The Blood Debt He Could Never Repay

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Ten years bound to the Falcone Family, and Lorenzo Falcone had taken nearly every woman I called friend, every wife who kissed my cheek at the Sunday table.

I pretended not to see it. I kept to my routine instead, carrying my eight-month belly to the Family physician for my checkups like a woman who still believed she had a place. Until the day I was on my way to one of those appointments, and his newest darling ran me down in the street.

I bled and couldn't stop, and I begged him to take me to Dr. Bruno.

Lorenzo looked at me with a face full of disgust.

"Serafina Costa, when did you learn to fake an accident so well?" His voice dripped with contempt, low and unhurried, the voice of a man who never had to raise it. "If you think a performance will make me care, you're wrong. Even if you died in front of me, I wouldn't spare you a glance."

Then he took his darling by the hand and drove off, leaving me on the pavement to bleed out alone.

By the time a stranger carried me into the Family's back-room clinic, the child in my womb had already suffocated and died.

My mother, unable to bear the shock, went in the same hour. A heart that simply stopped.

When I came back to myself, there was nothing left in me to feel.

The old Don sat at my bedside, Don Falcone himself, his face carved deep with sorrow.

"Let me go," I said, flat and quiet. "Whatever debt I owed the Falcone Family, I've paid it with my life."

My phone buzzed and buzzed against the sheets. I looked down to a screen flooded with photographs. Lorenzo and his mistress, Bianca Renna, tangled together, skin to skin.

While I fought to breathe, they had been celebrating in the penthouse of one of the Family's own hotels, their bodies marked with the evidence of it.

In one of the pictures Bianca lay against his chest, her smile sharp with provocation, her fingers resting at the diamonds on her throat as if to remind herself what she was worth.

The old man knew nothing of how far his grandson's cruelty ran. He still wanted to make one last play. He set a folder of papers before me on the blanket. Tribute rights. A cut of Falcone territory, sacred to the bloodline, the kind of thing a Don did not give a civilian daughter without meaning it.

"Serafina, the boy is not rotten at the core. You've loved him all these years. Can't you give him one more chance?" He pleaded, an old man of the code begging in a room that smelled of antiseptic and cold garlic from a supper no one had touched. "As long as I draw breath, no one takes your place at that table."

I said nothing. I only played the video Bianca had just sent me.

The sound of two bodies filled the small room, and even the soldier standing guard at the door went very still.

Bianca's voice came first, laced with amusement. "Lorenzo, don't you feel anything, leaving her out there in the road like that?"

Lorenzo, his lips against her neck, let out a low laugh. "Why would I? You're the only one I love. She could give me a son and she still wouldn't touch what you are."

The naked betrayal drained the old man's face to ash. His body trembled, the veins standing up along the backs of his hands, and one of those hands closed around the heavy signet ring and began to turn it, slow, once, twice.

Then the ring went still.

He let out a long, heavy breath, and I knew the verdict was already made.

"The Family has wronged you," he said. "I'll see the union dissolved myself. Seven days, and you walk free."

The words were near unthinkable under the code, and he said them anyway. His voice gentled. "As for your mother and the child. Their arrangements."

A nurse came through the door, cradling a small, lifeless bundle against her.

Even fate would not let me suffer inside this marriage a single day longer.

My baby had never taken one breath.

I turned my head away and fought to steady my own.

"Bury the child with the Falcones. My mother's ashes, I'll carry with me."

The old Don nodded, and the movement seemed to cost him everything. "I was wrong to keep you bound to this Family. Go. Go find a life beyond all of this. You deserve a wider world than the one we built on blood."

Then he bent, gathering the child that was already gone into his arms, and left the room like a man carrying the weight of every sin the Falcone name had ever earned.

The moment the door clicked shut, the tears I had been holding back finally fell.

Years of bitterness and regret came crashing down at once.

My union with Lorenzo had been arranged by his grandfather. The old Don needed someone to leash his unruly heir, to keep the boy from burning the whole territory down. I needed someone to settle the life-debt hanging over my dying mother.

It had been a fair trade.

I walked away from my old life and became a Falcone bride.

Over time, I came to know the wounds he never spoke of at the Sunday table. How he lost his parents while he was still small enough to be forgotten in the shuffle of soldiers and made men. How he still woke in the dead of night, crying out for a mother who wasn't coming back.

In those moments, our two broken souls seemed to resonate with one another.

I want to heal his heart.

I want to build a happy family with him, something the code and the blood money could never touch.

So I gave myself to the role of being the perfect wife.

I drilled myself in the kitchen for hours, chasing the taste of his mother's cooking, the one warm thing that had ever reached him inside that cold compound.

I traveled from place to place, trying to rebuild the little wooden cabin from his childhood memories. I learned every art of the bedroom to satisfy him, hoping it would be enough to make him stay.

I thought we would have a future together.

But on the anniversary of our union, he walked into a hotel with my closest friend on his arm, unhurried, unashamed, daring the whole room to say a word.

Like a madwoman, I ran after him and demanded he explain himself.

He scoffed and threw the arrangement between his grandfather and me in my face, the terms of the debt that had bought my life.

"Serafina, what do you imagine you are? Because I entertained you for a while, you think you're truly a Falcone?"

"You're nothing but a stray my grandfather paid for. What right does a bought thing have to question me about who warms my bed? Push me, and I'll stop paying for your mother's care this very second."

I felt like I'd been struck by lightning. I couldn't force out a single word.

From that night on, Lorenzo grew even more reckless.

When he tired of the nightclub darlings who preened for his attention, he moved on to my friends.

He kept testing my limits, again and again, the way a man tests how much a rope will bear before it snaps.

On one side, my mother needed her care, and the Family held the strings of it.

On the other, my marriage had rotted through to the bone. I almost collapsed under it.

The two forces pulled me in opposite directions, tearing me apart.

One day, lost in my own thoughts, I slipped and fell down the stairs.

That was when I found out I was carrying his child.

His grandfather pleaded with me, the old Don nearly desperate, his hand turning that heavy signet ring around and around.

"Serafina, please, keep the child. Perhaps it could save this union. If Lorenzo still hasn't changed after the baby comes, I swear on my name I won't force you to stay."

With too many things weighing on my heart, I agreed.

I tried. I truly did. I hadn't let myself try so hard in a long time.

But in the end, I lost everything. My mother, my baby, my marriage, my love.

I wiped away my tears and gazed out of the window at the gray sky over Falcone territory, the city where every block below belonged to someone who answered to the Family.

Maybe the only relief was that both Lorenzo and I were finally free.

While I was lost in thought, my phone rang.

It was him.

"Serafina, did you go running to the old man again? You ruined my night with Bianca! I'm warning you. Pull something like this again and I'll cut off every dollar the Family lets you touch."

In the past, I would have begged, apologized and done everything to get back into his good graces.

But now, I just said with an indifferent face.

"Do whatever you want."

He was caught off guard by my indifference. But soon, he sneered.

"I heard you gave birth. Having a child really gives you confidence, huh? But don't forget. I'm the heir to the Falcone throne. As long as you carry this Family's name, I can make your life hell."

I closed my eyes.

I had seen what he was capable of.

The first time I caught him in bed with another woman, I naively went to the old Don for justice, believing the code meant something under that roof.

But all I got in return was his twisted revenge.

He used my mother against me, the life-debt that bound me to this house, forcing me to kneel on the freezing balcony, slapping myself over and over.

That night, I listened to him and his lover making love, their voices echoing through the compound, while I shivered until I passed out.

By the time morning came, my face was swollen, my body frostbitten and the Family's private physician was called to carry me off the record.

That was the night the last of my love for him died in the snow.

After that, no matter how cruel he was, I pretended not to see.

I endured every humiliation and every insult that Falcone dealt.

I forced myself to stay in the role of the Underboss's wife.

But now, my mother was gone.

My child, too.

This union, already a corpse, needed to be buried once and for all.

I hung up the phone without another word.

Then I stood up and quietly twisted the plain band on my finger before contacting a man I trusted at the funeral home to arrange the cremation.

When I returned to the hospital room, I saw Lorenzo standing in the doorway, one of his soldiers a silent shadow at the far end of the corridor.

He drew his eyebrows together as he looked at me, then sneered.

"Why don't you keep acting, pretending to be pitiful anymore?"

He crossed his arms and scanned me with an icy gaze. "Running around so soon after giving birth? Looks like you're in great health. I suppose you won't need any time to rest and recover."

He stepped closer, his voice dripping with malice. "I've decided to move Bianca into the compound. She's young, delicate and doesn't know how to keep a house. Go on and process your discharge papers. Come home and be our maid."

As he leaned in, his lips curled into a cruel smile.

"Your pain is the best stimulant for me in bed."

He stared at me dead on, expecting to see my pained and saddened look.

But I didn't. I met his gaze with an expression as blank as an empty canvas, drained of any emotion.

His amusement faded when he realized there was nothing left for him to destroy. Irritated, he turned to a nurse hovering near the wall. "Where's the baby? Boy or girl? Bring it to me."

The nurse hesitated, her face pale with anxiety.

I helplessly said, "The Don carried away the baby."

Lorenzo looked like he wanted to say more, but his phone rang. The moment he picked up, his face twisted with fury.

Without warning, he slapped me across the face.

"Serafina! What did you do to Bianca?! If anything happens to her, I swear you will regret it!"

Already weak from childbirth, I stumbled back, crashing into the railing of the private room the Family kept off the record. The nurse rushed forward, steadying me.

"Signor Falcone, your wife just gave birth! If you keep this up, you will kill her!"

But Lorenzo didn't care. He acted as if he hadn't heard. With concern for Bianca and without sparing me another glance, he stormed out of the room, his mind solely on her.

The nurse looked at me with a heartbroken face. My pale face, however, didn't have any extra expression. My face was pale, my heart empty. As if all the love and hatred had been consumed in ten years of suffering.

After the check-up, the physician instructed me to rest. It was then that I finally realized the reason why Lorenzo had lost his temper.

The baby had died and the old Don, grief-stricken, retaliated by using every hand he owned to shut Bianca out of every front club and social circle the Family touched. Desperate, she mistakenly thought that I was the one settling the score. She had run to Lorenzo, crying and exaggerating the situation and added more fuel to the fire to complain to him. That was why he had struck me.

But it didn't end there.

As tribute to Bianca, Lorenzo stripped me of my cut of the territory earnings and signed those rights over to her.

To further appease her, he even bought her the naming of twenty stars in the sky and titled each one with Bianca Renna.

During an interview at one of the Family's nightclubs, Bianca flaunted her new diamond ring, smiling sweetly. Her smile snapped into place a half-beat too fast. 'I don't consider myself a mistress. If a woman can't keep her husband's heart, she has no one to blame but herself.'

She ran a finger over her ring, her voice dripping with mockery. 'Besides, the current Signora Falcone married for the Family's money. But me? I only love Lorenzo with all my heart.'

The whole social scene erupted into chaos. Her followers showered her with praise, while others condemned her shamelessness. Some even tagged my account, flooding me with insults, demanding I step aside for her.

I stared at my phone, but instead of anger, I felt irony.

After so many years, Lorenzo's tricks for coaxing girls haven't changed at all.

Thinking back then, Lorenzo had done the same thing for me.

After learning that I had grown up with nothing and never celebrated a single birthday, he showered me with twenty gifts on my twentieth. From a golden locket for my first year to a house of my own for my twentieth.

He said he wanted to compensate me for the suffering I had endured in the past twenty years.

I still remember that day, he took my hand under the starry sky.

"Serafina, I lost my parents when I was young. But from now on, I will treat your mother as my own. I will start the happiest family with you."

I melted in the depth of his eyes.

Naively, I thought that I had finally found someone to share a lifetime with.

But then, love had an expiration date. And once the novelty wore off, he had simply moved on to someone else.

One night, during one of our so-called dates, he left me stranded on a hillside outside the compound's territory just so he could carry flowers to his new mistress. That night, I walked for miles down the rugged trails alone. My feet were torn and bleeding and my calves were left with lifelong scars that would be hard to erase, a permanent reminder of the price I paid for loving him.

Looking back, I should have known then.

A selfish and sentimental man like him would never settle for just one woman. Our blood-bound union had always been nothing more than his excuse to justify his infidelity.

With that thought settled cold in my chest, I left a comment under Bianca's latest video, the one her followers were already flooding with praise:

Serafina Costa: [I wish you a hundred years of happiness and an early birth]

Not long after the message posted, the video vanished.

Shortly after, my phone rang. Lorenzo. I let it ring out. Then, with the same cold indifference he had shown me for ten years under the Falcone roof, I blocked his number.

I remembered then. Today was the day they returned my mother's ashes to me. I told the Family's private physician what I needed and signed myself out ahead of the schedule he'd set. Dr. Bruno didn't like the color of me, that much was plain, and he took it upon himself to come along.

When they placed my mother's urn in my hands, I did not fall apart the way I had braced for. Instead something deep inside me finally snapped. The last chain binding me to this wretched life, the debt that had bought and sold me, gone.

I drew a breath and murmured a quiet goodbye to Dr. Bruno before heading back to the Falcone compound to pack my things.

The moment I crossed into the living room I saw two people. Lorenzo and Bianca, tangled together on the sofa.

At the sight of me, Bianca hurried the zipper of her dress up her spine. But no amount of covering could hide the red marks on her skin, the evidence of what they'd been doing. Her hand went to the diamond at her throat, touching it as if to remind herself what she was worth here.

I felt nothing. No anger. No heartbreak. I simply turned and walked to the bedroom as though I'd seen nothing at all, as though the two of them were no more than ghosts drifting through a house that had never been mine.

By the time I finished packing, Bianca was gone. Lorenzo remained, drinking alone. The bottle beside him was already half spent, and he poured again without once glancing at the glass.

As I came out with my suitcase, he finally looked up. The low light of the room cut shadows across his face, and I could read nothing there.

"Serafina, where were you today?" he asked.

"None of your business."

I had no wish to say more, but Lorenzo set the wine glass down and it slipped from his fingers.

He crossed the room to me in three long strides.

"Don't play so pure and untouchable," he sneered. "You think I don't know? You were out whoring around, weren't you?"

I went still. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Serafina, are you so starved for company?" His voice dropped low, quiet in the way that men in this Family go quiet before something breaks. "You think I've been neglecting you, so you ran into someone else's arms. That it? Fine. For your loneliness, I'll be the one to fulfill you."

And with that he tore at my clothes and dragged my hand toward the bed.

Panic surged through me. I fought him, thrashing, and got out, "Lorenzo, are you insane?! I just gave birth!"

But he wasn't listening. Like a wild animal, he bit down on my shoulder, his breath hot and ragged against my skin.

Rage and disgust flooded through me. With everything I had left, I shoved him back and struck him across the face.

The room went still for a fraction of a second. Even the silence seemed to be holding its breath.

Then his eyes darkened.

The enraged Lorenzo would not be the one to give ground. Without hesitation he seized the glass bottle from the table and hurled it at me.

Bang! !!

Pain exploded across my forehead, and warm blood trickled down my face.

Lorenzo froze for a split second, then moved toward me on instinct, as if to catch what he'd already broken.

"Why don't you know how to dodge," he muttered under his breath.

I stumbled back a few steps, trying to find my footing, trying to shape words. But my body gave out first. The world blurred, then faded into black.

I don't know how long it took, but the sound of Lorenzo and the Don arguing woke me up.

Opening my eyes, I found myself in one of the Family's private rooms again, the kind kept off the record, where the physician came quietly and left the same way.

Seeing me awake, Lorenzo seemed relieved.

He looked at the old Don with a face full of unhappiness.

"This is the wife you chose for me? She can't even sit through her confinement properly before running off to some man."

The old man trembled with rage, one weathered hand tightening on the head of his cane. "A man? Do you even know what Serafina went to do yesterday"

I cut in before he could continue. "Don Falcone."

I cut off the Don before he could say another word.

"It's all in the past."

He understood what I meant and didn't say anything more, though his expression was full of disappointment as he looked at his grandson. In the old code, a man was measured by what he protected. He was looking at Lorenzo and finding nothing.

Lorenzo, however, remained indifferent. He shrugged. "She's awake now, so there's nothing left for me to do here. Bianca is still waiting. I'm leaving."

The Don's cane swung down hard against the floor. "You bastard!"

"I don't care where you go today, but tomorrow, you and Serafina come to the compound"

Before the words were finished, Lorenzo's figure had already disappeared through the doorway. No soldier moved to stop him. No one ever did.

The Don let out a heavy sigh, his back curling further under a weight no throne could ease. He handed me the dissolution papers, already signed. In this world such a thing was near unthinkable, a breach of everything the bloodline stood on, and he had signed it anyway.

"Serafina, failing to raise him properly is my fault," he said, his voice laced with regret. "But that child is also your own flesh and blood. I hope you can send him off properly."

I looked at the old man with his full head of white hair, at the founder of a Family that made stronger men lower their eyes, and I couldn't bring myself to refuse in the end.

The next morning, dressed in black, I arrived at the Falcone compound.

This child was one I had risked my life to bring into the world. It's a pity that I didn't even have time to hold him for a while and then I was already separated forever.

I wiped away the tear slipping down my cheek. Perhaps this was for the best. If I had something to hold onto, it would make leaving all the more difficult.

I had tried my all best in this marriage. Leaving now, I felt only exhaustion, no regrets.

Even as my child was laid to the ground, Lorenzo never showed up.

Instead, I saw his name moving through the Family's social circles, the nightclub crowd passing it hand to hand. Photos of him and Bianca trying on wedding attire.

Moments later, a smug message arrived from Bianca herself.

Bianca Renna: [So what if you had his child? In the end, Lorenzo Falcone still chose me.]

Bianca Renna: [Oh, and by the way, did you think Falcone was the one watching over you while you were out? Not at all. He was with me the whole time. In fact, we were in the room right next to yours, trying out some new positions.]

The video she sent painted a stark contrast of my deathly pale face against her rosy, satisfied glow.

I didn't respond. Instead, I quietly forwarded all the messages and videos to the Don.

Then, I slid off my wedding ring and set it down, and holding my mother's ashes, whispered, "Mom, let's go home."

Night had fallen by the time Lorenzo returned to the Falcone compound with a body full of liquor.

The moment he pushed open the door, he was met with a room full of funeral wreaths. He jolted in shock, the drink draining out of him all at once.

"Who died? Could it be Serafina's mother?" His face went pale as panic set in. "Why didn't anyone tell me sooner? Where's Serafina? She must be heartbroken. I should go to her."

The old Don had finally had enough. He flung the dissolution papers at Lorenzo's face.

"Serafina already left, taking her mother's ashes with her."

"Today is your son's seventh-day memorial!"