The Woman Who Died With My Name

Start Reading

My sworn Family sister and I lost the men we loved on the same night, but unlike me, she couldn't let the wound close quietly. She wanted a romantic ending written in ash, the two of us dying together like some fever-dream she'd nursed for years.

Ignoring my protests, she set fire to my house.

When she saw me burning alive, skin blistering and flesh charred, she panicked and ran.

I survived with severe burns and lay in a safe-house infirmary for three long months.

The day I was finally cut loose, I discovered she was marrying my wealthy ex, the Don who once wanted me at his side.

When I confronted her, she brushed it off with a sweet smile. "Don't overthink it. I married him to punish the scum and take your revenge for you."

But her actions told another story.

She sold off every piece of the wedding jewelry and told her husband I'd taken it to buy trinkets for some kept man.

She bled his laundered accounts dry, swearing it was to clear my gambling debts to the loan sharks.

When she got pregnant and took her husband's own driver to bed, she nearly bled out on the floor. Then she told the whole Family I'd gone to a hotel with a stable of pretty boys, and that she'd lost the child trying to drag me out of the filth.

In the end, her husband packaged me up like a debt to be settled and sold me off to the men who run the Golden Triangle.

There, they cut the kidney out of me and worked me over until I died screaming.

But when I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very night she took the driver to her bed and lost the child.

Bianca always used my name as the cover whenever she went to meet her lover.

She told her husband, Salvatore, that I was the one calling her out into the dark. Sometimes I'd been beaten half to death by a made man's wife for playing mistress and needed comforting. Sometimes I owed the sharks and had come crawling. Once she even swore I was being treated for a dirty disease and couldn't be left alone.

If Salvatore hadn't stormed into my house in my past life, spitting venom, condemning me for every sin she'd invented and hung around my neck, I never would have known how "colorful" my life had become inside her lies.

And now his number was lighting up my phone again, the thing buzzing against the table like something alive.

The moment I picked up, his fury detonated in my ear.

"Adriana! It's the middle of the night. Why are you keeping Bianca with you again?"

"I've tolerated you long enough. After we ended things, you wanted to burn your own life down, fine. But do you have to keep bleeding Bianca dry? She's your sworn sister, not your mother."

"She's married now. She's carrying my child. Don't you have any shame left, dragging her out every single night? Do you even understand how pathetic you've become?"

"Is this some kind of vendetta because I let you go? Are you trying to tear my house apart? Bianca is pure, she's loyal to this Family. If you dare use her again, don't blame me for what I do next. Send her back to me. Now."

His voice was so loud and so venomous my ears rang.

The truth was I hadn't spoken a single word to Bianca since the night she set me on fire.

But Salvatore never believed that.

His calls came almost every day.

At first, hearing him rage down the line, I actually let myself believe Bianca was punishing him for me, settling my accounts the way she'd promised.

It wasn't until he kicked in my door, beat me black and blue, stuffed me into a sack, and sold me to the men in the Golden Triangle that I understood I had never been anything but the name they pinned their sins to.

Remembering the flames she lit, the lies she spread, and the merciless way he settled his false debt against me, hatred burned in my chest.

Salvatore, this time you'll see with your own eyes exactly what your "pure, loyal wife" really is.

I went very still. Unhurried, I reached up and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear, then curled my lips into a cold smile and answered him. "Bianca's busy right now. She's unclogging the sewer. She won't be back anytime soon."

Then my face went hard. Without waiting for his answer, I ended the call and switched the phone off.

But only moments later, fists were pounding my door hard enough to rattle it in the frame.

The lock had barely turned before a force slammed the door wide, throwing me backward.

Before I could get my feet under me, two of his enforcers had me pinned to the floor.

And Salvatore came through the doorway, footsteps heavy and furious, tearing through my home in search of Bianca.

My small two-bedroom safe house had been torn apart by his enforcers, every drawer emptied, every cushion split, the way men search when their Don has stopped caring about mess.

Yet he still found nothing.

"Didn't you say Bianca was unclogging a sewer? Where is she?"

His face flushed dark as he crossed the room to me, his voice filling the wrecked space like a threat with no leash on it.

Seeing the Don of the Ferrante Family reduced to this, a wicked satisfaction curled in my chest.

Revenge tasted sweet.

I raised my brows, speaking slowly, almost lazily. "I only said she was unclogging a sewer. I never said it was in my house. Maybe she's unclogging one over at your driver's place. Why don't you have Enzo checked?"

Salvatore's eyes went cold. He fisted a hand in my hair and yanked hard, the way a man handles someone he no longer counts among the living.

"Drop the sarcasm," he growled, his voice dropping low, the register every man in his crew had learned to fear. "I'll ask you one last time. Where are you hiding Bianca?"

Bianca's movements had always been kept from me. I was nothing but her scapegoat. How could I possibly know?

Through gritted teeth, I answered, "She's a grown woman with hands and feet of her own. Why would I know where she goes? I'm not her mother!"

Not getting the answer he wanted, Salvatore's eyes turned vicious. He released my hair only to strike me hard across the face, the blow leaving my head ringing. Rage flared through me. Yet beneath it, an even greater anticipation stirred.

You're angry already? You've seen nothing yet, Salvatore. The worst is still waiting for you, I muttered internally.

He loomed over me, striking my face again and again with the flat of his palm, and sneered, "You think keeping your mouth shut means I can't deal with you?"

He reached into my pocket, pulled out my phone, and powered it on.

Holding it up to my face, he unlocked it with the scan, then scrolled straight into my contacts.

When he spotted my emergency contact, a cruel smile spread across his lips.

He dialed.

"Hello? What's wrong?"

On the other end, my husband, Marco, answered with his usual gentle voice.

I opened my mouth, desperate to speak, but one of the enforcers clamped a rough hand over it, smothering the words in my throat.

"You're Adriana's husband, right?"

Salvatore's voice was cold, dripping with disdain, the voice of a man used to speaking down to lesser Families.

"And who the hell are you?"

Hearing an unfamiliar man on his wife's line, Marco's tone sharpened, his calm instantly replaced by unease.

Salvatore held my eyes, mocking me as he replied, "I'm Adriana's ex. But don't worry. I'm married now. I've got no interest in her anymore."

There was a short silence, then Marco demanded, "Then why are you calling me from her phone?"

"No real reason. I just thought you should hear the truth about your lovely wife."

Salvatore began, every word a dagger meant to bury me alive.

"Do you know how she got those burn scars? She tried to set herself on fire when I threw her over, wanted to die with me. If my wife hadn't gone in after her, she'd already be ashes."

"When that failed, she threw herself at man after man, desperate for company."

"She's lived off my wife for years. Sold the jewelry off her own wedding to buy gifts for her boytoys, gambled the rest away, ran my accounts dry, made my wife cover her debts."

"She even got caught playing mistress and took a beating from the man's real wife."

"Oh, and she's been at the doctor lately, getting treated for a dirty disease. If I were you, I'd go get tested."

"Tell me, doesn't it shame you to be married to a filthy woman like her? Doesn't it make you feel like less of a man? If I were in your shoes, I'd already be dead."

Each word was venom, each sentence a blade, hacking at my dignity until nothing remained.

On the other end of the line, Marco fell into a long, chilling silence.

My heart twisted.

Since the day our two Families bound us together, our marriage had always been good...

Marco had always been a man of his word, gentle with me in a world that was gentle with no one.

He never once flinched at the burn scars the fire had left on my body. Instead, he told me I was an angel who had walked out of the flames, and that for as long as he drew breath, he would stand between me and every storm the Families could send.

With him, no matter how bitter the quarrel, he never went cold on me, never let his temper off its leash. He would coax me back, patient, again and again.

But this time, after Salvatore poured his poison into that phone, Marco said nothing. Not a word.

When Salvatore ended the call, triumph settled over his face like a man collecting on a debt.

"Well? Still not going to tell me where Bianca is?"

The enforcer finally lifted his hand from my mouth.

I stared Salvatore down, fury burning in my chest. "You've broken into my home, put your hands on me, spread lies to a man's face. Every one of those things breaks the code, Salvatore. Even in your world."

I wanted nothing more than to tear this fool apart.

My defiance only fed his rage. "The code?" He sneered. "Then let me show you what breaking it really looks like."

He barked an order at his men. "Take this place apart. All of it."

They moved at once, no hesitation, the way soldiers move when a Don has spoken.

In minutes my neat little apartment became a graveyard of splintered wood and shattered glass. Nothing was left standing.

Grinding my teeth, I spat, "So brazen, so lawless. You're not afraid the reckoning finds you?"

He laughed, cold and full of scorn. "The reckoning is for leeches like you. You've bled Bianca dry for years. Don't you know how much you've skimmed off her? Everything in this place was bought with her tribute. I'm smashing what's mine. Where's the crime in that?"

His words carried the weight of a man passing sentence, as if he sat as judge and not as the criminal he was.

I checked the time. Less than thirty minutes until Bianca's fabricated lost heir.

The real sit-down was about to begin.

I forced the rage down, tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear with one unhurried motion, and let a faint smile settle on my mouth. "Why don't you wait a little longer? Your dear wife will be reaching out to you very soon."

My calm only made him more frantic. His eyes burned.

"Still stubborn? Fine. Today I ruin your name in front of everyone."

"Bring her out."

The men dragged me to the gate of the complex.

The noise pulled a crowd fast, the way blood pulls sharks. Dozens of eyes turned on me, whispers swelling into a storm.

Salvatore seized it, broadcasting my so-called sins loud enough for the whole street to hear.

And they swallowed every word.

"Disgusting. Her age, and still leeching off her pregnant best friend? That's as good as murder."

"Right. That poor woman's too kind. Me, I'd have thrown her out years ago."

"Classic false blood-sister. All warmth to your face, all knives behind your back. My wife had one like her, drove her into debt and darkness. She's still not right in the head."

"She's a vampire, that one. Family first, then friends, then whatever husband's fool enough to have her. Everyone she touches is cursed."

"And filthy with it. A married woman still chasing pretty men, playing the mistress. Rotten luck sharing a block with a tramp like that."

Spit and curses rained down, painting me as something vile and beyond saving.

Salvatore looked down at me, that smirk full of provocation.

"Well? Still want to keep that hard mouth of yours?"

He thought he had me cornered. That I would crack under the weight of the shame.

Instead I laughed, cold, and lifted my chin.

"A great Don of New York, and this is the best you've got?"

"A few neighbors cursing me? Let them spit until their throats run dry. All I do is move to another block, and it's finished."

"If you truly want me ruined, Salvatore, you should've called in the ones who put a spectacle before the assembled Families. Let them stream it wide. That way, maybe, just maybe, you could make my name a curse across the whole country."

Salvatore's face went dark as old blood. He set his jaw and bit out each word. "Fine. You want it big? I'll make it big for you."

Without another word, he drew his phone and made the call.

My heart surged with anticipation.

Yes. Stir it up. The bigger, the better. Let every Family in New York witness the rot inside your perfect, untouchable bloodline.

A man with the Ferrante reach did not have to wait long. Within minutes the associates came, the leeches who trafficked in gossip for the Families, all of them raising their phones, hungry-faced, spreading the word to every corner of the five boroughs.

"Listen close, everyone. We've got something ripe here tonight. See this woman? Don't let the face fool you. She's rotten straight through."

"Years back she tried to drag her own sworn sister down into death with her after a man was through with her. That sister risked her life to pull her back from the edge. And how does she repay blood-loyalty? With envy. Envy that her sister married better, lived cleaner. Nothing but trouble since."

"She's fed off that sister for years. Every time her pockets went empty she came crawling. Heavy with child, her sister still ran her errands, cleaned up her filth, dragged herself out into the dark to fetch her when she'd drunk herself blind."

"And in return? Nothing. She burns through tribute like water, takes her sister's kindness as owed, even pawned her sister's wedding gold to buy trinkets for the men she keeps. Ran her sister's credit dry to cover the gambling debts she racked up."

"Her private life is a plague of its own. A married woman, yet she's forever spreading her legs, playing the mistress, knowing full well the wives she wrongs. Beaten in the street for it more times than anyone can count."

"Word is she caught something filthy for her trouble. Slipped off to a doctor in secret, dragged her sister along to cover the shame. Who can say how many men she poisoned before that?"

"Mark her face, all of you. If you've got the spine, strike her where you find her. If you don't, keep your distance. She's a disease that walks."

They stacked lie on lie, conjuring sins out of empty air, swelling every word past all reason.

Soon every channel where the Families and their associates traded whispers was boiling with curses.

"Dio, her sister and her husband must be saints to carry trash like this."

"That's no woman. That's a tumor with legs."

"Right? Letting her breathe is letting the plague spread."

The dishonoring fermented at lightning speed. Within minutes my face was passed hand to hand across every screen in the territory, my name at the top of every foul thread.

Leech.

Snake in her own blood.

Whore.

Ugly labels piled onto my name, one after another, until they became my new identity.

As the associates fanned the flames, the crowd's blood came up.

One by one, they began hurling eggs and rotted vegetables at me.

Some who had been eating at the curb smashed their bottles at my feet, the glass singing against the pavement in the sudden hush before the next wave of shouting.

Like a lamb before slaughter, I stood in the middle of the filth, drowning in insults, reeking of garbage.

And then, through the chaos, a familiar figure came out of the crowd.

It was Marco.

At the sight of his face, my lonely heart finally found a refuge.

To me, Marco had always been my strongest support.

No matter what grievances I faced beyond our door, he would patiently comfort me, help me, shield me.

He was not only my alliance-bound husband. He was my safe harbor. My home.

In that moment, every defense I had left fell away.

I wanted nothing more than to run into his arms, to collapse into the warmth I trusted most.

So I did.

But the moment I reached him, he shoved me away.

The force caught me off guard. I stumbled back, lost my footing, and crashed heavily to the ground.

Shards of broken bottle dug deep into my palms and thighs, ground into me from where the assembled Families and their associates had hurled their filth.

The sharp pain shot straight to my brain. Yet compared to the agony in my heart, it was nothing.

'Even Marco... doesn't believe me anymore?'

"Adriana," he said, his face dark with fury, his eyes filled with disappointment, "I never thought you were this kind of woman."

"All these years bound to you, I treated you like a treasure. Whatever you wanted, I gave. I never raised my voice, never let you suffer even the smallest grievance."

"I learned to dress your wounds, to ease your aches myself, just to care for you better. I kept you warm, clothed, tended to every need, terrified that you might be even a little unwell."

"And you? What did you do?"

"You went behind me, bleeding your own blood-sister dry, gambling away tribute, dragging your name through the gutter before every Family in this city!"

"The body I worked so hard to mend, you ruined it with your filthy, shameful acts!"

"Adriana, you're not just degrading yourself. You're spitting on the oath that bound us!"

The man who had always been so gentle, for the first time, was completely unhinged. His wedding band caught the light as his hand shook, twisted once around his finger before it went still.

His voice was raw, each word like a blade, cutting me deeper than any wound on my body.

Seeing him like this, my chest tightened painfully.

Holding back tears, I forced myself up and tried to explain, "Marco, I"

But before I could finish, his palm cracked harshly across my face.

"Shut up! Don't you dare say my name. You're not worthy of it!"

With that, he tore the ring from his finger and flung it at me.

"We break the oath. It's finished."

The cold finality in his voice pierced my heart deeper than the slap.

The man I had once thought was my shelter had just shattered my last piece of faith.

I froze, feeling empty, like my soul had been ripped away.

Salvatore seized the moment. The crowd of made men and associates seemed to lean in with him, a ring of predators smelling blood. "Adriana," he sneered, "now do you understand what it feels like to be dishonored before every Family in New York?"

"A greedy, scheming, dirty woman like you. Did you really think you deserved anyone's loyalty? You didn't even deserve Bianca's kindness."

"Thank God I cast you off. Staying bound to a disgusting leech like you would have been the greatest shame of my life."

"The only worthwhile thing you ever did was bring Bianca into my life. From now on, you can choke on the contempt of every soul who knows your name. I'll see to it that Bianca cuts all ties with you. Without her, let's see how long you last."

His words hit like stones, and the assembled crowd erupted in agreement.

The barrage of insults multiplied, voices layered on voices, hired mouths and onlookers and soldiers alike, hundreds of them united in cursing my name across the neutral ground that had become my execution square.

The crushing weight of being condemned by all of them. It was suffocating.

Even though I had braced myself, I still couldn't hold back. I broke down.

And then Salvatore's phone rang.

The caller was Bianca.

He answered instantly, only to be met with her sobbing voice. "It's me... I... I lost the baby..."

Salvatore's eyes reddened in an instant. His thumb, which had been circling the ring on his right hand, stopped cold. "What happened?"

Bianca stammered between tears, her voice softening and cracking on cue. "It was Adriana... She insisted on going off to some hotel with a pack of men. I tried to stop her, but she shoved me down... she's the reason I lost the child."

Her words made the crowd draw a sharp breath as one.

As for me, standing at the very heart of the storm, I finally let out a long, shaky breath.

It's starting. The end has finally come.