On our wedding day, what did he do? He left the reception. Left me standing in the hall of the Valente estate in my white dress while the guests whispered behind their hands, because Silvana had called, upset after a fight with Enzo. On our anniversary, he walked out of the restaurant because she was "panicking" during a thunderstorm, and she needed him, and apparently the Marchetti soldiers who guarded her home weren't enough. On my birthday, she let him know the Ricci family's last remaining business had turned a profit, and he went to celebrate with her instead of sitting across from his own wife.
Every holiday, he tried to keep things balanced by getting gifts for me and for his former love. As if fairness in gift-giving could paper over the fact that his heart had never left the old neighborhood.
I'd brought this up to him more times than I could count, but he always said it wouldn't happen again. Yet here we were, and every time it did, he'd call me petty. He'd say I was being difficult. He'd say the Family needed peace and I was the one disturbing it.
Honestly, the best moment we ever had was when he proposed.
That night was something else. He'd taken me up to the ridge above the city, the old lookout point where the Valente men used to keep watch during the wars of the seventies. The stars felt so close I could almost reach them. The city sprawled below us, all those territories and borders reduced to a carpet of distant light. Under that sky, he slipped a ring on my finger, looking more serious than I'd ever seen him. His vows were heartfelt. His voice didn't waver. He went all out for that moment, and I believed every word.
That was the cruelest part. He'd meant it. He just hadn't meant it enough.
When Simone noticed I hadn't replied to his messages, he called. His voice was controlled, the way it always was when he needed something from me. "Darling, I've booked a private room for everyone to apologize to you. Please don't make a scene."
I asked casually, "Is Silvana coming?"
"Of course," he said.
I pressed my thumb against the inside of my wedding ring and turned it slowly. One full rotation. "Fine then. I'll come with you tomorrow."
If they wanted to apologize, it had better not be just to me.
The next day, when Simone pulled up in the black sedan, Silvana Ricci was in the passenger seat.