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His Fake Marriage Cost Him Everything
NovelShort
Hoàn thành
Right before our blood-alliance anniversary, my husband, who had always put the Family's business above home, gave me seven days off for the first time ever. He didn't just arrange my round-trip passa...
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第1章
Right before our blood-alliance anniversary, my husband, who had always put the Family's business above home, gave me seven days off for the first time ever.
He didn't just arrange my round-trip passage to Scandinavia himself; he laid out the whole itinerary, right down to a place I'd once mentioned loving, the aurora cabins under the northern lights, far past the reach of any Falcone soldier.
Everyone said he'd finally come around, that the Don had finally learned to care for his wife.
Even I let myself believe that all those years of giving had finally paid off.
Until the day before we left, when I happened to pass the study.
The door wasn't fully shut, and my son's small voice drifted out.
"Daddy, if you and Aunt Gianna get married, then what happens to Mommy?"
My feet froze where I stood.
A second later, my husband let out a low chuckle.
"It's only a sham alliance."
"Be a good boy, Matteo. You can't ever tell Mommy about this. Give Daddy a little time and I'll take care of everything, and then I'll buy you that race car model you like best."
My son agreed at once, delighted.
And I stood outside the door, the blood going cold in my veins, inch by inch.
So the seven-day passage to Scandinavia wasn't thoughtfulness. It wasn't a surprise.
It was to move me out of the territory, so he could go and make good on another woman's long-overdue union, free and clear.
I don't know how I got away from that door.
I only remember standing down in the courtyard in the cold wind for a long time.
Cold enough that I didn't even notice the tears running down my face.
All these years, for this Family, for my husband and my child, I gave up the work I loved most. I gave up the faraway places I'd once dreamed of.
But only now did I understand.
The one who'd been given up, all along, was me.
If he wanted to make up for what Gianna Russo had missed.
Then I should go after the life that belonged to me.
So on the day of departure, I boarded the flight to Scandinavia, just as planned.
Only this time, I had no intention of coming back.
……
I stood against the cold wind for a long while, until my cheeks went numb, before I slowly steadied myself.
I'd just turned to head upstairs when I ran into Lorenzo Falcone at the foot of the staircase.
He was wearing a wine-red suit today, tie in the same shade, the whole look unusually showy for a man who handled his business in shadows.
I stared for a moment.
Because I remembered it clearly. He used to hate red more than anything.
"Don't you always hate red?"
His face stiffened slightly. Then he straightened his tie, smiled, and explained, the laugh coming a half-beat too late.
"I used to. Now I think it's not bad."
"Besides, it's the color everyone's wearing this year. And I've got to go with a friend to try on the suits for his wedding, so I can't show up looking too drab. A little festive is good."
In the space of a few seconds, he'd lined up one reason after another.
But all at once I thought of Gianna Russo.
Red was her favorite.
Ever since she came back into our territory, Lorenzo's closet had quietly filled with red jackets, until even his socks and his cufflinks had turned red.
Once, I'd told myself it was just coincidence.
Now I understood.
Every change had been there to see all along, if I'd only looked.
I pushed down the feelings churning inside me and spoke calmly.
"A fitting? I'm free, actually. Let me drive you over."
"No need!"
It came out of Lorenzo almost before he could stop it, the refusal sharp and immediate.
Realizing he'd overreacted, he added with a smile,
"What's a woman doing tagging along with a bunch of us men?"
"Don't worry, I'll bring something back for you and Matteo."
With that, he leaned down and pressed a light kiss to my forehead.
The gesture was practiced and gentle.
Before, it would have made me feel happy without question.
Now it only felt like a joke at my expense.
Before I could say anything more, he'd already turned and gone, his back almost giving away how eager he was to leave.
I stayed where I was, and a sharp pain stabbed through my chest.
For one moment, I wanted to call out and stop him.
I wanted to ask him.
Was he really going to help a friend try on a wedding suit, or to finish the union that belonged to him and Gianna Russo, ten years too late.
But in the end, I said nothing.
I only lowered my eyes slowly and let that pain spread, bit by bit.
To the outside world, Lorenzo and I had always been the couple every Family envied, the kind blessed by heaven.
He'd defied the old Don to take me as his wife, a woman without a name in any bloodline.
I stood by him as we built everything from nothing, working day and night through the Falcone Syndicate's darkest stretches, pulling the operation back from the edge of ruin more times than I could count.
The world called me a workaholic.
Ten years through every storm, side by side.
We had a lovely son, and together we pushed the Falcone name back to the head of the table.
Everyone thought we'd walk through this whole life just as happily.
Even I had believed it without a shred of doubt.
Until today, when I finally saw the truth.
In Lorenzo's heart, there had always been a place kept for Gianna Russo.
When I got back inside, Matteo was sitting in the living room.
The moment he saw me come in, he ran over and threw his arms around my legs.
"Mommy."
He tilted his little face up, his voice uneasy.
"You won't leave me and Daddy, will you?"
His eyes were red, like he was fighting hard to hold something back, and his fingers found the cuff of my sleeve and held it between them.
My heart twisted into a knot.
I crouched down and gently smoothed his hair.
"Matteo."
"If one day Mommy and Daddy split up, who would you want to stay with?"
The moment the words left me, the little one froze.
His eyes reddened fast, tears welling up in them.
I regretted it.
I shouldn't have handed a grown-up's problem to an eight-year-old.
So I reached out and pulled him into my arms, patting his back softly.
"I'm sorry. Mommy shouldn't have asked you that."
"You must be hungry. Let me go make you something to eat."
Matteo didn't say a word. He only held me tighter, his small fingers still locked around my sleeve.
In the kitchen, I made dinner the way I always did.
We could easily afford the finest cook and a houseful of staff, but Lorenzo and Matteo both liked my cooking best.
The two of them, their tastes, their favorites, the things they wouldn't touch. I knew it all better than anyone.
Scrambled eggs with tomato, braised meatballs, and pancakes fresh off the pan.
All of Matteo's favorites.
As I set the food on the table, Matteo suddenly dropped his head, tears falling, drop by drop, into his bowl.
"Mommy……"
I quickly pulled out a tissue to wipe his eyes.
"Why are you crying?"
Matteo lifted his head, sniffling.
That small, young face was full of hurt and fear.
"The thing about Aunt Gianna and Daddy getting married……"
"You already know, don't you?"
My hand paused for just a moment.
So he'd known all along.
Matteo cried harder.
"Daddy said it's a sham alliance."
"He said he's just doing Aunt Gianna a favor."
"Mommy, please don't be angry with Daddy, okay?"
"Daddy loves you, he really loves you……"
I was quiet for a long time.
In the end, I only pulled him into my arms.
I knew.
An eight-year-old couldn't possibly understand grown-up feelings.
In his heart, Mommy and Daddy were the two people in the world who loved each other most.
He only wanted, simply and purely, for this Family not to fall apart.
But some cracks, once they appear, can never be unseen again.
第2章
Unfortunately, the world I had married into was never that simple.
After dinner, out of old habit, I scrolled through my phone for a while.
Then one post stopped me cold.
It came from the account of Lorenzo's so-called "best friend."
In the photo, two wedding outfits hung side by side before a fitting mirror.
In one frame, a man stood with his fingers laced tightly through the woman's beside him.
His face wasn't in the shot, but my eyes locked on him anyway.
There was a small red mole on the side of his neck.
Lorenzo had one in exactly the same place.
And the ring mark on the woman's left finger stung my eyes until they ached.
It was the pale band a ring leaves behind after being worn for a long time.
But what I knew best was the watch on the man's wrist.
Because that wasn't Lorenzo's watch at all.
It was the birthday gift Gianna had given him.
The caption was only one short line:
【The moon I missed always comes back, to light me up one more time.】
My heart dropped.
Because I had seen that line before.
More than once, even.
I walked quickly into the study and pulled out the chair where Lorenzo sat to handle the Family's quiet business.
Sure enough, beneath the computer lay a black notebook.
I opened to the first page.
That familiar handwriting met my eyes.
Word for word.
The hand holding the notebook began to shake.
So there was no best friend getting married at all.
That account, from start to finish, had been Lorenzo's own secret profile.
The so-called wedding fitting.
The so-called helping a friend plan the day.
All of it a lie he had carefully spun to fool me.
And that seven-day trip across the water to Scandinavia was nothing more than a way to move me out of the territory.
To make it easy for him and Gianna to finally seal the blood-alliance they had put off for ten years.
I slowly closed my eyes.
Something sat lodged in my chest, blocking the breath.
After a while, I picked up my phone and messaged my oldest friend, all the way over in the old world.
【Is the made stake still open for me?】
The reply came almost at once.
【Of course.】
I drew a deep breath and kept typing.
【I'll take it.】
【And get me a consigliere. I need a severance from the Family bond drawn up.】
Once it sent, a strange weight lifted off me.
Months ago, my friend had asked me to come in on a new operation abroad.
Thirty percent of the take, no tribute of my own required to buy in.
The other two partners had agreed, every one of them.
What they wanted was my mind and the network I had built over the years.
But back then, I couldn't bear to walk away from my family.
Couldn't bear to walk away from my husband and my child.
So I had turned them down, again and again.
Only now did I see it.
The one person I truly couldn't bear to lose was myself.
If that was how things stood.
Then it was time I lived for myself, for once.
It was nearly dawn.
The sound of the door finally came from outside.
Lorenzo stumbled in.
Reeking of liquor.
Two buttons undone at his collar, his shirt a wrinkled mess.
The worst of it was the faint smudge of lipstick at the edge of his collar.
So plain he hadn't even bothered to hide it.
And the gifts he'd promised to bring me and Matteo?
Not a single one.
When he saw me sitting in the front room, he froze for a moment, then straightened his tie, laughed a half-beat too late, and came over.
"Babe, still up?"
"Were you waiting for me?"
"You wicked woman, you knew I'd been drinking and stayed up just to torment me."
He said it so easily, so warmly.
As if nothing had happened.
But in the old days.
The first thing he'd do walking through that door was always to hold me.
Now even the empty gesture came across as careless.
With that, he went straight into the bathroom.
Not long after, I suddenly heard a stifled sobbing.
It was coming from Matteo's room.
I hurried in and pushed open the door.
"What's wrong?"
"Did you have a bad dream?"
Matteo shook his head, his eyes red.
Then he handed me his phone.
On the screen was a post Gianna's daughter, Sofia Greco, had just put up.
In the photo.
Sofia sat at a pink piano, the newest tablet cradled in her arms, beaming.
The caption read:
【Thank you to the best daddy in the whole world for my custom one-of-a-kind piano.】
My breath caught.
The next second, Matteo spoke, his voice small and wounded:
"Mom."
"I've seen that piano."
"And that tablet too."
"They were in the order history on Dad's computer."
One sentence.
It shattered the last of my defenses.
Only in that moment did I finally understand why Matteo was crying.
Lorenzo always said.
Boys had to be raised lean and hard.
Said that was the only way they wouldn't grow up soft and squander everything the bloodline had earned.
So when Matteo wanted a toy, Lorenzo called it a waste of money.
When he wanted a new backpack, Lorenzo said the old one still worked.
Even the phone he carried now had once been mine.
All these years.
Almost every small wish Matteo had, I had quietly granted in secret.
And every time Lorenzo found out, he flew into a rage over how I spoiled the boy.
But now?
The flesh-and-blood son he claimed needed raising lean couldn't get a toy car without being silenced by a promise.
While the other child.
Could effortlessly receive a custom piano worth a fortune and the latest of everything.
So the so-called hard-love, lean-raising.
Had never been a way of raising a son at all.
It was just that he didn't love him enough.
I crouched down and pulled Matteo into my arms.
His small fingers found the cuff of my sleeve and held on, two fingers pressed tight to the fabric.
"It's okay."
"From now on, whatever you want, Mom will buy it for you."
Matteo buried his face against me, his shoulders shaking with sobs.
I patted his back gently until I'd soothed him to sleep.
By the time I came back to the front room.
Lorenzo had finished his shower and come out.
His hair still dripping.
He sat down beside me as if it were nothing.
I pushed down the anger churning in my chest and asked calmly:
"Didn't you promise to bring Matteo a gift?"
Lorenzo visibly froze.
Then gave an awkward little laugh.
"Had too much to drink. Forgot."
"I'll get him something next time."
He reached out to pull me into him as he said it.
His tone as entitled as ever.
"Besides, he's a boy. Boys should be raised lean anyway."
I lifted my head and looked at him.
And suddenly the man I had shared a bed with for ten years felt terrifyingly like a stranger.
第3章
Lorenzo was still saying "a Falcone boy is forged hard, not coddled" as his hand reached up to brush gently along my face.
There had been a time when I loved him down to my bones.
All it took was for him to lean in a little closer, one look, one soft word, and my heart would race out of my control.
But now his touch stirred nothing in me at all.
I looked at him calmly, then spoke.
"Is that so?"
"Because I saw what Sofia posted today."
"Limited-edition tablet, a piano built to order. Whatever she wants, it appears."
"Seems some children in this house aren't forged hard at all."
The smile froze on Lorenzo's face.
The next second, he shot to his feet.
"Adriana, what's that supposed to mean?"
"Why are you always holding other children up against Matteo?"
"It's one gift."
"Do you really have to cut at me like this?"
"Or is it that Matteo never wanted a thing, and you're just the one who can't sit still about it?"
His voice kept climbing.
As if I'd stepped on something tender.
I didn't argue.
I just watched him quietly.
Those eyes I'd once longed for so badly were full of irritation now, and the guilt buried underneath it.
The air thickened, bit by bit, the way it does in a room before someone reaches for what's holstered.
Lorenzo finally registered that he'd overreacted.
He looked away, sank back onto the sofa, and his tone went soft.
"Cara."
"Don't take something this small to heart."
"Isn't Matteo's birthday the day after tomorrow?"
"I give you my word, I'll have a surprise ready for him. A big one."
At that, he reached over and took my hand.
"And you."
"Don't think about anything these next few days. Just get ready for the seven days in the old country. Scandinavia, the whole arrangement."
I nodded.
No argument, no further questions.
I just calmly slipped my hand free.
"I still have business to close. I'll be in the study."
Watching me walk away, Lorenzo visibly let out a breath.
As if he'd managed to smooth me over one more time.
The next morning.
The Falcone sit-down, the inner table where the Family's books were laid open.
It was only halfway through when Gianna spoke up.
"While Signora Marchetti is away, surely the Family can't run without a steady hand on things?"
She turned a pen in her fingers, a faint smile at the corner of her mouth. The pendant at her throat caught the light when she tilted her head.
"I'd be glad to carry some of her load for her."
The words landed.
The whole room went silent in an instant.
Every man at the table sat frozen.
Their eyes drifted, almost on reflex, to Lorenzo.
Everyone knew.
Adriana was taking seven days. That was all.
Seven days.
Whether the Don stepped in himself or a capo covered the territory in the meantime, either would be perfectly ordinary.
But Gianna, back among them only a short while, was openly asking for the authority.
This wasn't covering a gap.
This was reaching across the table, in plain sight, for power that wasn't hers.
The mood in the room turned delicate at once.
Gianna couldn't have cared less.
She lifted her head, her gaze landing squarely on me.
There was nothing hidden in it. Just a challenge.
"You wouldn't object, would you, Signora?"
"After all, the Family comes first."
Every man at the table held his breath.
Waiting for Lorenzo to take a side.
A moment later.
Lorenzo spoke, slow and even.
"We'll do as Gianna says."
One sentence.
It dropped the room into dead silence.
He turned to me.
His tone was gentle, as though he were doing it for my sake.
"Adriana."
"Take your rest."
"Let Gianna hold things for now."
"She's capable. I trust she can manage it."
The men exchanged glances.
No one had expected Lorenzo to agree.
Least of all to agree so readily.
A flash of triumph crossed Gianna's eyes.
She gave a falsely innocent little smile.
"Signora."
"You don't actually think I'm after your seat, do you?"
"I only want to ease the Don's burden."
No one in the room said a word.
But everyone could smell the gunpowder in the air.
There wasn't a made man under the Falcone name who didn't know.
For ten years, it was Adriana who had carried this Family, step by step, to the territory it held today.
She was decisive, swift, her word final.
Even allied Families and the men who paid tribute trod carefully at the mention of her name.
And now Gianna was challenging that authority in front of all of them.
By no measure did it look like easing a burden.
It looked far more like a declaration of war.
Lorenzo's body went tense without his meaning it to.
Clearly worried I was about to blow up.
But to everyone's surprise.
I smiled.
"Fine."
"I agree."
Two short words.
The whole table sat stunned.
Gianna was stunned.
The men were stunned.
Even Lorenzo was stunned.
He'd probably braced himself for me to turn on him right there, in front of the whole inner circle.
He never imagined I'd agree so readily.
Lorenzo was the first to recover.
A trace of relief even surfaced on his face.
He straightened his tie and laughed, a half-beat too late, the way a man laughs when he's solved a problem he thought had no answer.
I didn't look at anyone again.
I closed my file, stood, and left.
The moment I stepped out of the room.
Hurried footsteps came up behind me.
"Cara!"
Lorenzo had come after me.
He grabbed my wrist.
"Let me explain."
I stopped and turned to look at him.
"Explain what?"
"That this whole sit-down was always about clearing the way for Gianna?"
"Or that from the moment you arranged the seven days abroad, you'd already set all of this in motion?"
Lorenzo's expression shifted.
He clearly hadn't expected me to say it so plainly.
"It's not what you think."
"Cara, listen to me."
He reached out and pulled me against him.
His tone was so sincere it bordered on tender.
"Gianna really is capable."
"I won't see good talent wasted."
"Giving her the chance is for the Family's future too."
"I'm only doing this because I've no other choice."
At the end, he held my shoulders and made an earnest promise.
"When you're back."
"I'll create a seat. An underboss's place, beside mine."
"I'll name you underboss of the whole operation."
"Trust me, all right?"
I suddenly found it almost funny.
The Falcone Family had stood for ten years.
There had never once been such a seat at that table.
Just like the surprise he promised Matteo.
The seven days in the old country he promised me.
The countless futures he had promised.
They always sounded lovely.
And were never delivered.
I was quiet for a long while.
In the end I only let out a soft sigh.
"Lorenzo."
"For ten years, I've kept on understanding you."
"I've kept on making room for how hard things were for you."
Lorenzo's eyes lit up.
He had clearly misread me.
A smile broke out at once.
"I knew my wife was the best."
"In all the Family, no one understands me the way you do."
And with that, he even ruffled my hair, pleased with himself.
Then he turned and strode back toward the room.
As if everything were settled.
And I stood where I was, watching him go.
And found it almost unbearably funny.
He thought I would do what I'd always done. Forgive him, no conditions, no end.
He had no idea.
This time, I really was ready to walk away from the table.
第4章
I was clearing out my office when Gianna pushed the door open and walked in.
She leaned against the frame, a faint smile playing on her lips. "I'm taking the whole crew out tonight to celebrate my new standing in the Family. Care to join us, Ms. Marchetti?"
"No time."
I didn't even look up. I gathered my ledgers and turned to leave.
Just as I passed her, her voice drifted lazily after me. Her fingers rose to the pendant at her throat, and her head tilted into that flawless smile. "Adriana, ten years at his right hand, and what does it come to? Less than a single glance from me the day I walked back into Lorenzo's house."
My steps faltered for a moment, but I didn't turn around.
Because I suddenly understood that for someone who has already decided to walk away from the table, winning or losing no longer means anything.
That afternoon, Gianna sent word straight to the inner circle: Taking over the books today. We'll break bread together to mark it.
The moment it went out, the line lit up with deference.
Lorenzo didn't stop her. He was the first to give his blessing.
Not long after, a private message came through from him: Tesoro, don't read too much into it.
I glanced at it and didn't reply.
Some explanations come too late to mean anything at all.
That evening they were out raising their glasses in the back room of the social club, toasting Gianna's rise. I was home alone, packing, slipping documents, my passport, the papers that mattered into a single case, one by one.
That was when Matteo ran over and grabbed my hand.
"Mom, are you leaving?"
His eyes were red-rimmed, his voice thick with worry. "Can you wait just a little longer? Tomorrow's my birthday. You said you'd give me a surprise. I'm going to wish for Mom and Dad to never split apart, and I'm going to wish for Dad not to bind himself to Aunt Gianna, and he'll definitely say yes to me!"
The words tumbled out faster and faster, until at the end they barely held together.
I crouched down and gathered him into my arms, my throat aching fiercely.
It was a long moment before I said softly, "Okay. Mom will wait a little longer."
That night, Lorenzo didn't come home.
Matteo and I didn't sleep either.
The light in the front room stayed on all night, and Matteo kept his post by the window, watching the empty street below the estate gates.
"Dad's just getting my surprise ready."
"He said he'd never forget my birthday."
"He's going to come back."
I didn't say anything. I just stayed beside him and waited.
From dawn to dark, from the first pale light to the streetlamps flickering on along the drive.
One hour, two hours, three.
Until night fell and there was still no sound of the door opening.
Lorenzo never came back.
In the end, I called him.
When the line connected, music and laughter spilled through, the noise of a celebration deep in the club.
"Tesoro? What's wrong?"
I gripped the phone and spoke slowly. "Today is Matteo's birthday. Where's the surprise you promised him?"
The other end went quiet for two seconds.
Then came Lorenzo's voice, a little flustered, the easy laugh arriving half a beat too late. "Ah. Things have been heavy lately. Didn't I already arrange passage for the two of you to the old country? Take Matteo across the water for a few days, call it his birthday trip. I've got matters to settle here. Hanging up now."
The words barely landed before the line clicked dead.
I stood there in silence for a long while, then walked into the bedroom and took the two passages to the old country out of the nightstand drawer.
So it turned out it wasn't only me.
Even Matteo had become an obstacle to Lorenzo getting what he wanted.
Almost at the same moment, word reached me through the same channel that carried every whisper in the Family.
Gianna had let it be seen.
There she was, beaming, glowing, a diamond on her finger and a transfer of stakes laid out on the table beside it. The caption was a single line:
Happy union. If you love her, you give her everything she wants.
I stared at it for a long time, and suddenly the whole thing struck me as utterly absurd.
Over these ten years, the Falcone Syndicate had grown from a half-broken operation circling its own grave into the power it was today. The arrangements, the channels, the pacts with men who shook no hand they hadn't first measured, the routes, the fronts, nearly every move that mattered had carried my hand in it.
Countless nights working straight through till morning, countless plans reworked until the small hours, that was what built the Falcone name as it stood now.
And in all those years, what I drew was never more than what they paid the one who actually runs the rackets.
Now everything I had built with my own hands, Lorenzo had handed to Gianna without a second thought.
As if my ten years counted for nothing at all.
That was when I heard the muffled crying behind me.
"Mom."
I turned around.
Matteo stood in the doorway clutching his phone, tears streaming down without stopping.
I looked at the screen.
It was something Sofia had just put out.
A dainty little cake sat on a table, and beside it the words: Happy birthday to Daddy's little princess.
The caption read: Thank you, Daddy, for making my birthday cake by hand.
My heart sank hard.
Because today was Matteo's birthday too.
Matteo bit down on his lip, but the tears wouldn't stop falling. His free hand crept to my sleeve, and he held the cuff between two fingers, the way he always did when something cut too deep for him to say.
"Mom, Dad's not coming, is he?"
In that instant, the last shred of my hesitation finally vanished.
I crouched down and held my son tight.
"Matteo, let Mom take you away from here. Okay?"
Matteo nodded hard, his shoulders shaking with sobs.
"Okay."
"Wherever Mom goes, I'll go."
Half an hour later, I packed the last of my things. I turned my wedding band a quarter-turn on my finger, set the signed severance from the Family bond in the most visible spot in the front room, then took Matteo's hand and walked out of the house I'd lived in for ten years without looking back.
As the plane climbed into the clouds, the city lights fell away beneath us.
I looked down at my son in my arms and said softly,
"From today on, Mom's taking you to see a whole new world."
Meanwhile, Lorenzo sealed his blood-alliance with Gianna, spent a few easy days with her beyond the territory, and didn't set foot back in the club until a week had passed.
At the sit-down, he scanned the private dining room, and his brow suddenly furrowed.
"Where's Adriana? Why isn't she here?"
The others exchanged glances. No one said a word. The room had gone very still, the kind of silence where men become careful with their hands.
Lorenzo checked the time and let out a small laugh.
"Don't tell me she's gone wild on her trip across the water?"
With that, he picked up his phone and dialed my number.
When the call connected, his tone was easy, even a little doting.
"Tesoro, what's going on? You're never late to a sit-down. Still not back from the old country?"
And all that answered him was a long silence on the other end of the line.