"Mr. Falcone, thank you so much. I don't know what I would've done without you today." Her voice trembled slightly, laced with tears, fragile in a way that invited comfort.
I froze just outside. My thumb found the silver rosary bracelet at my wrist and held it there.
Through the narrow gap, I saw Dante step closer to her, his movements unhurried, natural. He pulled her into his arms as if it were the most instinctive thing in the world, as if he had done it a thousand times before.
"I'm here. Don't be afraid," he murmured, his voice low and gentle.
The softness in his tone struck harder than anything else.
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.