd been the one holding the crew's books together.

Everyone had already taken it as settled that the placement was mine, locked in.

In front of them all, Lorenzo brought Bianca into the crew's chat himself.

The two of them posted a line each, one after the other.

You'd have to be blind not to see their photos were a matched set, a couple flaunting it for the Family to read.

All morning, the whole floor fed on the whispers.

I was leaving anyway, so I didn't care that the placement that should have been mine had been handed off.

After sending word to the old man who kept the crew's records that I was done, exile or not, I stole a rare moment of quiet to brew myself a cup of honey citron tea in the back room.

I'd barely had two sips when Bianca came in too.

She poured herself a coffee and settled beside me, every inch the victor. The corner of her mouth lifted a fraction too fast before she remembered to soften it.

"Adriana, I know you were Lorenzo's kept woman for five years, but I'm his real one. Now that I'm back, you, the mistress, should have the good sense to leave. As long as you keep your mouth shut like before, the way omertà means you should, I won't come after you again."