Chapter 3

Adriana paused, clearly torn.

"Salvatore, can you ever just let it go? Adriana's always been patient, avoiding fights with you. Why can't you let her have some downtime with old friends? Does her whole life have to be blood and duty and answering to you?"

Enzo was visibly agitated, playing me like the villain of the century for the benefit of the men watching from the restaurant steps. His look of disgust was plain as day. He touched the back of his neck, a small flinch he could never quite train out of himself, then took a slow breath.

"Maybe you should just go with him, Adriana," he said, his voice pitched to shake at exactly the right moment. "I'll smooth things over with the others. After all, a husband comes before friends. That's the way of things, isn't it?"

Without another word, he turned and crossed the street toward the restaurant, not looking back, every step a wager he already knew he'd win.

The tactic worked like a charm. Adriana dropped everything and went after him.

As she went, she threw a fierce warning over her shoulder. "Next time you dare curse my parents, we're through!"

No matter how loudly I called after her, she wouldn't stop.

How could a Don and a matriarch of such honor have raised someone so cold, so stubborn?

One phone call would have confirmed the truth. She stubbornly refused to make it.

Torn between her own blood and her first love, her heart had long since tipped toward him, and there was no looking back.

How could she be so certain I was lying?

After all our years bound to the same Family, didn't she trust me at all?

The Doc called again, panic bleeding through the line. "The Don and Renata are fading fast. Why aren't you and Adriana here yet?"

I got to the car and drove hard back to the safe-house clinic, the city's dead territory streaking past the windows.

The Don didn't make it. He was gone by the time I reached the door.

Holding back the tears, I went to see Renata one last time.

The machines were off. She lay there in the dim room, gasping for her last breaths, silently waiting. Somewhere down the corridor a soldier stood watch, and even he had gone still, as if the whole house were holding its breath with her.

Hearing my footsteps, she slowly turned her head. When she understood I had come alone, the faint light in her eyes flickered out.

"Where... where's Adriana...?"

I couldn't bear to look into her eyes. My hands shook as I closed them around hers.

If I'd known I couldn't bring Adriana back, I wouldn't have left. I could have stayed with them a little longer.

I couldn't tell her the Don was already gone. I couldn't tell her that her beloved daughter was across town, drinking and laughing with the enemy's charmer.

"Mamma, Adriana's tied up with a patient. She couldn't get free."

"That's... that's a healer's duty... I don't blame her..."

Adriana had always been the finest of us, from a girl with a scalpel steadier than grown men's to the surgeon who could pull a dying capo back from the other side. She was the pride of the bloodline.

Now I felt nothing but heartache.

I hated that I couldn't bring Adriana back. I hated that she listened only to Enzo Barone.

"Salvatore... you've been a good son... I only wish I could see Adriana one more time..."

Those were Renata's last words.

In her final moments, all she wanted was to see her daughter.

But where was Adriana?

She was reliving old times with her first love.

I fought the tears. They came anyway.

I tried calling Adriana again.

No answer.

Fighting through the grief, I saw to the Don and Renata's final arrangements.

They had lived plainly for people of their standing and wanted no spectacle, only a quiet farewell. I saw them cremated and their ashes laid together, as they would have wanted.

Life is fleeting. In an instant, two lives that had held the whole Family together were gone.

On the way home, I called Adriana several more times.

Still no answer.

She hadn't gone to the infirmary. She was still with Enzo.

Holding the urns, I sat on the sofa in the silent house, haunted by the memory of their warm faces, the Don folding his hands at the head of the Sunday table, Renata pressing that worn handkerchief between her palms. The tears flowed freely again.

Later that afternoon, as I went out to see about the consecrated ground where they would rest, I met Adriana downstairs.

She stepped out of Enzo's car, their goodbye lingering too long, their eyes nearly melting into each other.

When she saw me, her smile vanished, replaced by a frosty expression. "Where are you off to?"

I tried to move past her. She caught my arm, fierce, her thumb going still against the ring on her finger for one instant before her grip tightened.

Noticing the black armband I wore, she asked, puzzled, "Why are you wearing that?"