When I was finally out, my legs nearly gave way beneath me. Luca caught me instinctively, steadying me with one arm as he looked me over, his brows drawn tight with worry.
"Can you walk?" he asked. "I'll take you to the hospital."
He looked more panicked than I felt.
I didn't answer right away. Instead, I leaned slightly against him, using his arm for support, grounding myself. Rain ran down both of us. Somewhere behind the wreck, a siren started up. Luca's jacket smelled like clean wool and nothing else, no gunpowder, no cologne chosen to intimidate.
"Luca," I said quietly after a moment, my voice hoarse, "you're a top lawyer, right?"
He met my gaze, clearly confused by the question, but nodded anyway.
I managed a faint, fragile smile. "Then… could I trouble you to draw up a dissolution agreement for me?"
At the hospital, the one on Mulberry Street that operated under Falcone influence, where the nurses knew not to ask questions and the intake forms never told the full truth, the diagnosis came quickly.
A fractured shoulder, crushed from the impact.
Multiple other injuries. Bruises, cuts, internal strain. They kept me under observation in case of a concussion, monitoring me through the night.
Two days passed.
Dante didn't call once.
Not a message. Not a question. Nothing.
In the end, I signed my own discharge papers, the pen steady in my hand despite everything. No one came to pick me up.
No one needed to.
When I stepped back into the house, the guarded estate that had never once felt like mine, the silence felt heavier than before, pressing in from all sides. The soldier at the gate had nodded when I walked through. He was the only person in the Falcone compound who had acknowledged my return.
It wasn't until I had just set my things down that my phone rang.
Dante.
For a second, I simply stared at the screen.
Then I answered.
"Adriana, come pick me up."
No greeting. No explanation.
Just an order.
And before I could respond, the line went dead.
To everyone else, I was Adriana Falcone, the blood-bound bride of the heir, the woman who sat at the right hand of power and smiled when the Family required it. In reality, I felt more like his on-call, unpaid maid, someone he summoned when it was convenient and dismissed just as easily when it wasn't.